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NeoOffice :: View topic - Missing dead-keys for non-Western Euro languages/keylayouts
Missing dead-keys for non-Western Euro languages/keylayouts
 
   NeoOffice Forum Index -> OpenOffice.org X11 Testing
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sardisson
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 10, 2004 1:19 pm    Post subject: Missing dead-keys for non-Western Euro languages/keylayouts

This post over on OOoDocs http://ooodocs.sourceforge.net/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1447 got me to do some testing of dead-key support.

There seems not to be dead-key support for any dead-keys beyond the standard ones we've had in the Mac OS since time immemorial (a e i o u grave, aigue, circumflex, diaresis; c-cedilla, thing-over-the-n), all of which use option-accent-letter.

In particular, the OOoDocs post points out that Greek requires semicolon-greekvowel. My further testing in languages/characters with which I'm familiar reveals none of the additional dead keys defined in Apple's standard US Extended layout work either (opt-a-vowel/consonant for macron, etc.), nor does backslash-seat for the various hamza-on-seat characters in Apple's standard Arabic-QWERTY layout.... I'm sure there are more missing dead-keys in languages/keylayouts with which I'm not familiar.

This was/is also the case for 1.0.3GM, but since I've mostly used NeoJ, I never picked up on this sooner. Is this something that can be addressed for X11 users?

On a somewhat related note, I'm noticing some really poor "letterspacing" with a number of Apple's standard Arabic fonts at various point sizes. I'm not sure if this is a fondu issue or an OOo one....

Smokey
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OPENSTEP
The One
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Joined: May 25, 2003
Posts: 4752
Location: Santa Barbara, CA

PostPosted: Fri Jun 11, 2004 1:18 am    Post subject:

As to the deadkeys...there may be some strange interaction between X11 and the keyboard that's causing it. The standard Mac dead keys (e.g. French accents) are handled by X11.app, not OOo. It may be very possible that Apple X11 just dosn't composite them as expected...do you know if they perchance work in other X11 applications? I am really unsure if any of the X11 apps (Gimp, Gnumeric, etc.) support them, but if others do then it's something that may be addressable in OOo.

As to the Arabic font spacing issues, it may be a fondu/freetype issue. Apple (and other companies) has special hinting and kerning routines for truetype fonts that are patented and cannot be used on FOSS. This may be one potential source. Another problem is that the native OS X font routines do special character compositing in Arabic for spacing and glyph substitution that isn't performed by OOo.

I would suspect that Arabic would look much better through Neo/J which has access to the native fonts and spacing code through the VM (RTL text notwithstanding in the 1.0.x based software packages). Patrick's also done a great job to make sure a lot of the more standard OS X input methods function properly.

ed
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lga
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 11, 2004 2:16 am    Post subject:

Quote:
The standard Mac dead keys (e.g. French accents) are handled by X11.app, not OOo. It may be very possible that Apple X11 just dosn't composite them as expected...do you know if they perchance work in other X11 applications? I am really unsure if any of the X11 apps (Gimp, Gnumeric, etc.) support them, but if others do then it's something that may be addressable in OOo.


Hello,

I think there is a problem with OOo. As I wrote in a thread on OOdocs, the "regular" French dead keys (circumflex, for instance) works with OOo 1.0.3 under OS 10.3, X11.app, but not with OOo 1.1.1 (I have a file OOo_1.1.1_031115_MacOSX_install_en.tar.gz, I don't remember on which server I got it).

I think it is a OOo problem in that case. The problem with the extra dead keys, specifically using the option key, may well be compounded by a X11.app problem, either on the keyboard layout level or the fact that the option key has special management by X11.app, depending on the preferences.

Lga.
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OPENSTEP
The One
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Joined: May 25, 2003
Posts: 4752
Location: Santa Barbara, CA

PostPosted: Fri Jun 11, 2004 11:26 pm    Post subject:

Crap crap crap crap crap.

I'm putting together a new installer tonight and will be sure to check these keys.

I didn't do the "sync" between 103GM and 1.1.x but let others do that grunt (oops..."leg") work for me and, as a result, a number of patches have been missing. The c-cedille problem specifically was a problem of OOo choosing the improper encoding for text input for the entire application. It's possible this may nothave been moved up into 1.1.

ed
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OPENSTEP
The One
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Posts: 4752
Location: Santa Barbara, CA

PostPosted: Fri Jun 11, 2004 11:41 pm    Post subject:

Well, C-cedille seems to work but none of the compositing characters are active in either the English keyboard layout or the French keyboard layout. Damn.

Oh, out of frustration and !*()!O@$&!@$ anger....

Does anyone happen to have a USB French keyboard they'd like to donate?

Trying to do the mental mapping of a French layout to an English US keyboard through Key Caps isn't working effective after two beers Sad

Regardless, the compositing is broken, and I suspect it is due to input encoding problems. will investigate and keep posted.

ed
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sardisson
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 12, 2004 2:10 am    Post subject:

OPENSTEP wrote:
Well, C-cedille seems to work but none of the compositing characters are active in either the English keyboard layout or the French keyboard layout. Damn.


This is not the case with Kevin's TP4 build, however. These "French accents are broken" posts had puzzled me because I hadn't been seeing any problems. But I just reinstalled your RC2 build and lo and behold, nothing works but the cedilla. Sad
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sardisson
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 12, 2004 3:05 am    Post subject:

OPENSTEP wrote:
The standard Mac dead keys (e.g. French accents) are handled by X11.app, not OOo. It may be very possible that Apple X11 just dosn't composite them as expected...do you know if they perchance work in other X11 applications?


OOo is the only X11 app I have on my Mac, but I downloaded one of the Mac X11 versions of Gimp, put some text in a new image, and did end up with (some) additional dead-keys/composited characters supported. The "full" results of my testing are available here (francophones, please pardon my horrific French!). Given the erratic nature of the results, it's possible Apple hasn't completely supported the dead-keys in X11.app...but there may also be *some* room for OOo to expand its support to meet Apple's, too, given the time (and/or, I imagine, some free beer Very Happy)

[Edit]One more data point that may or may not tie into who's grabbing the key sequences.... When I have an Arabic keylayout selected in TP4, the *control* key sequences (ctrl-s for save, for instance) fail to produce their intended result and instead produce the undelying Arabic character![/Edit]

OPENSTEP wrote:
As to the Arabic font spacing issues, it may be a fondu/freetype issue. Apple (and other companies) has special hinting and kerning routines for truetype fonts that are patented and cannot be used on FOSS. This may be one potential source. Another problem is that the native OS X font routines do special character compositing in Arabic for spacing and glyph substitution that isn't performed by OOo.


Good to know; I was afraid there might be some big "gotchas" like this. I've downloaded a few Windows Arabic TTFs and they exhibit similar problems, so it definately isn't solely a fondu issue (in general, the Windows fonts have fewer spacing issues at smaller point sizes, while the fondu'd Mac fonts are better at larger sizes).

OPENSTEP wrote:
I would suspect that Arabic would look much better through Neo/J which has access to the native fonts and spacing code through the VM (RTL text notwithstanding in the 1.0.x based software packages).


As would I, though it's awfully hard to tell without the RTL support Smile I'm eagerly awaiting the day that Patrick is able to move NeoJ to 1.1, but I know he's indicated it will take a long time.

OPENSTEP wrote:
Patrick's also done a great job to make sure a lot of the more standard OS X input methods function properly.


Indeed; none of these dead-key issues we've discussed in this thread appear in NeoJ. I suggested in the OOoDocs thread that the gentleman try it for his Greek needs.

Thanks for all the elucidation!
Smokey


Last edited by sardisson on Fri Oct 08, 2004 3:15 am; edited 1 time in total
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OPENSTEP
The One
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Joined: May 25, 2003
Posts: 4752
Location: Santa Barbara, CA

PostPosted: Sat Jun 12, 2004 10:17 am    Post subject:

sardisson wrote:
[This is not the case with Kevin's TP4 build, however. These "French accents are broken" posts had puzzled me because I hadn't been seeing any problems. But I just reinstalled your RC2 build and lo and behold, nothing works but the cedilla. Sad


Bizarre. The source code is identical, only the build OS is different. I'll continue investigating...

ed
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OPENSTEP
The One
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 12, 2004 10:24 am    Post subject:

I did find a missing patch in the 1.1.x codebase that changed the encoding of the thread. I'm going to go recompile/reinstall and see if it fixes the problem.

ed
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OPENSTEP
The One
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Posts: 4752
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 12, 2004 12:12 pm    Post subject:

Damn, well the reapplication of that patch didn't fix it. Looks like I won't be able to go out hiking today Sad Damn CD master deadlines.

ed
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OPENSTEP
The One
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Posts: 4752
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 12, 2004 2:17 pm    Post subject:

OK, I found the correct missing patch. The fix2 branch is missing the FIXME patch in i18n_im.cxx which creates the multi-lingual input method...without it the application wasn't doing multilingual text processing required to do the accent compositing. The appropriate fixes will be in the next installer release.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention quickly!!

ed
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OPENSTEP
The One
The One


Joined: May 25, 2003
Posts: 4752
Location: Santa Barbara, CA

PostPosted: Sat Jun 12, 2004 5:32 pm    Post subject:

Well, the good news is that the accent problem is fixed. The bad news is that Jag builds of 1.1.2 crash horribly upon launch, apparently. Yet another problem to debug.

Horrid X11.

ed
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