Re: How to create Unicode input methods for MacOS? (long)

From: Marco Piovanelli (marco.piovanelli@pobox.com)
Date: Mon Apr 17 2000 - 09:19:08 EDT


On Mon, 17 Apr 2000 03:48:37 -0800, Sebastian Hagedorn
(Hagedorn@spinfo.uni-koeln.de) wrote:

>What is sorely missing on the Mac is a comfortable way of entering ancient
>Greek as Unicode. Currently there is only a hex based input method that
>allws you to enter arbitrary Unicode characters. There already is a Unicode
>input method for ancient Greek for Windows... Unfortunately I haven't been
>able to find any documentation regarding this on Apple's developer site. I
>know a little about programming, so if it's not too complex I would like to
>try to create such an input method myself.

I don't think you need to create a full-fledged input method for Greek.
A Unicode keyboard layout should suffice. A Unicode keyboard layout is
basically a 'uchr' resource that tells the system how to map a sequence
of keystrokes to one or more Unicode characters. 'uchr' is a pretty
complicated format explained in the PDF document "Supporting Unicode
Input", available from Apple's site:

  <http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macos8/pdf/SupportingUnicodeInput.pdf>

>It would be perfect if the old, GreekKeys-coded fonts could be used. I
>guess that would mean letting the Text Encoding Converter know that they
>are used for ancient Greek by adding some resources to the font.

If you add a Unicode 'cmap' to your fonts, ATSUI should be able
to use them.

  <http://fonts.apple.com/TTRefMan/RM06/Chap6cmap.html>

>However, that would require a MacOS script for ancient Greek, right?

I don't think that's necessary, if you limit yourself to ATSUI-savvy
applications. Scripts are only needed for traditional, QuickDraw Text-
based applications.

HTH,

                                     -- marco

--
I have forced myself to contradict myself,
in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.



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