How to show other alphabets and layouts in Puppy 2?

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okok · #1 Post by **okok** » Thu 01 Jun 2006, 21:23

How can I add Hebrew support (and support for other alphabets and keyboard layouts) in Puppy 2?

(I asked this question before about a previous version, but the information was insufficient for me, and previous versions also didn't support some of my hardware. Puppy 2 does support my hardware, so now I am very interested in adding this funcitonality.)

Lobster · #2 Post by **Lobster** » Fri 02 Jun 2006, 02:02

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/LanguageSupport
http://www.langbox.com/AraZilla/

okok · #3 Post by **okok** » Fri 02 Jun 2006, 06:01

Thank you.

Unless I missed something, the information there may be helpful, but is partial and leaves much unexplained for relatively unexperienced linux users such as myself.

I'll try to figure out what to do and will report my findings of I have any. But I'd still be thankful for more guidance.

Lobster · #4 Post by **Lobster** » Fri 02 Jun 2006, 06:45

Linux tends to be an involvement

Two people involved and interested in language and menu development are Rarsa with his XDG menus (soon to be released for Puppy 2) and MU

I would try and find out how the Chinese Puppy was done and apply that to Hebrew script.

Do you have or require a suitable Hebrew font?
Are you using a Hebrew Browser? I suggest get that working. Then send Rarsa a PM (private message). Try and document and report what you are doing. Start a HebrewPuppy wiki page:

OK I will do that
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/HebrewPuppy

okok · #5 Post by **okok** » Fri 02 Jun 2006, 06:55

Great. I'll definitely contribute whatever I find.

(And yes, Hebrew requires special fonts. Most browsers and word processors support righ-to-left languages such as Hebrew and Arabic, so I suppose that once the fonts are properly installed, at least viewing Hebrew should work. For typing Hebrew, some way to switch to a Hebrew keyboard layout is necessary.)

Lobster · #6 Post by **Lobster** » Fri 02 Jun 2006, 07:03

http://www.murga.org/%7Epuppy/viewtopic ... 9402#49402

okok · #7 Post by **okok** » Fri 02 Jun 2006, 14:28

It turns out that all that is needed for viewing Hebrew (and probably any other alphabet) is putting the necessray fonts in /root/.fonts . This was simple.

(I simply copied all my font files into that directory, and this also improved the general readability in some applications in Puppy.)

Now the remaining question is how to switch to a Hebrew keyboard layout in order to type Hebrew.

Dougal · #8 Post by **Dougal** » Sat 03 Jun 2006, 11:27

okok wrote:Now the remaining question is how to switch to a Hebrew keyboard layout in order to type Hebrew.

All you need to do is go to /etc/X11/xorg.conf and add a couple of lines.

Search for the post by lior2b that had an exact example (the title was something about XKB)

okok · #9 Post by **okok** » Sat 03 Jun 2006, 12:37

Thank you. I am aware of this. I followed lior2b's instructions carefully, but when I try to switch to the secondary layout, nothing happens. I even tried leaving the the "il" as the only possible layout, but to no avail.

okok · #10 Post by **okok** » Sat 03 Jun 2006, 13:16

It turns out that lior2b' sinstructions were correct after all. Something in my modified copy of Puppy prevented it from working, but when I tried these instructions on an unmodified copy it worked.

Thanks for your help!

okok · #11 Post by **okok** » Sun 04 Jun 2006, 11:51

One minor problem still remains. As you can see in the attached file, the browser titlebar text (and in a few applications that probably use some default fonts) does not show the Hebrew letters.

Can this be solved by changing the default font settings to a font that does include the necessary letters?

If yes, how do I do that? If not, can I replace some font with another in order to solve this?

#12 Post by MU » Sun 04 Jun 2006, 18:07

did you edit /root/.jwmrc to use your unicode-font?

http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?p=52071#52071

Mark

okok · #13 Post by **okok** » Mon 05 Jun 2006, 20:50

MU wrote:did you edit /root/.jwmrc to use your unicode-font?

http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?p=52071#52071

Thank you. Doing this made the correct Hebrew letters show, only their order is reveresed. Any idea if this is a JWM problem or whether there might still be a solution to this?

In the vietnamese example there is no such problem because the language is written from left to right. Hebrew is written from right to left, so it seems as though handling such alphabets was simply not thought about by the creator of the window manager. In KDE the text in Hebrew titlebars is shown correctly.

#14 Post by MU » Mon 05 Jun 2006, 21:30

this certainly is a feature not added yet to JWM.
You might ask Joe via Email, if he could add an option.
http://joewing.net/index.shtml

There is good contact between Puppy-users and Joe, so it is really worth a try

Mark

okok · #15 Post by **okok** » Mon 05 Jun 2006, 21:45

Thanks, I'll ask him.

lior2b · #16 Post by **lior2b** » Wed 07 Jun 2006, 12:12

Actually, this feature IS implemented. From JWM's 1.5 changelog:

# Support for right-to-left text using FriBidi.

But 1.5 has a problem, so in 1.6's changelog you have:

# Fixed FriBidi UTF conversion.

Meaning JWM 1.7 does handle RTL texts, all you have to do is compile JWM with libfribidi... I'm not sure how much space it will add to the executable, I believe it is negligible. Please compile JWM 1.7 with libfribidi and let us know the size, if it really is a negligible increment we might ask Barry to add it by default, as a step forward towards localization ... (actually, he disabled it...)

P.S.
Where are you from

?

okok · #17 Post by **okok** » Wed 07 Jun 2006, 13:29

Thanks for the information. I am quite new to linux and still do not know how to do this compilation, so I doubt I'll be able to report any findings soon. But I agree that if this addition is negligible in size, then it would be very welcome, especially given the fact that in order to add Hebrew (and probably almost any other lanague) support, all that is necessary is to install the necessary fonts and add a few lines to some configurations files.

Actually, I think it would be a good idea to have such lines present in advance and commented out in xorg.conf and .jwmrc (and anywhere else such changes may be necessary) for as many languages and layouts as possible, so that users can just uncomment the relevant lines in order to obtain the language/keyboard support they need.

(as to your last question, judging by your location information, it seems that I'm in the same country as you are

)

lior2b · #18 Post by **lior2b** » Wed 07 Jun 2006, 19:02

I've used Ubuntu to compile JWM with fribidi, it added ~1KB to the file... This is the list of the old compiled options:

icons png shape xft xinerama xpm xrender

And the new ones:

confirm fribidi icons png shape xft xinerama xpm xrender

As you can see, more features and a tiny size increment (Barry, ahm

)... Note you don't have to add anything else to Puppy but the new executable...

Installation instructions:
(*) Download the attached file, open console and extract it with this command:

Code: Select all

tar xzf jwm-1.7_fribidi.tar.gz

(*) Backup the old jwm and replace it with the new one:

Code: Select all

cp /usr/X11R6/bin/jwm /usr/X11R6/bin/jwm_old && mv jwm /usr/X11R6/bin/jwm -f

(*) Restart X (Menu -> Shutdown -> X restart), note this step will exit all you open applications...
(*) Done

2nd P.S.

:
Where in Israel my man? I'm from Rishon

Lefty Mills · #19 Post by **Lefty Mills** » Thu 08 Jun 2006, 04:41

"Hebrew is written from right to left",

This statement is not quite correct.
Hebrew text is written from right to left; numbers are written from left to right.

I have installed Fedora Core 5 on another computer, and it allows me to enter letters and numbers correctly in Hebrew

The problems of the right-to-left languages will have to be solved if Puppy Linux is to be the operating system on the $100 computer.

Lefty

okok · #20 Post by **okok** » Thu 08 Jun 2006, 05:44

Lefty Mills wrote:"Hebrew is written from right to left",

This statement is not quite correct.
Hebrew text is written from right to left; numbers are written from left to right.

When typing numbers in RTL, the numbers, as well as lating characters, appear in the right (LTR) order: after adding the necessary fonts and configuring the language/keyboard layout, everything works just as it should.

I do not know how this works exactly, but conjecturing from the what happens when RTL text is typed, it seems that what happens more or less is that letters in RTL fonts are somehow made in a way that tells that the next character should appear on their left rather than on their right. So when you type a Hebrew letter, the next sign you type will appear on its left, but if you then type a digit and then another digit, the second digit will appear to the right of the first digit, that is, between the Hebrew letter and the first digit.

In short, Puppy (as well as other OS I have seen) DOES handle RTL correctly.

What users of multiple languages may expect, though, and find useful, is a indicator telling them the current state of their keyboard/language. Lior2b's explanation which I used on how to configure switching between layouts included turning the Scroll-lock led on and off; but this won't help users of more than two languages. In other OSs there is a small on-screen applet, similar to the free memory applet in Puppy, that indicates the lanagueg in a two-letter code (he, en, ru, ar etc.). This would be a nice optional addition to Puppy, and it is likely that such an applet is already available somewhere.

Lior2b, thanks again for the information. I'll try what you suggested later. And I definitely support this addition (even if it made a bigger difference than 1kb).

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How to show other alphabets and layouts in Puppy 2?

How to show other alphabets and layouts in Puppy 2?