Re: [tlug] Big5 Vs. Unicode Vs. Netscape 4.x Vs. deadline

[momoi@example.com (Katsuhiko Momoi)]

Hi,

Let me provide general explanation on your question -- I cannot be precise because that would necessitate going into various Windows platform differences.  But the explanation below should be detailed enough to give you an idea on how you should approach the question you raised.


Jonathan Q wrote:

On Wednesday 07 May 2003 00:42, Katsuhiko Momoi wrote:

  

http://wp.netscape.com/eng/intl/basics.html#setup
    

This is a very useful page, thanks for the link, and thanks to
everyone who replied.

The problem is now pretty much resolved, except for one issue:
When trying to do Chinese input in Netscape 4 (including 
Chinese version 4.51), input to fields in forms all come up as question
marks, although everything else on the page is displayed correctly
in Unicode.  The OS is English Windows XP, with East Asian language
support and input methods for PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong installed.

That happens on both cut-and-paste and direct Chinese input, and
it doesn't seem to matter if the page is in UTF-8 or Big5.  We don't have
a Chinese Windows system to try it out on, so I don't know if that would
help or not.

If the locale is Simplified Chinese (PRC), you should not have any of the problems mentioned above.

Let me explain a bit about the internationalization architecture of Communicator 4.x. It used text widgets provided by the platforms and therefore was limited by the level of internationalization provided by each platform. For East Asian language input, there are 2 dimensions. Limiting our discussion to just Windows:

Level of Platform i18n readiness: (in descending order of readiness)

Win XP
Win 2000
Win NT4
**************************
Win 98/SE
Win 95

  Note: There is a major break in terms of Unicode support between Win 9x and NT generation Windows.

Level of support for Asian language input: (in descending order of richness of support)

East Asian OS matching the locale (e.g. Simplified Chinese Windows for Simplified Chinese input)
East Asian OS NOT matching locale  (e.g. Japanese Windows for Simplified Chinese input)
Latin Script OS (e.g. US Windows for Simplified Chinese input)

Generally speaking, if you are using Win9x and Latin Script OS, text input field (field that can take only 1-line of input) does not support Asian input well except in the Windows matching the locale or other East Asian locales.
For HTML input field, Comm 4.x can support East Asian input even under Latin Script OS running on Window95.

IE5/6 did not suffer from as much problem because they used IE's own text widgets in some cases. Communicator 4.x replied on text widgets supplied by the platform and therefore suffered from more problems. This situation was corrected starting with Netscape 6/Mozilla. They provide their own Unicode text widget for all the input areas thus supporting any language input under any language platform for any platform version of Mozilla/Netscape 6/7.

Taking your Windows XP/US, Communicator 4.x will not support Simplified Chinese input correctly in 1-line input field such as form input fields and Mail subject line. However, it will support input correctly in HTML editing text field. If you set the locale (language **plus** the number/date format conventions in Control Panel) to Simplified Chinese, there will be no problem at all in inputting Simplified Chinese under Comm 4.x and US Windows XP/2000/NT4.

I summarized the Communicator support levels for Asian language input in a document for Global IME support:

http://wp.netscape.com/eng/intl/gimesupport.html

You can see the platform and OS language summary toward the end of this document under a section called "Known Limitations for Communicator 4.7x".

You can apply similar considerations to Linux locales.

- Kat

Of course, it all Just Works in Konqueror and AFAICT everything else.
I'd love to tell them to just use KDE on Debian and all their problems
will go away, but I bet that wouldn't fly :-)

I haven't tried it in Netscape 4 for Linux, but I may download one (if they
are still available, just for comparison's sake).

Thanks again to all,

Jonathan
  

-- 
Katsuhiko Momoi <momoi@example.com>
Senior International Manager, Web Standards/Embedding
Netscape/AOL Technology Evangelism/Developer Support