[Fwd: Status of Ethiopian support]

[Bernardo Innocenti]

On 09/12/2007 04:26 AM, Sergey Udaltsov wrote:

>>    Sergey's Compose file for am_ET is already upstream, and it
>>    is required for XIM-baded composition to work in all applications.
> This is the quesion #1 - does OLPC have requirement for Ethiopean to
> work in non-gtk apps? Are there such apps/activities in the standard
> image?

My guess would be yes: we ship non GTK applications too, notably
e-Toys.  But, probably, non-GTK IM support gets lower priority.


>>    AI: Sergey said he'll check if CONSONANT+VOWEL is possible
>>    with XIM.
> I see two options here:
> 1. The current one, when "dead" character is vowel. In that case, it
> only works as "VOWEL+CONSONANT".
> 2. We can make CONSONANT "dead" characters, but in that case entering
> CONSONANT itself would require either two presses of the consonant -
> or simply disabling XIM.
> 
> Which way would you prefer?

My uninformed guess would be that 2 would be best.  But
I'm forwarding your question to Lidet for a reliable
opinion.


>>    GTK contains an Amharic input method which is currently outdated.
>>    I'm in contact with the author, Daniel Yacob, who'll soon port
>>    his latest patch to the current version of GTK.
>>    This probably means we'll have to fork the gtk2 package too.
>>    I'm unable to tell how important these changes would be for users.
> The important question - is that GTK IM using same layout/set of
> compose rules (just with reverted CONSONANT+VOWEL composition) as XIM?
> Are we working off the same standard?

My guess is that the GTK IM has additional usability
refinements.

Daniel Yacob (on Cc) may provide more datails.



>>    Additionally, it seems this IM requires the "us" keyboard.
>>    I couldn't get it to work with the "et" keyboard loaded.
>>    Daniel says it shouldn't happen.
> It is no wonder IMHO, because it is using ASCII characters produced by
> 'us' XKB layout. Since 'et' layout produces unicode characters, the
> "left part" of the composition rules does not work.
> See the
> composition rules here:
> http://svn.gnome.org/viewcvs/gtk%2B/trunk/modules/input/imam-et.c?revision=11895&view=markup

I thought IM's would work with raw keycodes (positional),
not keysyms translated through the current keyboard layout.

Again, Daniel would know better than me.


Lastly, I apologize for my complete lack of insight on
Ethiopian-specific matters and also on i18n issues in
general.  I'm merely trying to coordinate the integration
without a specific technical background.

-- 
   //  Bernardo Innocenti - http://www.codewiz.org/
 \X/ One Laptop Per Child - http://www.laptop.org/