🚀 go-pugleaf

Here are the consolidated answers to the original questions from
John Lepingwell (jwrlep@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu):

     I'm looking for a database system (preferably with full text-oriented
     retrieval capabilities including indexing and proximity searching) for
     the Mac, using the Worldscript fonts. I am particularly interested in
     full-text searching of Cyrillic materials.  Does anyone know of such a
     beast?

     On a more general level, how widespread is support for Worldscript? It
     seems to me that the concept (putting language support at the OS level)
     would greatly facilitate customizing to different areas. Yet my sense
     is that the idea and support for it have developed very slowly.

Jeff
INSOFT-L List Manager

*========================================================================*
 Jeff Bowyer                         EMail:
 Computing Center		     jbowyer@cis.vutbr.cz
 Technical University of Brno
 Udolni 19, 602 00 BRNO
 Czech Republic
*========================================================================*


Sender: Doug Smith (sga!dougs@wheaton.wheaton.edu)

I don't know of an existing product, but how about using HyperCard?  I've
heard there was a Russian localized version.  You chould check with Claris
Corp. to find out.

The Mac operating system is available in a large number of languages.
However, sometimes it is hard to find application software that has been
localized for some of them.  Try contacting RUI.DEV@applelink.com for
information about Russian localized software for Macintosh.

Having the language support at the system level in combination with Apple's
modular approach has made non-English computing the easiest I've seen
so far.


Sender: Michael Everson <@earn.cvut.cz:EVERSON@IRLEARN.UCD.IE>

The answer is that Worldscript support is behind the OS architecture,
just as Apple said it would be when they announced System 7.1.
Partly this is because of uncertainties on Apple's part as to
how to market them, partly because of concern on Apple's part
as to how to document and support them.  In the meantime you can
always install the Russian system, then the Arabic on top of that,
then the Hebrew on top of that, then the English on top of
that, throw away all the extra control panels and extensions,
and experiment.....


Sender: Kevin Miller <kmiller@psych.uiuc.edu>

Michael T. Bunney <mikebu@microsoft.com> writes:
>>I'm not very familiar with WorldScript, but I am an experienced Word
>for Windows user and have used Word to produce foreign-language
>documentation (albeit only with Roman-alphabet languages).  I am
>wondering why is it important to you that your word processor support
>WorldScript?  What advantage does this offer?  What can you do with
>WordPerfect that you can't do with Word?

Good questions.  The jump from 1-byte to 2-byte languages is bigger than
you may appreciate.  Worldscript II provides a standard, well-thought out
way of dealing with issues of variations in direction, mixed 1-byte and
2-byte alphabets, and keyboard input of large charactersets in a way that's
standard across applications and quite flexible (that is, there are a
number of ways of entering Chinese on a keyboard, with a variety of user
preferences).  Furthermore, well-behaved applications in Mac terminology
will have cross-language compatibility without work on the authors' part.

Oddly enough, given this message and a previous dialog I had with someone
from Microsoft, Word 5.1 for the Macintosh seems to more-or-less work with
the Chinese OS 7.1.  At least in the configuration I'm using, which
involves using both Chinese and English resources, with Finder menus and
dialogs in English.  There are a few oddities that might limit one's
delight at Word's ability to work with Chinese.  For some reason, using the
pinyin keyboard, the window that displays character choices stays blank
until one clicks in it, which slows up entry completely.  Nonetheless, this
is a very interesting development.

I think the fact that Word at least sort of works with WorldScript II and
Chinese character entry validates the point that I was making, that these
are issues that should be solved at an operating system level instead of
application-by-application.  My understanding is that Microsoft is doing
this in the Windows environment; I'm sorry that it's less willing to take
this approach in the Mac environment where they don't control the operating
system.  As Confucius said, though, c'est la vie.


Sender: Michael Bunney (mikebu@microsoft.com)

[Here's Mike's response to Kevin Miller's preceding message.]

Windows will solve this by adopting Unicode.  Is WorldScript on the