🚀 go-pugleaf

Chinese fonts are Unicode, and many of them have names that are Chinese
characters (also Unicode).  Since Windows 9x does not support Unicode, you
cannot use them on a 9x system.  You can, however, use them on an NT system
(3.51 and up), but it takes some work and cannot be done with VB (VB does
Unicode to ANSI conversion behind the scenes and screws it all up).  You
have to use C/C++ and use the WChar type for the two-byte characters.  Also,
if the name of the font on the system is Unicode, you have to find out the
binary values of the characters and do some work to load it up.

If the Chinese text does not change, you can make bitmaps on an NT system
and display them in a picture window in VB rather than a text control.

Richard Brown

Eric Chow wrote in message <36A591F4.C2BA20A5@sftw.umac.mo>...
>Hello,
>
>Is there any method to use Chinese Fonts in English Windows9x ??????

I am surprised that you say that Windoze doesn't actually support Unicode.  Does
this mean that using wchar in C++ will just bring out some gibberish? I tried
using a Unicode font in VB and it was very messed up (with most characters
sensibly converted to squares :)  Anyway, I always thought there must be some
way to use other alphabets in programming Win95.  For that matter, does DOS
support Unicode? how about Linux?

With that said, it is easy to input and output data in a certain font in VB
(just use the properties window), and you can actually manipulate the characters
to a certain extent from the program.
Any help on the subject is welcome.

ChaosX

Richard Brown wrote:

> Chinese fonts are Unicode, and many of them have names that are Chinese
> characters (also Unicode).  Since Windows 9x does not support Unicode, you
> cannot use them on a 9x system.  You can, however, use them on an NT system
> (3.51 and up), but it takes some work and cannot be done with VB (VB does
> Unicode to ANSI conversion behind the scenes and screws it all up).  You
> have to use C/C++ and use the WChar type for the two-byte characters.  Also,
> if the name of the font on the system is Unicode, you have to find out the
> binary values of the characters and do some work to load it up.
>
> If the Chinese text does not change, you can make bitmaps on an NT system
> and display them in a picture window in VB rather than a text control.
>
> Richard Brown
>
> Eric Chow wrote in message <36A591F4.C2BA20A5@sftw.umac.mo>...
> >Hello,
> >
> >Is there any method to use Chinese Fonts in English Windows9x ??????

ChaosX wrote:

>I am surprised that you say that Windoze doesn't actually support Unicode.  Does
>this mean that using wchar in C++ will just bring out some gibberish? I tried
>using a Unicode font in VB and it was very messed up (with most characters
>sensibly converted to squares :)

AFAIK, only Windows NT supports Unicode. Win95 and Win98 do NOT. And VB
is, at best, described as "ready to be upgraded to Unicode". It does not
support it. It only does useless conversions between the Ansi and
"Unicode", simply by converting Ansi bytes to "Unicode" words, i.e. by
adding a zero byte for every character, and vice versa. Actually, it's
lot of crap. Nothing more, nothing less.

See McKinney's rant in "Saying Goodbye to Hardcore Visual Basic" on 
http://www.vb-zone.com/ in appendix B.

Direct URL:

http://www.vb-zone.com/upload/free/features/vbpj/1999/mckinney/mckinney2b.asp#5

> Anyway, I always thought there must be some
>way to use other alphabets in programming Win95.  

Localized OS versions. That's it, I'm afraid, unless you count home-brew
hacks. For that, take a look at HanNet Viewer (HNVIEW). That is a
Big5-to-BMP converter, written in VB3, usingf  their own bitmap fonts.
Maybe these people can help you. I don't know if they still work on it.
(Hi-Tech WorkShop Ltd., Hong Kong).

>For that matter, does DOS
>support Unicode? how about Linux?

DOS? No. Linux, probably. The programs must be written to use it, or
better: compiled using that option. I do know for example that TeX does
support Arabic, Chinese, etc.

   HTH,
   Bart.

ChaosX wrote:

> I am surprised that you say that Windoze doesn't actually support Unicode.

What he said is that Windows 9x doesn't support Unicode.  Or rather it supports
it in a half-assed way.  Namely it converts from Unicode to the local code page
and then using 8-bit character strings as before.  (Conversely in Windows NT,
8-bit character strings are "expanded" to wide character strings using the
current code page - for applications that don't use wide character strings yet).

> Does this mean that using wchar in C++ will just bring out some gibberish? I tried
> using a Unicode font in VB and it was very messed up (with most characters
> sensibly converted to squares :)  Anyway, I always thought there must be some
> way to use other alphabets in programming Win95.  For that matter, does DOS
> support Unicode? how about Linux?

No and No.  Only Windows NT and AT&T Plan 9 support Unicode properly.

> With that said, it is easy to input and output data in a certain font in VB
> (just use the properties window), and you can actually manipulate the characters
> to a certain extent from the program.
> Any help on the subject is welcome.

On Tue, 26 Jan 1999 11:15:12 GMT, bart.lateur@skynet.be (Bart Lateur)
wrote:

: AFAIK, only Windows NT supports Unicode. Win95 and Win98 do NOT. 


There is a minimal Unicode support in Win 95/98, at least MessageBox
and TextOut APIs support Unicode, but not very much else is supported.
For full details, check the knowledge base article Q125671.