Arabic-L:GEN:OS X Jaguar Arabic Support

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Fri 06 Sep 2002
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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-------------------------Directory-------------------------------------

1) Subject:OS X Jaguar Arabic Support
2) Subject:OS X Jaguar Arabic Support:more info
3) Subject:OS X Jaguar Arabic Support:creating your own keyboard
layouts for Arabic Typing

-------------------------Messages--------------------------------------
1)
Date:  06 Sep 2002
From: dparvaz at unm.edu
Subject:OS X Jaguar Arabic Support

Greetings, all:

I went ahead and installed MacOS X 10.2 ("Jaguar") and they seem to be
getting closer to decent unicode support, including for Arabic. A few
observations:

1. The terminal window uses UTF-8, but the Aqua applications (e.g.
textedit) need UTF-16.
2. To convert Windows Arabic to Unicode, use this command from the
terminal window:
       %iconv -f cp1256 -t utf-8 [filename]
       then pipe it to another file, or whatever.
3. Lynx can be modified to show UTF-8.
4. "less" can be fooled into showing UTF-8 by telling it the charset is
koi8
5. So far, none of the browsers do a decent job of displaying Arabic
6. For Aqua apps, I think a recompile is needed before we can be
certain that the new-and-improved unicode support is implemented.

More updates as events warrant.

Cheers,

Dan.
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2)
Date:  06 Sep 2002
From: Dil Parkinson <dil at byu.edu
Subject:OS X Jaguar Arabic Support:more info

I've corresponded with Dan since receiving the above note.  It turns
out that TextEdit can be set (in preferences) for either UTF-8 or
UTF-16.  Both work relatively well, but UTF-8 puts the periods at the
beginning instead of at the end (like html does if you don't declare
the document to be right to left), whereas UTF-16 apparently does not.
Dil
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3)
Date:  06 Sep 2002
From: Dil Parkinson <dil at byu.edu
Subject:OS X Jaguar Arabic Support:making your own keyboard layout for
Arabic input

One of the nice things about Arabic on a Mac (and in my opinion one of
the annoying things about Arabic on a PC) is that you have always been
able to create your own keyboard layout on the Mac.  I have just found
out how to do this for Jaguar, and thought I would pass it on.  You
simply need a resource (.rsrc) file in the Keyboard Layouts folder in
the main library folder.  You can enter your desired layout in the
format below, paste it into a window in the web site below, and it will
create the resource file and download it to your desktop. Be sure to
give the layout an appropriate name before you create the .rsrc file.
Once the file downloads, you canrename it if you wish (probably with
the same name you gave the layout, but keeping the .rsrc suffix) and
move it to the above mentioned folder.  Then go into international and
choose that keyboard, and it will become one of the choices under the
American Flag for keyboard layouts.  Here is the website:

http://wordherd.com/keyboards/

The layout shows the input key first, followed by a space, and then the
output unicode.  In the following chart, I have listed all the
available 'main' Arabic unicode characters (with a gloss after the ::
so you can tell what letter it is supposed to be.  To make your own,
simply copy the chart below, and replace my input letters with your
own, keeping everything else the same.  You can only list the lower
case characters.  Put S before if you mean the shifted version, O for
the option version, and OS for shift option.  The Arabic codes have no
period or colon (they use the Latin ones) so if you are inputting
either or both of those with themselves, delete those lines from this
list.  They are here only if you want to input them by typing something
other than them (that makes sense doesn't it?)

  a $0627 ::alif
  b $0628 ::baa'
  t $062A ::taa'
  [ $062B ::thaa'
  j $062C ::jiim
  o $062D ::Haa'
  x $062E ::xaa'
  d $062F ::daal
  v $0630 ::dhaal
  r $0631 ::raa'
  z $0632 ::zayn
  s $0633 ::siin
  p $0634 ::shiin
  i $0635 ::Saad
  u $0636 ::Daad
  , $0637 ::Taa'
  . $0638 ::Zaa'
  c $0639 ::cayn
  g $063A ::ghayn
  f $0641 ::faa'
  q $0642 ::qaaf
  k $0643 ::kaaf
  l $0644 ::laam
  m $0645 ::miim
  n $0646 ::nuun
  h $0647 ::haa'
  w $0648 ::waaw
  y $064A ::yaa'
  e $0649 ::alif maqsuura
  ; $0623 ::hamza over alif
S; $0625 ::hamza under alif
Sm $0622 ::madda on alif
Sw $0671 ::wasla on alif
  / $0629 ::taa' marbuuta
  \ $0624 ::hamza on waaw
  ] $0626 ::hamza on yaa'
  ' $0621 ::hamza on line
S, $060C ::comma
S. .     ::period
O; $061B ::semi-colon
OS; $003A    ::colon
S/ $061F ::question mark
S- $0640 ::kashida
Sa $064E ::fatha
Su $064F ::damma
Si $0650 ::kasra
Oa $064B ::fathataan
Ou $064C ::dammataan
Oi $064D ::kasrataan
So $0652 ::sukuun
Sp $0651 ::shadda
  0 $0660 ::Arabic 0
  1 $0661 ::Arabic 1
  2 $0662 ::Arabic 2
  3 $0663 ::Arabic 3
  4 $0664 ::Arabic 4
  5 $0665 ::Arabic 5
  6 $0666 ::Arabic 6
  7 $0667 ::Arabic 7
  8 $0668 ::Arabic 8
  9 $0669 ::Arabic 9
S5 $066A ::percent
OS, $066C ::frontwards comma thousands separator
OS. $066B ::decimal separator
Sd $0670 ::dagger
O8 $066D ::a star

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End of Arabic-L:  06 Sep 2002