[Lexicog] RE: migrating toolbox data to unicode

[Eric Jackson]

Sebastian Drude wrote:

> A problem I had when trying to adapt the sort orders, for instance,
> was that the dialog window would not accept the UNICODE characters
> (I used the character map tool which comes with windows XP).  Instead
> of the character, only a question mark appears, although I checked
the
> Unicode-UTF-8-box in the advanced options and use a unicode-font for
> the language in question.  It is indeed a question mark, as Toolbox
> complains that this character has been defined several times when I
> try to close the configuration window.

I have recently had a similar experience in creating a database of
Chinese characters in Toolbox 1.4 (for language learning, not
lexicography, but Toolbox is still the database program I know best),
which I have tried to do in Unicode.  In creating a language encoding
for Chinese Pinyin (the official romanization system of the PRC), I was
unable to enter glyphs with tone marks into the sort windows, even
though the database type and language encoding had been built from
scratch with UTF-8 settings.  (I was also using a combination of the
WinXP character map and copying-and-pasting from MS Word.)  Here are
two solutions I found - one klugey, one not so klugey.

Since Toolbox saves the language encoding information in plain text
files, it is possible to open the file in a text editor that supports
Unicode, and enter the desired glyphs completely outside of Toolbox. 
This worked just fine with Toolbox 1.4.

There is now also a test version of Toolbox (I'm using version 1.4v)
with Unicode support for native Windows keyboards - and more things
that are of interest to those working with Chinese languages, I think. 
Just this morning, I had to edit my Pinyin language encoding, and was
able to paste the glyphs with tone marks directly into the language
encoding dialog box without problems.  You may not want to switch to a
test version of Toolbox, but my understanding is that the next full
version (1.5) is due to be released quite soon.

Happy editing,
Eric Jackson

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