[cairo] GTKCairo development

[Jon Smirl]

--- Bill Spitzak <spitzak at d2.com> wrote:
> Some people seem to be discounting how important it is for an interface that 
> will dump out a string in a readable, multi-platform reproducable, and easy 
> to re-type form. This is vital for text-entry dialogs, for displaying 
> computer information such as filenames, urls, and other identifiers, for 
> putting foreign languages into computer programs and databases, and as a 

You are missing the point. In Thailand these things need to display in Thai
because a big chunk of the population does not speak English. Dump the strings
to Pango, Pango also does a great job of laying out English.

> useful and debuggable and compact back-end for something like Pango.
> 
> Obviously if I am going to display documents I need Pango. In fact I probably 
> need an entire XML/HTML/PDF interpreter. That does not mean the simpler 
> interface is not going to be used or is unnecessary!

It's not just documents that need to display Thai. Every string on the screen
needs to display in Thai. Input is not without pain too. You have to support
things like the Kanji conversion box for inputting Japanese/Chinese/etc.

When OS's were first developed they only worked in English. After a while that
was fixed to support Eurpoean languages. Next we had some horrible hacks for
making Asian languages work. Finally we got Unicode and now the whole world
works. Let's not repeat the past. Linux is used the world over. Any new text API
needs to fully support Unicode layout. Code pages should die!!!

=====
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl at yahoo.com


	
		
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