From the Keyboard to the Screen and In-Between —
Multilingual Issues in the EU's Enlarged IT Environment
Annerose Hümbert &
Wolfgang Keber - DIaLOGIKa
Intended Audience: Software Engineers, Systems Analysts, Testers
Session Level: Beginner, Intermediate
Despite the fact that most of the EU institutions' IT systems are built on Unicode-based Windows platforms, Unicode is not yet spoken everywhere, in particular when going to the periphery of the operating systems: Physical keyboard scancodes are mapped to Unicode values, these Unicode values are in turn mapped to Windows character set values when using legacy applications, or to TrueType font glyphs during screen rendering, etc. Consequently, the main thrust of the presentation is 'all about mapping': Handling and mapping of characters used in our EU IT environment from the keyboard via the applications to output on screen. Exchanging data, e.g. via the Internet or e-mail, also often requires character re-mapping’âÝsometimes with undesirable results. A number of examples will be shown, illustrating the basic itinerary of the characters when travelling through Windows-based IT systems. The presentation is targeted to a general, technically interested audience. The attendees should benefit from the presentation by getting some tips and tricks on how to analyse and remedy problems related to wrong character mapping.