When you say automatically, I would have to say no, because it does
depend on how the app is written. If the app is Unicode and is not
doing anything "bad" (meaning putting out characters one at a time,
assuming particular glyph metrics, etc.) and/or is using standard edit
controls (including Rich Edit 2) and system functions then yes the app
should gain multilingual capabilities somewhat automatically. Notepad
is a good example. We have not made any code changes to Notepad itself
and it now supports display of any supported script in any combination,
including Greek, Cyrillic, Kanji, Arabic, Thai, etc. We are working on
guidelines and sample code for s/w developers to outline the description
of "good" app behavior.
A user will gain language support, only after installing it from the
Regional Settings applet in the Control Panel. Everything needed for
these languages will be shipped on the NT CD and is installable during
setup or after via Regional Settings. All Win32 functions and controls
provided in the OS will have multilingual support. There are not
separate controls for the complex languages. The goal is to ease
development by providing full multilingual capabilities by using
standard Win32 APIs, such that the same binary will run anywhere in the
world. There is obviously a slight performance impact if you install
all of the language support, but it is not noticeable to me on my
Pentium 133 machine w/32 MB RAM. For a hint of what is to come in NT5,
you could check out the Arabic, Hebrew or Thai enabled versions of NT4.
Thanks - Lori
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Zhenbin Xu [SMTP:zbxu@worldnet.att.net]
> Sent: Monday, August 04, 1997 8:15 PM
> To: Multiple Recipients of
> Subject: Re: MS Language Packs
>
> Does that mean applications run under NT5 will automatically acquire
> the
> capability of multilingual input and display support? For example,
> applications utilize the standard Edit control accept multilingual
> input
> and display them correctly? How is the RichEdit control? Layout
> control for
> FE characters certainly not so different from Western languages, but
> the
> word wrapping rules are different. As regard to BiDi languages,
> things may
> become more complicated, performance may not be satisfactory if every
> controls handles a bunch of things which are not necessary for many
> users.
> I guess Microsoft will separate the NT5 into two categories, according
> to
> the direction of characters (LR, RL). Am I right? For those software
> need
> the capability of handling languages including CJK and BiDi,
> specially
> designed controls may still well be necessary. If considering support
> for
> SE Asia languages, such as Thai, Indic scripts, will NT5 become
> insufficient in this matter? Will Microsoft provide the multilingual
> capabilities in the form of language kits, as Mac does?
>
> In a word, if I want a software to provide truly multilingual support,
> will
> there be a configuration of English version of NT5 can handle this
> easily?
>
> A more serious problem is, will Memphis sync. with NT5 in terms of
> multilingual support?
>
> +---------------------------------------------------------------------
> --+
> Zhenbin Xu <zbxu@worldnet.att.net>
> PGP DSS/Diffie-Hellman Key ID: 0x9144A2D3
> PGP RSA Key ID: 0xC3C50AC9
> http://www.easya.com/kevin/
> +---------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----+
>
> ----------
> > From: Lori Brownell <loribr@microsoft.com>
> > To: Multiple Recipients of <unicode@unicode.org>
> > Subject: RE: MS Language Packs
> > Date: Monday, August 04, 1997 10:43 AM
> >
> > The NT4 and IE language packs only provide you half the support you
> > desire. The existing language packs will provide you the ability to
> > view content that contains Japanese text. It will not allow you to
> edit
> > the text or create new Japanese text, unless you want to use charmap
> on
> > NT4 as your IME.... :-) <This is what I did, but it's quite
> painful.>
> >
> > NT5 will provide you full multilingual capabilities. You will be
> able
> > to run any, or all, of the FE IMEs on any language version of NT5.
> This
> > will not require you to purchase or download anything additional.
> > Everything that you need will be on every language version of the
> NT5
> > CDs.
> >
> > Lori Brownell <loribr@microsoft.com>
> > Senior Program Manager - Windows NT
> > Microsoft Corp.
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: clarkcb@corp.sykes.com [SMTP:clarkcb@corp.sykes.com]
> > > Sent: Monday, August 04, 1997 9:11 AM
> > > To: Multiple Recipients of
> > > Subject: RE: MS Language Packs
> > >
> > > The MS IE Language Packs are not really comparable to the Japanese
> > > Language
> > > Kit on the Mac. The (big) difference is that the JLK has an IME
> > > (Input
> > > Method Editor), allowing one to input Japanese on an English
> system.
> > > This
> > > is what we, or at least I, really need from Microsoft. I admit, I
> > > have
> > > never really searched carefully through what is available on the
> > > Developer
> > > Network CD's in this regard; I'm doing it now, and I'll let
> everyone
> > > know
> > > what, if anything, I find.
> > >
> > > Cary Clark
> > > Senior Localization Engineer
> > > SEi
> > > clarkcb@corp.sykes.com
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