Re: A Unicode introduction for the Mac?

Lou Pecora wrote:
Ever since the introduction of the unicode standard (not that I understand it) to the Mac my applications behave in different ways. Mostly I need a way to seemlessly switch between Roman and Greek fonts. It used to be that I just selected 'Symbol' and typed away to get alphas, gammas, etc., then back to 'Times' to type my English words. Now each app seems to have its own rules. Switching to Symbol doesn't always give me what I want. Some I have to go to the menu and choose the Greek Keyboard (why?) others tell me to use the Character Palette which is slow and clumsy. I do scientific writing and presentations and need to switch back and forth quickly.

Can anyone point to a site that explains this unicode-based system and how best to use it on the Mac? Any help appreciated.

I visited the Unicode.org site, but that was way too technical for my needs and not specific to my needs.


To start, almost every country has its own favorite keyboard arrangement. For instance, the American English keyboard is called "qwerty", because that is the left-to-right order of the top line of letter keys. A keyboard in France is "awerty", in Germany "qwertz", etc. That is not the end of the affair: a Canadian French keyboard is "qwerty" like its neighbor to the south's.

Then there are the diacritically ornamented letters of various languages. A European French keyboard has a key assigned to almost each of such letters. As indicated above, the keys assigned on a Canadian French keyboard involves the same diacritics but differently assigned keys. The same for German in various countries, etc. American and British keyboards have different keys under "alt". You might be interested to know that British English keyboards have the Greek alphabet available under "alt".

ASCII Extended allows assignment of each of the letters, including diacritically modified letters, of the Western European languages French, Spanish, and German. This takes up the 256 kay assignments of the unornamented Latin (Ehglish and Dutch) alphabet and the additional 256 key assignments for diacritically modified letters, 512 in all. Envision a grid, with each national keyboard arrangement reaching each cell by its own peculiar arrangement of keys. When I type an e-mail on my American English keyboard, foreign recipients see the letters I typed according the arrangement of their keyboards, because my keystrokes are translated throught the ASCII Extended grid.

So much for some of Western Europe. Of course, there remain Gaelic, Scandinavian languages, to say nothing of Eastern European languages. That is where Unicode comes in.

A Unicode keyboard dispenses with the specially assigned keys for diacritically modified letters. On my Mac, each diacritical sign is inserted by the "dead key" method, i. e., I type "alt" and "6" simultaneously to place a circumflex above the next letter I type. Nothing appears when I type "alt" and "6" simultaneously; only the subsequent typing shows both the circumflex and a letter. An ASCII Extended keyboard could only type vowels surmounted by a circumflex, but Unicode allows some consonants to take a circumflex, too, i. e., for Croatian.

To accommodate the diagritics of all Latin alphabet languages except Vietnamese (which has multiple diacritics on some letters), over a thousand cells are required, compared with the 512 of ASCII Extended. Greek, Russian, Armenian, etc., occupy cells beyond the Latin alphabet cells. I assume you know the location of the keys on a Greek keyboard, so you can type Greek on any computer keyboard having Greek as a selectable language.

In summary, Unicode is a way of assigning to all typable letters a unique cell assignment, which anyone can type on their customary keyboard. There are various extensions for Unicode: ASCII Extended (the first 512 cells), cells for European Latin alphabet languages, even for Chinese characters. The most extensive form of Unicode has cells for ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, American Indian totem picture language symbols, etc. Use the right keyboard and font.

But, if you use a Canadian French keyboard, you will not find the letters in the same place as on a German keyboard, to say nothing of Greek. And, if you don't have an accommodative, extensive typefont for Hungarian or Polish, you will see something other than a letter "o" surmounted by a double acute accent or an "l" with a diagonal bar through it.

--
++====+=====+=====+=====+=====+====+====+=====+=====+=====+=====+====++
||Arnold VICTOR, New York City, i. e., <arvimideQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> ||
||Arnoldo VIKTORO, Nov-jorkurbo, t. e., <arvimideQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> ||
||Remove capital letters from e-mail address for correct address/ ||
|| Forigu majusklajn literojn el e-poŝta adreso por ĝusta adreso ||
++====+=====+=====+=====+=====+====+====+=====+=====+=====+=====+====++
.

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