Re: priority of x-window-manager

[Taketoshi Sano <kgh12351@nifty.ne.jp>]

Hi :)

In article <[🔎] 20000309093742.D21048@ecn.purdue.edu>,
  at Thu, 9 Mar 2000 09:37:42 -0500,
    on Re: priority of x-window-manager,
 Branden Robinson <branden@ecn.purdue.edu> writes:

> On Thu, Mar 09, 2000 at 09:40:32AM +0900, Atsuhito Kohda wrote:

> > He adds points to menu capability but I believe that a really useful
> > menu system needs, at least, i18n of a window manger.
> > 
> > Any comments or advices?
> 
> In your earlier mail you said:
> 
> > WindowMaker, which I use almost everytime, is internationalized
> > so we can see "Japanese menu" and "Japanese text on netscape title"
> > and so on.  But with afterstep, which is not internationalized,
> > Japanese menu shows us messages something like messages from an alien
> > so, in the worst case, we can not find out the menu to quit/exit
> > window manager!

I think the afterstep package in potato has been enabled i18n option 
 (configure --enable-i18n) since its version 1.6.10-1. see the BTS 
about #38154.

# It does not have a proper font setting at 1.6.10-1, so I added
# them as default in my source NMU of 1.6.10-1.1.

> > I am not sure but asclassic, a rather old version of afterstep,
> > is internationalized already but fvwm* are not internationalized yet
> > (but Debian JP provides japanization of them and try to merge now).

> Again, it seems to me that you're talking about localization, not
> internationalization.  Let me give you an example since we seem to be
> talking past each other on this point:

I prefer the x-window-manager which can display various characters
correctly in widgets (window title, button, menu, or so).

The current icewm, asclassic, and afterstep can do this as far as I know.

wmaker requires the modification of settings to display Japanese
characters. It does have the resource (menus and messages) in Japanese, 
but the default font setting does not work to display them. pity.
It does have the ability to do so, only if the setting is changed.
No binary re-compile is required.

Why I need the ability to display Japanese characters in window title/
buttons ?

  - Because many web site in Japan uses Japanese messages as their title,
and Netscape shows them in its window title. If the window manager
can not display them, it is frustrating.

  - Because I use often a little function to display any messages
in kterm's window title, and if Japanese message can not be shown,
it is not very fun to do so.

# xtitle () 
# { 
#     /bin/echo -e "\033]0;$*\007\c"
# }

  - Because I use xcalendar-i18n (one of my little Debian package)
to manage my schedule, but under the not i18n-ready window-managers,
it can not show Japanese strings in buttons and the daily record itself. 
(i.e. it is no use in such an environment.)

I checked this using fvwm1_1.24r-35. It does not seem to support
locales other than C. I tried to do "LANG=ja xcalendar &",
then the error message said: 

   Warning: locale not supported by C library, locale unchanged

But it can show Japanese buttons, messages, my schedules with
other window-managers.

I did like fvwm1, because it is small, light, and nifty wm.
I used its Japanized version (fvwm-ja) some years ago.
But I can not use the current fvwm1 package in my daily life
unless I do local hacking by myself, and I don't want to do so.

I personally don't mind if a simple and small window-manager (like twm) 
will have the ability to show Japanese characters correctly, since I don't 
use it in my work anyway.

But I do mind if some user who use fvwm1 (for ex.) will complain that 
my xcalendar-i18n has bugs because it can not show Japanese string 
correctly.

I have read that 8-bit clean is the target for hamm.

I will be happy that if internationalized, or going beyond the wall of
monobyte-strings (going into multybyte-ready world) will be the target 
for woody, or the next.

Thanks.

-- 
  Taketoshi Sano: <sano@debian.org>,<sano@debian.or.jp>,<kgh12351@nifty.ne.jp>