Re: CJK support in ConTeXt

Re: CJK support in ConTeXt

[Hong Feng]

> > It's time to discuss the topic "CJK support in ConTeXt" in a more public
> > place.
> 
> Agree! 

The currently ConTeXt release support UTF-8, CJKV locales can all be 
represented in UTF-8, so the mechanism is already done.

IMHO, the real one work to do is to make the sets of typesetting 
conventions (typesetting rules) for each locale of CJKV (like 
the Chinese package did), that would varies quite much from 
locale to locale, all all of them are based on the same 
underlayed mechanism.

Best,
Hong


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RE: CJK support in ConTeXt

[Tim 't Hart]

Hong Feng wrote:

> The currently ConTeXt release support UTF-8, CJKV locales can all be
> represented in UTF-8, so the mechanism is already done.
> 
> IMHO, the real one work to do is to make the sets of typesetting
> conventions (typesetting rules) for each locale of CJKV (like
> the Chinese package did), that would varies quite much from
> locale to locale, all all of them are based on the same
> underlayed mechanism.

My very first experiment with trying to use Japanese with ConTeXt made use
of ConTeXt's built-in support for UTF-8. I soon found out that there is no
line breaking present when UTF-8 support is used. So that has to be
implemented. I'm not sure, but I remember that Hans once told me that that
the typesetting mechanism and line breaking algorithm as used in the Chinese
module cannot be directly used for UTF-8 support. Therefore I'm not sure if
we can simply say that the 'mechanism is already done'. Maybe Hans can tell
how difficult it is to add a line breaking mechanism to the UTF-8 support?

It would be really handy if we could use ConTeXt's UTF-8 support so that
some work for a CJK module is already done. But on the other hand, by using
e-Omega, a lot of work is also already done. We have to make sure that
adapting the UTF-8 mechanism doesn't take more time and effort than creating
a module based on e-Omega. A CJK module based on e-Omega is maybe easier to
write and more flexible. For example, not everyone can write documents in
UTF-8. e-Omega will allow almost any kind of file encoding as long as there
is an OTP available to convert it to Unicode. 

So I think the questions we have to ask ourselves are: Do we make line
breaking and typesetting algorithms for ConTeXt's UTF-8 support or for
e-Omega? What is the time and effort needed in creating a CJK module for
each solution? And what solution gives the most powerful typesetting
options?

Personally, I would go for the e-Omega option, but I wouldn't mind seeing a
module based on ConTeXt's UTF-8 support. As long as there is support for
CJK, I'll be happy! :)

My best,
Tim

Re[2]: CJK support in ConTeXt

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Wednesday, August 27, 2003 Tim 't Hart wrote:

TtH> Jin-Hwan Cho wrote:

>>My suggestion for supporting CJK characters in ConTeXt is to write a
>>new module using e-Omega. Even though e-Omega does not produce PDF
>>format directly, there are not much problem with DVIPDFMx.

TtH> When I first tried to use Japanese with ConTeXt, I first looked at
TtH> e-Omega. The reason I gave up and tried to adapt the Chinese module
TtH> was that e-Omega was unstable on my machine. Version 1.23 crashed
TtH> immediately (got stuck in a loop producing [] characters). I tried
TtH> 1.15 because I heard that was more stable. I got some Japanese
TtH> output with this version, but when I tried creating more than a
TtH> paragraph, it locked as well. But this was all a few months ago.
TtH> Does anybody know if things with e-Omega have improved recently?

I happen to be in the e-Omega task force, so I'm extremely
interested in any bug report you may have on it. For the
moment, let's stick to the 1.15 version, which is the official
version.

First of all, which TeX distribution are you using, and what
does the e-Omega banner say? I know there are people using
e-Omega for production use, so you might want to see if there
is an upgrade available for your distribution.

Secondly, do you have a test file I could give a look at? If it
needs any nonstandard extra files/fonts/metrics/packages,
please give me pointers to these as well.

-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

Re[3]: CJK support in ConTeXt

[Hans Hagen]

At 12:37 27/08/2003 +0200, you wrote:
>(I hate replying to myself, but ...)
>
>Ok, since it seems that e-Omega is starting to get some "mass"
>interest, I'm thinking about setting up a mailing list for it.
>Maybe two, one for users and one for developers. Any
>suggestions on the listserver to use?

i can ask the ntg, since they host more lists, ok? you can mnage the list 
with mailmanager

Hans
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                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
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Re[4]: CJK support in ConTeXt

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Wednesday, August 27, 2003 Hans Hagen wrote:

HH> At 12:37 27/08/2003 +0200, you wrote:
>>(I hate replying to myself, but ...)
>>
>>Ok, since it seems that e-Omega is starting to get some "mass"
>>interest, I'm thinking about setting up a mailing list for it.
>>Maybe two, one for users and one for developers. Any
>>suggestions on the listserver to use?

HH> i can ask the ntg, since they host more lists, ok? you can mnage the list
HH> with mailmanager

AFAIK, the two "biggest" TeX mailing lists holders are ntg and
tug; either is fine for me. Should I create two lists, or do
you think that one list is enough?

Given the ideas on the name change (which will be factual with
the first officially "stable" release, that is the one
following RC2, probably) it's probably better to use aleph in
the mailing list name. So:

* if we go for one list, would it be aleph@ntg.nl ?
* if we go for multiple lists, what about aleph-users@ntg.nl
and aleph-dev@ntg.nl ?

Or maybe we just start with aleph@ntg.nl, and the create
alpeh-dev@ntg.nl if there is any need to detach technical
discussions from "user" discussion. Yes, let's make it this
way.

Is there some form to fill up to request the creation of the
aleph@ntg.nl mailing list?

-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

Re: CJK support in ConTeXt

[Idris S Hamid]

Giuseppe Bilotta wrote:

> Wednesday, August 27, 2003 Hans Hagen wrote:
>
> HH> At 12:37 27/08/2003 +0200, you wrote:
> >>(I hate replying to myself, but ...)
> >>
> >>Ok, since it seems that e-Omega is starting to get some "mass"
> >>interest, I'm thinking about setting up a mailing list for it.
> >>Maybe two, one for users and one for developers. Any
> >>suggestions on the listserver to use?
>
> HH> i can ask the ntg, since they host more lists, ok? you can mnage the list
> HH> with mailmanager
>
> AFAIK, the two "biggest" TeX mailing lists holders are ntg and
> tug; either is fine for me. Should I create two lists, or do
> you think that one list is enough?

FWIW, I think that one list is certainly enough. Looking at the Omega list I'm
not sure there was any real benefit in having two lists; we certainly don't need
to divide energies at this stage with two low-traffic lists.

Now when eOmega becomes a hit, we can adjust accordingly.


> Given the ideas on the name change (which will be factual with
> the first officially "stable" release, that is the one
> following RC2, probably) it's probably better to use aleph in
> the mailing list name. So:

BTW, since u and Hans seem to like my idea (and I'm cc'ing the others to see if
they object), is it official? Are we going with Aleph?

Best wishes
Idris

Re: CJK support in ConTeXt

[Alan Hoenig]

`Aleph' gets my vote.  I think it's a great idea.

---Alan

Re: CJK support in ConTeXt

[Hans Hagen]

At 09:15 27/08/2003 +0200, you wrote:

>quite useable. If anyone else is interested in what I've produced so
>far, please let me know.

can you put together a zip with (1) fonts, (2) macros (3) examples - also 
in pdf, so that i can have a look at it?

Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
                     documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
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Re: CJK support in ConTeXt

[Tim 't Hart]

Jin-Hwan Cho wrote:

>It's time to discuss the topic "CJK support in ConTeXt" in a more
>public place.

I couldn't agree more! :-)

>The current version of ConTeXt supports Chinese only. But the same
>mechasism enables Korean too. The remaining language is Japanese.
>In some sense, it is possible to support Japanese in the current
>subfont mechanism. But several issues (e.g. Japanese kerning system
>as explained by Okumura) may occur.

Could you explain what these issues are? For the past couple of
months I've been busy writing Japanese support for ConTeXt, based
on the Chinese module. I'm not an expert in this, so I'm sure the
method I used for writing Japanese support is wrong and can be
improved. But for my own personal use it has already proven to be
quite useable. If anyone else is interested in what I've produced so
far, please let me know.

I would like to know what the issues with Japanese kerning are. I do
not know a lot about Japanese typography and would like to know what
the limitations of code based on the Chinese module are.

>My suggestion for supporting CJK characters in ConTeXt is to write a
>new module using e-Omega. Even though e-Omega does not produce PDF
>format directly, there are not much problem with DVIPDFMx.

When I first tried to use Japanese with ConTeXt, I first looked at
e-Omega. The reason I gave up and tried to adapt the Chinese module
was that e-Omega was unstable on my machine. Version 1.23 crashed
immediately (got stuck in a loop producing [] characters). I tried
1.15 because I heard that was more stable. I got some Japanese
output with this version, but when I tried creating more than a
paragraph, it locked as well. But this was all a few months ago.
Does anybody know if things with e-Omega have improved recently?

Anyway, I would like to see a common CJK module for ConTeXt, where
Chinese, Korean and Japanese are based on the same base code. It
doesn't matter to me if it's implemented using subfonts or on using
e-Omega, as long as it's stable and useable. Therefore, I would
like to offer my help in creating CJK support.

My best,
Tim

CJK support in ConTeXt

[Jin-Hwan Cho]

It's time to discuss the topic "CJK support in ConTeXt" in a more public
place.

The current version of ConTeXt supports Chinese only. But the same mechasism
enables Korean too. The remaining language is Japanese. In some sense, it is
possible to support Japanese in the current subfont mechanism. But several
issues (e.g. Japanese kerning system as explained by Okumura) may occur.

So, alternative way is to use ASCII pTeX for Japanese. Basically looks no
problem
but I worry eTeX extension features. Is it possible to run ConTeXt without
eTeX
extension features, Hans?

My suggestion for supporting CJK characters in ConTeXt is to write a new
module
using e-Omega. Even though e-Omega does not produce PDF format directly,
there are not much problem with DVIPDFMx.

Best, ChoF.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~     ***
| Cho, Jin-Hwan == ChoF |     ^ ^
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~      o
| Research Fellow       |     ~~~
| School of Mathematics ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| Korea Institute for Advanced Study |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| chofchof@ktug.or.kr                |
| http://free.kaist.ac.kr/ChoF/      |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Re: CJK support in ConTeXt

[Hans Hagen]

Hi Chof,

So, alternative way is to use ASCII pTeX for Japanese. Basically looks no
>problem
>but I worry eTeX extension features. Is it possible to run ConTeXt without
>eTeX
>extension features, Hans?

in principle yes, but you loose xml handling and a few other things.

>My suggestion for supporting CJK characters in ConTeXt is to write a new
>module
>using e-Omega. Even though e-Omega does not produce PDF format directly,
>there are not much problem with DVIPDFMx.

sounds ok to me

Hans



-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
                     documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: CJK support in ConTeXt

[Hong Feng]

> It's time to discuss the topic "CJK support in ConTeXt" in a more public
> place.

I can support this idea!  I can build a mailing list with
GNU Mailman on my upcoming server.

Rgds,
Hong

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