Re: DocBookInContext & multi-languages (newbie)

[Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>]

At 08:46 PM 12/2/2002 +0100, you wrote:

> > Some time ago I saw a post on DocBook list from Sebastian Rahtz who is
> > considering to rewrite PassiveTex with ConTeXt support instead of LaTeX.
>
>That would be very good; much better than just doing
>docbook. Sometimes I think I would better spend my time on such an
>effort, but I am afraid it is a huge task.

since i know a bit about the context internals ... actually, the best way 
to handle it is to build on top of low level counterparts; will look into 
that later  [the only use i see for fo's in our workflows is as sub docs; 
kind of image like approach; so i'll writ eit anyway]

> > The question remains, how to do it with multi-lingual document
> > encoded in utf-8?
> >
> > Any hint?
>
>As is the case more often in open source: do it yourself. Hans has not
>taken part in this discussion, so I think he does not feel like
>embarking on an effort in this area.

hm, utf is on my agenda, but for chars that i don't use myself i depend on 
others -)

>The basic mechanism to make TeX work with encodings is to declare all
>characters above 127 active, and map them to a suitable control
>sequence. But that only works with single-byte encodings.

the machinery is already there for quite some time; it's the way 
chinese/korean is implemented; and for western languages the mechanism is 
even simpler.

>While I am writing this, I am beginning to think that copying xmltex's
>algorithm to context is the best way to go.

not sure about that; as said, context has the machinery already; i only 
need tables to work with (+the conversion stuff taco mailed earlier)

Hans
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