[i18n] Input Method and Fonts improvements for Gutsy

[shirish]

Hi all,
        This is from a user's perspective. I have gone through all
that craziness in order to have indic (Indian language fonts) on my
system.  As it is a good opportunity I might as well as ask them here.

> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 20:31:05 +0200
> From: Michael Vogt <michael.vogt at ubuntu.com>
> Subject: Re: [i18n] Input Method and Fonts improvements for Gutsy
> To: Arne Goetje <arne.goetje at canonical.com>
> Cc: ubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com
> Message-ID: <20070807183105.GA6626 at top.ping.de>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Tue, Aug 07, 2007 at 01:15:23AM +0800, Arne Goetje wrote:
> > Dear all,
> Hey Arne!
>
> > I have taken a first look at the current font and input method situation
> > in Gutsy (Tribe 3 Live CD and up to date installation on HDD) and have a
> > few suggestions to make.
>
> Thanks for looking into this!
>
> > 1. Input Method (SCIM):
> > Both Live CD and default installation come with the SCIM package
> > installed, however it is not properly set up, so that the user actually
> > cannot use it.
> >
> > SCIM depends on some environment variables and the SCIM demon started in
> > the background. There is a nice tool, called im-switch, which takes care
> > of this.
> > The purpose of im-switch is to give the user a simple frontend to choose
> > which input method program (s)he wants to use. For most users with
> > non-Latin based alphabets, this should be SCIM, as it clearly supports
> > most languages and scripts. However, some Asian users might prefer a
> > different application, like IIIMF or gcin (especially in Taiwan).
> > im-switch will take a parameter, whether or not it should do the setting
> > system wide or in the user scope only, and the name of the input method
> > framework.
> [..]

Isn't this too complext, 3 different systems & users are supposed to
know about them & know which will be good for them? I have read some
stuff on wiki.ubuntu.com specificially the community documentation &
frankly speaking the whole scenario sucks.

[OT]
I heard somebody saying before in the thread that there is lot
happening about free fonts. Why does this not get discussed or
trickled down to users is also a sad issue. Maybe somebody can do a
piece or two about www.typeforge.net or the openfontlibrary.org . That
would be good for the community as a whole & possibility a push to
have some more playful/decorative fonts. Another could be some .odf
file which has some playful fonts embedded in them in the examples
which are put up when a user freshly installs the system [/OT]

Regards all
-- 
          Shirish Agarwal
  This email is licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

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