Return to BSD News archive
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!newshost.marcam.com!news.mathworks.com!news2.near.net!public.x.org!kaleb From: kaleb@x.org (Kaleb KEITHLEY) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: XFree86-3.1 vs. Multi_key processing (NetBSD 1.0)? Date: 18 Nov 94 00:10:16 GMT Organization: X Consortium Lines: 38 Message-ID: <kaleb.785117416@alex.x.org> References: <CzEz0L.Kr3@atria.com> <CzF8wy.zx@atria.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: alex.x.org jtk@atria.com (John Kohl) writes: >In article <CzEz0L.Kr3@atria.com>, I wrote about "compose key" >processing not working in XFree86-3.1. >I just did a simple test. The x11r5 xterm that comes with XFree86-2.1 >processes composes just fine; the x11r6 xterm from XFree86-3.1 doesn't. >Is there some other way to do accent composition now? Will whoever is maintaining the FAQ please add this to the FAQ? This question comes up at least once a week, usually in comp.windows.x or comp.windows.x.i386unix. There's a three part answer. The first of which is that XFree86 2.1.1 had a hack in Xlib that did compose processing in XLookupString; thus every program, including xterm, got compose processing for free. The down side of this is that no one had any incentive to learn how to use the internationalization (i18n) functions that were already built-in to Xlib. The second part of the answer is that the hack to XLookupString was removed from Xlib in XFree86 3.x as one of the requirements of putting XFree86 into the X11R6 sources. We (the X Consortium) are not going to legitimize a hack when there are Standard solutions for the problem. The correct answer is to use XmbLookupString or XwcLookupString instead of XLookupString. The third part of the answer is that even though there is a Standard solution to the problem, it hasn't been applied to xterm yet. While this is unfortunate, it's not necessarily insurmountable, because there are a couple of alternatives to xterm that have been internationalized; kterm and hterm, I believe. Or internationalize xterm yourself! -- Kaleb KEITHLEY X Consortium