This chapter discusses setting up your environment using WorldView Europe. In this chapter, you'll learn about:
Choosing and quickly switching to a different locale
Creating composite characters using the Compose key
Locale names and categories
Message Catalogs
Modifying defaults for X-based applications
Latin-1 and other non-ASCII encodings
Printing non-ASCII characters using PostScript®
Supplementary Installation Instructions
Many users of WorldView may never want to use it for anything other than switching from English to another language, such as German or French. If you just want system messages to display in German, and you don't want to bother with anything more complicated, the procedure is simple. There are two ways to set your locale:
From the Toolchest, select Desktop—>Customize—>Language
From the command line, set the environment variable LANG. Setting LANG identifies the desired language and territory; see the Locale column in Table 2-1 for LANG settings that work with WorldView.
These methods are covered in more detail in the two following sections.
 | Note: Changing locales translates data formats only. Although system messages, help screens, and some IRIS InSight™ books are provided for French and German as well as English, filenames, program names, and the contents of files are not translated into the language of the new locale. Man pages remain in English. |
The Silicon Graphics Desktop System provides a set of system administration tools with graphical user interfaces. One such tool is ipanel, the language customization tool, which you invoke by choosing Desktop—>Customize—>Language from the Toolchest. The ipanel window is shown in Figure 2-1.
When the ipanel window (labeled Language Controls) comes up, choose the locale you want from the Locations list on the left. If you do not have a US keyboard, choose the appropriate keyboard from the list on the right.
The standard keyboard shipped with most SGI systems can enter only ASCII characters by default. Configured as shipped, it does not allow you to enter or use non-ASCII characters needed for many European languages.
Many locales make it possible to use non-ASCII characters with most system tools. The INTL keyboard layout is exactly like the default layout for the (101-key) US keyboard, except that the right Alt key (the key immediately to the right of the space bar) behaves as a Compose key, which makes it possible to enter many non-ASCII characters. See the compose(5) and composetable(5) man pages for more information on using the Compose key.
Many systems include a keyboard specially designed for a particular location, such as Switzerland, or a specific language, such as German. If you have a specialized, non-US keyboard, you should choose the appropriate keyboard from the Language Controls panel; this will make your keyboard generate the characters that appear on each key. For instance, the right Alt key on many international keyboards selects alternate characters for some of the keyboard keys. Pressing then releasing Shift and the right Alt key activates the compose function, as described in compose(5) man page. For multiple special characters on a single key, see “Inaccessible Alt Gr Characters”.
If you are not certain which keyboard you have, first look at the Enter key. If your Enter key is rectangular, you have a US keyboard and should use the INTL keyboard layout. If your Enter key is non-rectangular, you probably have a special keyboard for your language or location.
If your keyboard has a non-rectangular enter key but selecting the appropriate layout does not make it work properly, it is possible that you have a national keyboard for some country other than your own. You can try each of the keyboard layouts listed in the Language Controls panel until you find the one that matches your layout, or contact your sales and support office for assistance.
Unlike many graphical tools, ipanel implements changes as soon as you make them; that is, as soon as you choose a new locale, you are shifted into that locale without having to confirm your choice. If you make a mistake while choosing a locale, simply choose again before closing the ipanel window.
Once you've made your locale and keyboard selections, click the Cancel button to exit ipanel.
Choosing a new locale does not affect any currently-running programs, including any shell windows you may have open already. For instance, if you start in the default (C) locale, then choose the French locale, all open windows will still run in the C locale. Only new windows launched from the Toolchest will be in the French locale.
| Note: To see your entire desktop environment and all your windows in the new locale, you must log out and log back in again. |
You can also make changes from the IRIX command line. There are three steps to this process:
Put the name of the locale you want to use into the .lang file in your home directory. That file tells the window environment what locale to use. For example, to switch future console login sessions to German:
IRIS% cd IRIS% rm .lang IRIS% cat >.lang de <ctrl-D> IRIS%
Set up the LANG environment variable so that it sets itself appropriately every time you log in. The idea is to leave the LANG variable alone if it's already been set, and to make sure the .lang file exists before using it to set LANG.
In csh, you can do this by editing your .login file to include these lines:
if (! $?LANG) then if ( -r $HOME/.lang ) then setenv LANG `cat $HOME/.lang` endif endifIf you use Bourne shell, edit your .profile file to include the following lines, which do exactly the same thing as the above C shell lines:
if [ x$LANG = x ] then if [ -r $HOME/.lang ] then LANG=`cat $HOME/.lang` ; export LANG fi fi
In either case, the given line executes every time you log in, even if you log in from a remote terminal. It sets your locale to whatever the .lang file says your locale should be.
Log out and log back in again to switch your whole environment to the new locale.
Those two letters in your .lang file are all you really need to run IRIX in German. (Replace the de with fr to run IRIX in French.) However, if you want to learn more about locales, including how to change various aspects of a locale, read the rest of this document.
If you want to switch locales for only one session in only one shell window, rather than for all future sessions, you can do so using the command line, without editing any files at all. For example, in the C shell,
IRIS% setenv LANG fr |
sets the locale of whatever window you enter it in to French, and that window remains in French until you explicitly change locales again. Any other windows you have, however, and all future sessions, remain in English (or whatever your locale was previously set to).
There are many characters used in non-English languages which are not part of the ASCII character set. Some of these characters can be typed directly from some keyboards, but if you're using a US keyboard, you'll have to type those characters by composing them.
Composing a character consists of typing several key strokes which, in combination, represent a composite character (such as á or è). To compose a character, you usually need to press a special key that indicates that the next few keystrokes should be interpreted as a composite character; then you enter the appropriate key sequence for the character you want to type. For instance, to produce the character ñ, you might press the Compose key, then the tilde (~), then n. Not every keyboard has a Compose key, however. If yours doesn't and you need one, you can use the xmodmap(1) command to remap a key you're not using to be the Compose key. For instance, to remap the Alt_R function key to be the Compose key, enter this command:
IRIS% xmodmap -e "keysym Alt_R = Multi_key" |
You can, of course, replace the Alt_R with the name of any other key. For more detailed information, see the xmodmap(1) man page and “Inaccessible Alt Gr Characters”.
Silicon Graphics WorldView lets you work on your computer in the language of your choice—given the supported locales and character sets—and have the time, date, money, numbers, and fonts appear as you would expect for that language. You select the language by setting an environment variable or choosing from a control panel, as shown in “Choosing a Locale”. To do anything more complicated than that, however, you need to know which locale or parts of a locale you want to use.
Locale naming is based on the POSIX.1 locale naming convention: language[_territory.[.encoding]]. The language name is a two-letter word taken from the ISO-639 Language Code Standard, and the territory name is a similar two-letter words from ISO-3166 Country Code Standard. Thus, the name of the locale has either one or two parts. The first part represents the language, such as fr, the name for the French language locale as used in France. However, French used in Canada is different, so the name of that locale is fr_CA, where the second part of the locale name represents Canada, the territory associated with the locale.
Table 2-1 shows the locale names and territories available in IRIX 6.2 for each European language, listed in alphabetical order by language name. Not listed is the default locale, called C, which uses American English but also assumes that all characters are ASCII; the C locale doesn't know what to do with non-ASCII characters. If you want to use non-ASCII characters with American English, use the en_US locale.
Table 2-1. European Language Locales Supported by IRIX 6.2
Language | Territory | Locale |
|---|---|---|
Czech | Czech Republic | cs |
Danish | Denmark | da |
Dutch | Netherlands | nl |
Dutch | Belgium | nl_BE |
English | Australia | en_AU |
English | United Kingdom | en |
English | Canada | en_CA |
English | United States | en_US |
Finnish | Finland | fi |
French | France | fr |
French | Belgium | fr_BE |
French | Canada | fr_CA |
French | Switzerland | fr_CH |
German | Germany | de |
German | Austria | de_AT |
German | Switzerland | de_CH |
Greek | Greece | el |
Icelandic | Iceland | is |
Italian | Italy | it |
Italian | Switzerland | it_CH |
Norwegian | Norway | no |
Polish | Poland | pl |
Portuguese | Portugal | pt |
Portuguese | Brazil | pt_BR |
Russian | Russia | ru |
Slovak | Slovakia | sk |
Spanish | Spain | es |
Spanish | Mexico | es_MX |
Spanish | Argentina | es_AR |
Swedish | Sweden | sv |
Turkish | Turkey | tr |
Some languages have multiple locales, corresponding to those languages' use in multiple territories. Conversely, some territories have more than one locale, corresponding to multiple languages.
Also, people who localize software, localizers, may create new locales at any time, so locales not on the above list may be available on your system.
The various aspects of a locale, called categories, can be set independently of one another. For example, if you're using a French system and you have a list of Turkish companies that you want to alphabetize according to Turkish sorting rules, you need to set the French locale, then set the LC_COLLATE category to Turkish. This is called setting a category explicitly.
Each category corresponds to an environment variable with the same name. The available categories are described in Table 2-2.
Category | Description |
|---|---|
LC_ALL | All categories below |
LC_COLLATE | Collating sequence |
LC_CTYPE | Character-type classification and transliteration |
LC_MESSAGES | Yes/No response string and the text messages used by the applications |
LC_MONETARY | Currency representation |
LC_NUMERIC | Numbers and other nonmonetary numeric formatting information |
LC_TIME | Dates and times |
Here are slightly fuller descriptions of the categories:
The collating sequence for a locale describes the correct way to order items when sorting them alphabetically.
Character classification and conversion describes the rules to use in categorizing characters or converting them from one type to another. For instance, functions such as changing to uppercase or lowercase characters work differently from one language to another.
Messages are the output of programs. For more information, see “Message Catalogs.”
Currency formatting varies according to local conventions. For example, in Britain thirty-five and a half pounds would be written £35.5; in France thirty-five and a half francs would be written 35,50Fr.
Nonmonetary numbers are also formatted differently in different languages. For example, one thousand in English can be represented as 1,000.00, whereas in French it can be represented as 1.000,00.
Dates and times can be written in many different ways. January 31, 1996, for instance, can be written 1/31/96 or 31/1/96 or several other ways.
Any of the categories of the locale that have been explicitly set previously remain unaffected when you set the LANG variable. The following section explains how to change specific categories.
The general locale-choosing mechanism provided by the LANG environment variable does not cover the case where, for example, you want to see an application's messages in one language while using the collation order of another language. Such a situation is supported by allowing you to set additional environment variables, one for each category that you want to differ from the LANG setting. You will rarely, if ever, need to change specific locale categories without changing the entire locale.
If any of the category environment variables are not defined in the current environment, those categories default to the value of LANG.
| Note: If you've set a category explicitly but you now want its value to be controlled by the value of LANG again, use the unsetenv(1) command. |
Always be sure to use compatible category settings. For example, setting LC_COLLATE to ru when LC_ALL is en leads to unpredictable results.
For information about the library interfaces that support localization, see the chapters “Internationalization” and “Localization” in the IRIX System Programming Guide.
The default locale is C. The locale is set when you log in and affects the appearance of certain utilities and applications on the system. The following example illustrates some effects that changing the locale has on the system.
Try the following steps (note that this will only work in the C shell):
Look at the date while in the default locale:
IRIS% setenv LANG C IRIS% date Tue Aug 27 19:34:33 PDT 1996
Change to the French locale and check the date again:
IRIS% setenv LANG fr IRIS% date mardi 27 août 1996, 19:35:22
A message catalog for a program is a file that contains the output strings used by that program. The people who localize an application create a new message catalog for each locale, translating the strings from the original message catalog into the appropriate language for the new locale. Unless you intend to modify a message catalog for use on your own system, you probably don't need to know any more than that about message catalogs.
However, there are two message catalog systems in widespread use: XPG and MNLS. IRIX uses MNLS; in that system, message catalogs used by the operating system are in the /usr/lib/locale/localename/LC_MESSAGES directory.
The names of message catalogs and their locations in the filesystem can vary from one application to another. If you need to find an application's message catalogs, try looking for directories whose pathnames contain locale names or the name LC_MESSAGES.
Some third-party applications may use XPG message catalogs instead of MNLS message catalogs. If you need to specify the location of such message catalogs, you can use the NLSPATH environment variable. See the environ(5) manual page for more information on NLSPATH if you ever need to set this variable. The documentation for any third-party application that uses XPG message catalogs should also describe how to use NLSPATH.
| Note: Since IRIX doesn't use XPG message catalogs, you don't need to set NLSPATH for use with IRIX commands. |
Programmers can find further information about message catalogs in the IRIX System Programming Guide.
X-Window System-based programs use files called resource files which allow users to modify the program parameters without having to recompile the programs. These resource files sometimes contain culture-specific information. Localization of X resource files involves finding such information and saving it in files called application defaults files, or appdefs.
Users should rarely if ever need to modify appdefs. System administrators, however, might want to change some things; for instance, if an error message is confusing, a system administrator can modify the message in the appdefs file. Localizers may want to create new appdefs, based on the old ones, for new locales.
The default French and German appdefs for X-Window System-based applications are located in the /usr/lib/X11/fr/app-defaults and /usr/lib/X11/de/app-defaults directories, respectively. If you're having trouble finding other appdefs, try looking at the environment variables XAPPLRESDIR, XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, and XFILESEARCHPATH, which specify where to look for application-specific X resource files.
Almost all of the appdefs for a locale probably need to be customized if you're creating a new locale based on an older one. However, once a resource file has been localized for one language, other geographical regions using the same language can probably use that file with little or no modification.
The main items in appdefs that need to be changed in creating a new locale are character strings; they need to be translated into the new language. However, other items may need changing as well. Icons, for instance, may rely on idioms that don't translate very well; they may need to be redrawn. Also, translating a string may require resizing or repositioning the graphical elements (widgets) of the window the string appears in, since the translation may yield a significantly longer or shorter string.
ASCII is an encoding, a correspondence between a set of characters and a set of numbers. Most locales other than the default C locale are associated with other (non-ASCII) encodings. The International Standards Organization, ISO, has specified a series of character encodings numbered 8859-1 through 8859-9, each of which contains codes for all the characters necessary for several languages. The most common non-ASCII encoding, and the one used by most of the western European locales in WorldView is 8859-1, also known as Latin-1.
WorldView provides an internationalized way of printing text files on Silicon Graphics systems. Existing print solutions work for Latin-1 locales, such as France and Germany.
The solution described here is most appropriate for use with non-Latin1 locales. It contains a printer command, ilptops, and a new lp spooler interface called the Bitmap Postscript Interface. ilptops is used to generate PostScript files from text files in the locale of choice; the lp spooler interface allows addition of a printer in the current framework of lp.
Use the Add option of the Print Manager from the System menu in the Toolchest to install a printer. Choose the Bitmap PostScript for the Printer Type. While printing a text file using this printer, use the -o option with the lp command to send the locale to ilptops.
For instance, to print a Czech language file on a bitmap PostScript printer named PrLatin2, use the command:
IRIS% cat czechfile | lp -dPrLatin2 -o”-lcs” |
For further information, please refer to the ilptops man page.
The standard font encoding used by most PostScript printers includes many of the non-ASCII characters in the Latin-1 character set, but some such characters do not have the same encodings they have in Latin-1. Each time you print a file which contains non-ASCII symbols on a PostScript printer, the printer's fonts must be reencoded to use the appropriate character encodings.
In many cases, when you tell an application to print, it automatically takes care of this remapping in the PostScript file it generates. Also, the current version of IRIX makes it possible for you to print files containing non-ASCII text on a PostScript printer directly by using the usual lp command.
You are encouraged to use the optional IRIS Impressario printing support package, which replaces transcript. IRIS Impressario contains support for Latin-1 printing and international paper sizes as well as font support.
This section provides supplemental information to the IRIS Software Installation Guide.
The WorldView Europe language subsystem contains the following components:
WorldView_euro.books.european
This subsystem contains the IRIS InSight™ manual that describes WorldView and how it works.WorldView_euro.books.de
These subsystems contain the German IRIS InSight™ manual. These provide complete online German help on the desktop software environment.WorldView_euro.books.fr
These subsystems contain the French IRIS InSight™ manual. These provide complete online French help on the desktop software environment.WorldView_euro.man.relnotes
This subsystem contains the release notes of the European Language Module. Use grelnotes or relnotes to view this online.WorldView_euro.env.french
This subsystem contains French localization data in the form of translated system messages and X11 app-default files.WorldView_euro.env.mmail_fr
This subsystem contains French localization data for MediaMail 3.2.3. This subsystem requires MediaMail 3.2.3 (in IRIX 6.2) for installation.WorldView_euro.env.showcase_french
This subsystem contains French localization data for IRIS Showcase™ 3.4. This subsystem requires IRIS Showcase™ 3.4 (in IRIX 6.2) for installation.WorldView_euro.env.german
This subsystem contains German localization data in the form of translated system messages and X11 app-default files.WorldView_euro.env.mmail_german
This subsystem contains German localization data for MediaMail 3.2.3. This subsystem requires MediaMail 3.2.3 (in IRIX 6.2) for installation.WorldView_euro.env.showcase_german
This subsystem contains German localization data for IRIS Showcase™ 3.4. This subsystem requires IRIS Showcase™ 3.4 (in IRIX 6.2) for installation.
This section lists the subsystems (and their sizes) of the WorldView software.
If you are installing this software for the first time, the subsystems marked default are those that are installed if you use the go menu item. To install a different set of subsystems, use the install, remove, keep, and step commands in inst to customize the list of subsystems to be installed, then select the go menu item.
| Note: The listed subsystem sizes are approximate. Refer to the IRIS Software Installation Guide for information on finding exact sizes. |
Table 2-3. WorldView Europe Language Subsystem Sizes
Subsystem Name | Approximate Subsystem Size (512-byte blocks) |
|---|---|
WorldView_euro.books.european (default) | 538 |
WorldView_euro.books.de_DesktopHelp (default) | 944 |
WorldView_euro.books.de_ErrorHelp (default) | 622 |
WorldView_euro.books.de_ErrorMessageHelp (default) | 318 |
WorldView_euro.books.de_Help (default) | 462 |
WorldView_euro.books.de_IRISEssentials (default) | 7787 |
WorldView_euro.books.de_MediaMailHelp (default) | 903 |
WorldView_euro.books.de_ConfTestErrors (default) | 352 |
WorldView_euro.books.de_ConfTestHelp (default) | 402 |
WorldView_euro.books.de_Doc_Catalog (default) | 592 |
WorldView_euro.books.de_PerSysAdmin (default) | 2025 |
WorldView_euro.books.de_ViewerHelp (default) | 363 |
WorldView_euro.books.de_global (default) | 479 |
WorldView_euro.books.de_help (default) | 520 |
WorldView_euro.books.fr_DesktopHelp (default) | 911 |
WorldView_euro.books.fr_ErrorHelp (default) | 599 |
WorldView_euro.books.fr_ErrorMessageHelp (default) | 318 |
WorldView_euro.books.fr_Help (default) | 446 |
WorldView_euro.books.fr IRISEssentials (default) | 6537 |
WorldView_euro.books.fr_MediaMailHelp (default) | 862 |
WorldView_euro.books.fr_ConfTestErrors (default) | 352 |
WorldView_euro.books.fr_ConfTestHelp (default) | 399 |
WorldView_euro.books.fr_Doc_Catalog (default) | 594 |
WorldView_euro.books.fr_PerSysAdmin (default) | 1999 |
WorldView_euro.books.fr_ViewerHelp (default) | 360 |
WorldView_euro.books.fr_global (default) | 900 |
WorldView_euro.books.fr_help (default) | 516 |
WorldView_euro.man.relnotes (default) | 13 |
WorldView_euro.env.Koi8 (default) | 488 |
WorldView_euro.env.german (default) | 1289 |
WorldView_euro.env.mmail_german | 443 |
WorldView_euro.env.showcase_german | 67 |
WorldView_euro.env.french (default) | 1363 |
WorldView_euro.env.mmail_french | 455 |
WorldView_euro.env.showcase_french | 69 |
Refer to the IRIS Software Installation Guide for complete installation instructions. None of the subsystems require miniroot install.