| The GreekMe page,
For
Hellenic Language support. |
|
| a) In this
page,
2 things will be assumed: 1) Hellenic support is not for virtual console. In console mode, the characters that are included in the font are not only for writing. They are also used for the program layout. So, speaking about 8 bit console fonts, when we change a font for multilanguage, in reality we use a font that can be English AND other (ie Greek). But to do this, we have to replace special characters with the second language's ones, therefore, the appearence of console programs will be altered and this won't be for the better. 2) Kde will be used to change locale. There are some 3rd party utilities that "show" the language as an icon for X, but I regret to say that the "look" and "feel" is more like the ones in Windows 3.x back in 1995. So, if the user needs a visual report considering the current language, I wouldn't recommend to change the language using the X modifier keys. In my case, I use Kde multilanguage support with the option to show in the traybar, and a little Kde shortcut modification for changing languages. b) The goods The current version of Kde is fully multilanguage, considering not only application support, but interface as well! The interface (menus,buttons,help etc.) can be switched to another language (Englich, German, Greek, Spanish etc.) with a simple button click, using the same Kde package, If the multilanguage support has been installed. Because Kde lives above X (read the GraphMe page), language switching applies to all X applications, being Kde or not. Since I always use the English interface, in reality I use Kde because of it's simplest way for creating and handling a multilanguage environment, but I've created some users that have a more "localized" taste for operating the OS. International users logged on to a single GNU/Linux box running X+Kde can be equally served. c) The bads Not being the fault of Kde, there are some small problems that can easily be overriden. 1) The popular alt+shift key combination is considered an X modifier abd not a simple shortcut. Kde can use it if we edit the X modifier list. Alternatively, we can use a different shortcut. 2) Greek Monotonic always uses accents and Polytonic uses hyphenations as well. If the user configures only Kde, there are chances that he will use an "Atonic" language with no use at all :)) ! Therefore, modifications in the shell environment must be done. d) Solution 1) Shell First, we must change some environmental info considering users. I do in in ~/.bash_profile instead of /etc/profile because it's better to distinguish users than to make a global change. Using this method, root can fully configure each one user and give him/her the language settings he/she desires. This is the "serious" work:
The easiest way to make the changes active without logging out and back in is: source ~/.bash_profile For full effects, do this in a tty (console mode) and then call X+Kde. startx is the simplest way, if the startkde command is inside ~/.xinitrc 2) Gui After initializing X+Kde from the shell that has the above variables properly modofied, we follow the next steps: * call Control Center * expand Regional & Accessibility * Modify Country /Region & Language. I have selected Country "Greece", but Language "English". Careful, this section defines the interface. Modify what you need. * Then we modify Keyboard Layout. My settings are: Keyboard Model Generic 105 Key (Intl) PC, but others work, too. Primary Layout US English w/ISO9995-3 Primary variant Basic Additional Layouts Greek. You may add as many as you want. * Finally, we modify Keyboard Shorcuts. As stated previously, alt+shift is a little tricky. In earlier days we had to tweak the Modifier keys inside xorg.conf. But nowdays Kde can change the behaviour of the modifier keys. Furthermore, alt+z for example might be difficult too, because once it is used to change to the next language, then the "z" character is changed to the new localized one, so alt+z can't change back to the first if we have 2 languages (most people do). And because of the possibility of more than 2 languages, the alternate keyboard shortcut doesn't really solve the situation. I have decided to use alt+space. It can easily remembered especially to MS Windows users (it brings up the Window control list) and it is the same, nomatter the locality change. So, the two simple solutions are: either 1) choose alt+space in the Switch To Next Keyboard Layout shortcut section, or 2) use the alt+shift modifier key. e) Troubleshooting
f) Variations (added in 29 March 2004) In some cases where on login screens all the LANG settings must be english, the modifications can be easily made inside ~/.xinitrc instead of ~/.bash_profile.
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