Re: [address@hidden: Emacs Foreign Language editing and printing.]

[Kenichi Handa]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> Should some of this be documented in the Emacs manual?
> Or perhaps in PROBLEMS or some other file in the distribution?
[...]
> ------- Start of forwarded message -------
> From: Peter Andrew Hanson <pehanson@indiana.edu>
> Subject: Emacs Foreign Language editing and printing. 
[...]

Thank you for the report.

> First insert the following in your .cshrc or .tcshrc file:
> xset fp+ /usr/local/share/emacs/fonts
> xset fp rehash

The above is ok, and is worth describing at somewhere.

> xset fp+ /usr/local/share/emacs/fonts/bdf
> xset fp rehash

The above is useless.

> Second insert the following in your .emacs file (sample is for ChineseGB):
> ;;--------------------------------------------------------- ;;
>   (autoload 'c2gbstrt "c2gbstrt"
>     "Start Chinese Mandarin GB character environment.\n" t) 
> ;; 
> ;;
>    (defun c2gbstrt ()
>      (interactive)
>      (progn
>        (setq message-log-max 4)
>        (setq ps-multibyte-buffer 'bdf-font)
>  (setq bdf-directory-list '("/usr/local/share/emacs/fonts/bdf"))
>        (setup-chinese-gb-environment)

The above line is not necessary if you have the following line.

>        (set-language-environment 'Chinese-GB)

>          (set-terminal-coding-system 'euc-china-unix)

The above line should be recommended only for a chinese
capable terminal user.

> ;; The following line is commented out . . .
> ;; (set-buffer-process-coding-system 'euc-china-unix 'euc-china-unix)
>          (set-buffer-file-coding-system 'euc-china-unix)

The above line is usually useless because euc-china-unix is
set only for the current buffer (perhaps *scratch*).

>          (set-terminal-coding-system 'euc-china-unix)

Why again?

>          (set-keyboard-coding-system 'euc-china-unix)

Perhaps, the above line is good to recommend to all Chinese
users.

>          (set-input-method 'chinese-tonepy)

This activates the input method.  But, I think what poeple
want is to set the default input method turned on by C-\.

>        (mule-diag))) 

What for?

> ;; or (for ChineseBIG5):
[...]
>          (set-input-method 'chinese-tonepy)

We should not recommend GB char input method to Big5 users.

> Then start emacs with the following command:

> emacs -fn fontset-standard --multibyte &

> After emacs starts with the above command hit "escape key" then "X key" 
> and enter c2gbstrt this would start emacs chineseGB or enter c2b5strt this
> would start emacs chineseBIG5 and allow postscript printing of the Chinese
> output.

As Emacs now respects locale, the better advice for Chinese
users is to set LANG correctly.  And, even for a people who
runs Emacs on a system that doesn't support Chinese locale,
it is better to advice to use C-x RET l chinese-gb RET or
C-x RET l chinese-big5 RET.

To summarize, if we dare to write this kind of advice
somewhere, it should be something like below:

(1) Install intlfonts (available at all GNU FTP mirror sites).

The default installation path is /usr/local/share/emacs/fonts.

(2) Put the following lines in your .emacs.
;;----------------------------------------------------------------------
(setq bdf-directory-list '("/usr/local/share/emacs/fonts/bdf"))

(defun my-chinese-setup ()
  "Do various setups for Chinese-GB and Chinese-BIG5 language environment."
  (cond ((equal current-language-environment "Chinese-GB")
         ;; Change "chinese-tonepy" to what you prefer for
         ;; inputting GB characters.
         (setq default-input-method "chinese-tonepy")
         ;; If you are using a GB capable terminal,
         ;; uncomment the next line.
         ;; (set-terminal-coding-system 'euc-china)
         (set-keyboard-coding-system 'euc-china)
         ;; If you want to print a buffer to PostScript printer by
         ;; BDF bitmap fonts, uncomment the next line.
         ;; (setq ps-multibyte-buffer 'bdf-font)
        )

        ((equal current-language-environment "Chinese-BIG5")
         ;; Change "chinese-tonepy" to what you prefer for
         ;; inputting Big5 characters.
         (setq default-input-method "chinese-py-b5")
         ;; If you are using a Big5 capable terminal,
         ;; uncomment the next line.
         ;; (set-terminal-coding-system 'big5)
         (set-keyboard-coding-system 'big5-unix)
         ;; If you want to print a buffer to PostScript printer by
         ;; BDF bitmap fonts, uncomment the next line.
         ;; (setq ps-multibyte-buffer 'bdf-font)
         )))

(add-hook 'set-language-environment-hook 'my-chinese-setup)
;;----------------------------------------------------------------------

(3) Start Emacs as below:
  % emacs -fn fontset-standard

(4) If you are not in your preferfed Chinese language
environment, switch to that by:
  C-x RET l chinese-gb RET   or   C-x RET l chinese-big5 RET.

---
Ken'ichi HANDA
handa@etl.go.jp