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<style>
.reverse {color: white; background-color: black;}
.unispecial {background-color: cyan;}
</style>
<head>
<meta name="description" content="Mined - UTF-8 mode editing.">
<meta name="keywords" content="editor, text mode editor, programmers editor, programming editor, Unicode editor, UTF-8 editor, Unicode text editor, UTF-8 text editor, Unicode text mode editor, UTF-8 text mode editor, text mode Unicode editor, text mode UTF-8 editor, text mode HTML editor, CJK editor">
<meta name="robots" content="index">
<title>mined 2000 Unicode Howto</title>
<script language="JavaScript">
top.select ("unicode");
</script>
</head>
<br>
<center>
<h3>Mined Unicode Howto</h3>
<h4>Environment setup and Usage of mined for Unicode text</h4>
</center>
<br>
<ul>
<h4>UTF-8 encoded Unicode support and features</h4>
<li> <img align=absmiddle src=handr.gif>
See the <a href=features.html#unicode>mined features</a> page for
an overview of mined support for Unicode editing.
<li> For general information on Unicode and its support on computers,
see also Markus Kuhn's
<a target=_blank href=http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/unicode.html>
UTF-8 and Unicode FAQ for Unix/Linux</a>.
</ul>
<br>
<dl>
<dd>
<h4>Environment setup</h4>
<dl>
<p>
<dt><i>Install suitable terminal</i>
<dd>
Mined is a text mode editor. Its UTF-8 support is available
for example with the newer versions of
<a target=_blank href=http://dickey.his.com/xterm/xterm.html>
xterm</a> (>= 145 recommended),
<a target=_blank href=http://sourceforge.net/projects/rxvt-unicode>
rxvt-unicode</a>, mlterm, or on the Linux console, each in UTF-8 mode.
<ul>
<li>If you don't have a recent version of xterm on your system, compile
one yourself; configure xterm with the option "--enable-wide-chars" or
use the script <code>configure-xterm</code> from the
mined runtime support library. Then invoke "make".
</ul>
<p>
<dt><i>Install suitable fonts</i>
<dd>
Install Unicode fonts for your X server.
<ul>
<li>To check if your X installation already provides Unicode fonts,
you may invoke the command <nobr><code>xlsfonts | grep iso10646</code></nobr>.
If this doesn't list anything, or if you cannot find a suitable font
setup, do the following:
<dl>
<dd>
<li>Retrieve some of the following fonts:
<ul>
<li> <a href=http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/download/ucs-fonts.tar.gz>
UCS fonts for X</a>
with their
<a href=http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/download/ucs-fonts-asian.tar.gz>
CJK supplement</a>
from Markus Kuhn's page
<a target=_blank href=http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs-fonts.html>
Unicode fonts and tools for X11</a>
<li> <a href=http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/download/ucs-fonts-75dpi100dpi.tar.gz>
Adobe and B&H bitmap fonts</a>
from the same site which contain fixed width Courier and
Lucida Typewriter fonts
<li> <a href=http://www.inp.nsk.su/~bolkhov/files/fonts/univga/uni-vga.tgz>
Unicode VGA font</a>
from
<a target=_blank href=http://www.inp.nsk.su/~bolkhov/files/fonts/univga/>
Dmitry Bolkhovityanov</a>'s site
<li> <href=http://bibliofile.mc.duke.edu/gww/fonts/Monospace/MonospaceRoman.bdf.tar.gz>
Monospace Roman BDF fonts</a>
and their Oblique / Bold / Bold Oblique supplements from
<a target=_blank href=http://bibliofile.mc.duke.edu/gww/fonts/Unicode.html>
George Williams Unicode fonts page</a>
</ul>
<li>The nicest looking font in the UCS fonts archive mentioned above
is the 10x20 size font, it is suitable for higher screen resolutions.
Unfortunately, the CJK double-width fonts are not distributed in
the corresponding 20x20 size, but only in the 18x18 size. The
corresponding single-width font in 9x18 size, however, looks quite
spindly and for my taste rather awkward.
<br>
For this reason, I am providing a script to generate 20x20 CJK fonts
automatically from the 18x18 UCS fonts distributed for X servers.
It is <code>bdf18to20</code> and you find it in the mined runtime
support library. Go into the directory where you unpacked the fonts
and invoke the script.
<li>Install the fonts with your X server: unpack them into a directory
(e.g. <code>$HOME/xfonts</code>), go into that directory, invoke the
<code>mkfontdir</code> command. Then make sure that the fonts are
loaded into your X server, using the command
<code>xset +fp $HOME/xfonts</code>; a suitable place to include this
would be your <code>$HOME/.xinitrc</code> X initialisation file if you
have one.
<dl>
<dd><i>Note:</i> If you are working in a network, make sure the xset
command is invoked such that the X server has access to the given
directory on the machine it is running on.
<dd>Some X servers (e.g.
Exceed on Windows) do not accept BDF fonts; use the "Compile Fonts"
function of the configuration menu to install the fonts.
</dl>
</dl>
</ul>
<p>
<dt><i>Start terminal in UTF-8 mode</i>
<dd>
Invoke a terminal window in UTF-8 mode and configure it to use
fonts sufficient to display the text you want to edit.
<ul>
<li>Invoke xterm with suitable resource configuration or command line
parameters.
I recommend to invoke xterm with my Unicode xterm invocation script
<code>uterm</code> from the mined runtime support library.
<br>Since mined 2000.8, UTF-8 mode is auto-detected. So it will work
even if your locale environment is not configured correctly.
<dl>
<dd><i>Note:</i> xterm is quite touchy about configuring suitable
matching fonts for single-width and double-width glyphs. If you are
unlucky, CJK character display will result in garbage on the screen.
My recommendation is to generate the 20x20 UCS fonts with my
<code>bdf18to20</code> script as mentioned above and configure xterm
to use 10x20 - it will then automatically select one of the 20x20
fonts for double-width characters; if you have a preference among
them, use the -fw command line option or the wideFont X resource (in
your <code>$HOME/.Xdefaults</code> file).
See the pattern file <code>Xdefaults.mined</code> in the mined runtime
support library for suggestions of suitable entries.
(Double-width font matching works much better with rxvt which even seems
to scale double-width fonts in an acceptable way if needed.)
</dl>
<li>If you prefer rxvt, use rxvt-unicode and make sure to indicate
using UTF-8 by setting a locale in your environment that is installed
on your system.
<dl>
<dd><i>Note:</i> rxvt is quite touchy about configuring a known locale
setting; it does not have a strict UTF-8 option that would reliably
work on all systems.
<br>
<i>Hint:</i> For hints how to configure the environment explicitly so
that rxvt and other applications work with UTF-8, see the mined manual
page (about LC_CTYPE and other environment variables).
Accurate locale setting is not needed by xterm and mined.
</dl>
<li>Alternatively, you can start mined directly together with its own
terminal window. For this purpose, the mined runtime support library
contains the script <code>umined</code>.
<dt>On a Windows system, you can also use the script
<code>wmined</code> or <code>wmined.bat</code> which will invoke mined
in an rxvt terminal window. <code>wmined</code> starts rxvt with
Windows look-and-feel colour settings and tries to match your font
size preferences by inspecting the Windows registry. The advantage of
using rxvt on Windows is that it can run stand-alone, without an X server.
The disadvantage is that rxvt-unicode does not run on Windows yet.
</ul>
</dl>
</dl>
<br>
<dl>
<dd>
<h4>Handling Unicode text with mined</h4>
<dl>
<p>
<dt><i>Screen handling</i>
<dd>
Usually, mined will auto-detect a UTF-8 terminal and also
the detailed features it has (like double-width and
combining characters, Arabic ligature joining, different width
data sets).
<p>
<dt><i>Character encoding</i>
<dd>
By default, mined detects automatically if the text in an edited
file is UTF-8 encoded (Unicode character set) or not (either
8 bit encoded or CJK encoded); it also detects and maintains UTF-16.
<br>
Mined handles illegal UTF-8 sequences transparently so
if you accidentally open an 8 bit or CJK encoded file in UTF-8
mode, or a file with mixed parts, you can edit the text without
problems and will not loose any information. Non-UTF-8 codes
are indicated by display background highlighting.
<br>
While editing, you can switch the character encoding assumed
for text interpretation with the encoding menu
(left-click to toggle current and previous encoding,
right-click to open menu).
<p>
<dt><i>Unicode display on non-Unicode terminal</i>
<dd>
If a UTF-8 file is edited in a Latin-1 terminal environment,
characters outside of the Latin-1 range (greater than 0xFF)
are displayed as a block symbol <code class=unispecial></code>
with special indications for wide and combining characters.
The Euro symbol is displayed as <code class=unispecial>E</code>.
Please consult the manual page, section
<a href=mined.html#utf8display>Unicode display</a> for details.
<p>
<dt><i>Combining characters</i>
<dd>
Mined supports display and editing of combined characters
consisting of a base character and one or more combining
characters.
<br>
It provides two display mode, a combined display mode
which displays the combined characters as they should appear,
and a separated display mode which separates base character
and combining characters for explicit handling.
These modes can be selected and are indicated in the
Combining display flag: <code></code>: combined mode,
<code class=unispecial>`</code>: separated mode.
<br>
See the manual page, section <a href=mined.html#combined>
Combining characters</a> for details.
<p>
<dt><i>Bidirectional display</i>
<dd>
Mined auto-detects if it is run in a terminal that supports
bidi scripts (e.g. mlterm), or it can be told so with the
command line parameter <code>+UU</code>.
The mined runtime support library contains a script
<code>mterm</code> to invoke mlterm with suitable parameters
to set up bidi mode and a suitable font.
<p>
<dt><i>CJK and 8 bit character set support on Unicode terminal</i>
<dd>
Mined also handles major CJK encodings in a UTF-8 terminal,
as well as a selected set of mapped 8 bit character sets.
See the <a href=features.html#cjk>mined features</a> page,
or the manual page, sections <a href=mined.html#cjk>
CJK support</a> and <a href=mined.html#charencoding>
Character encoding support</a> for details.
</dl>
</dl>
<hr>
<dt>Mined <a target=_top href=./>homepage</a> and download.
<dt><a href=mailto:mined@towo.net>Thomas Wolff</a>
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