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Budoka
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 3:19 am    Post subject: KDE Japanese language support. [SOLVED:sort of] Reply with quote

Hi. I have configured my laptop to support Japanese input and rendering etc using various sources on the Gentoo Forums/Wiki's.

But I must say it is just really cr*p on KDE4. I am sure it is something I did or did not do so I have a couple of general questions.

1) The fonts are just god awful. Sometimes almost illegible. I have downloaded "nicer" fonts including the proprietary MS Truetype fonts for Japanese and it is still awful so I am not sure if the system is using them. Any advice? recommended How To's etc.

2) I am having all sorts of encoding issued with applications. Take for example Thunderbird. In the preview window I get gobbledygook and the main text will render properly. If I set the view encoding to the appropriate one it will flip. Preview OK main text gobbledygook. This leads me to believe that it is something to do with the application UI. This isn't just on TBird.

The kicker is this. If I use XFCE, which I rather not, this behaviour doesn't happen.It seems to handle multiple encoding nicely. Also, albeit not gorgeous, the fonts are at least readable.

So this leads me to believe it is something specific to KDE.

Any ideas? This is 4 years old but is this bug related http://bugs.quassel-irc.org/issues/640?

I know it is a vague question but any help would be appreciated. Japanese language support is a hard requirement for my box and would like to stay in KDE but will use XFCE if that is the only way.

Thanks


Last edited by Budoka on Tue May 28, 2013 8:33 pm; edited 1 time in total
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bandreabis
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PostPosted: Sun May 19, 2013 6:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

UP!
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dufeu
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PostPosted: Sun May 19, 2013 11:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have some pretencions of eventually learning Japanese {yes, I have started kanji learning drills ..}.

To that end, I've prepared my systems with the following:
  1. snippet from my /etc/portage/make.conf
    Code:
    # CJK - for proper display/input of Chinese Japanese Koran text
    USE="${USE} scim immqt-bc cjk unicode nls anthy m17n-lib"

    #
    #   LINGUAS options

    # LINGUAS="en"
    LINGUAS="en ja"

  2. kde --> System Settings --> Application Appearance --> Fonts -->
    Code:
    Font Settings {list of fonts used for various things} CMU {Bright/Sans-serif}

    Code:
    Use anti-aliasing {Enabled}
         Configure: Exclude range: {off}
                    Use sub-pixel rendering: {RGB}
                    Hinting style: {Full}

  3. Fonts installed:
    • media-fonts/aquafont-2.7-r4
    • media-fonts/aquapfont-2.6-r2
    • media-fonts/cm-unicode-0.7.0
    • media-fonts/ipamonafont-1.0.8
    • media-fonts/ja-ipafonts-003.03
    • media-fonts/jisx0213-fonts-20040425-r2
    • media-fonts/kanjistrokeorders-2.016
    • media-fonts/kochi-substitute-20030809-r3
    • media-fonts/sazanami-20040629
    • media-fonts/shinonome-0.9.11
    • media-fonts/takao-fonts-003.02.01
    • media-fonts/wqy-bitmapfont-0.9.9_p0
    • media-fonts/wqy-microhei-0.2.0_beta
    • media-fonts/wqy-unibit-1.1.0_p1
    • media-fonts/wqy-zenhei-0.9.45

  4. If you use Adobe Reader for PDFs on Japanese websites, you'll need: media-fonts/acroread-asianfonts-9.1

For me - thunderbird, konqueror, firefox, chromium and seamonkey all render Japanese sites correctly.

The kde font rendering settings are important as is the list of USE flags and LINGUAS settings. Since you've used the available Gentoo Wiki documents, you should pretty much have that part set up properly.

Several of the available fonts are actually combined PacRim fonts which include Chinese, Japanese and Korean type faces such as the 'wqy' and 'cm-unicode' sets. I've preferentially set cm-unicode {CMU} as the various system default fonts. It allows me to visit the occasional Chinese and Korean site I get referenced to. Note that none of these fonts are always 'complete' for some definition of complete. i.e. I still encounter the rare and obscure symbol not present in any of my JA fonts.

Note also that the default kde install under Font Settings has Exclude range {on} 8.0 pt to 15.0 pt as well as Use sub-pixel rendering {off}. You do not want the defaults!

I haven't got very far in my kanji drills and I still haven't any practice yet at invoking and using the different input methods.

I hope this helps.

BTW - I've become your mostly full blown NEET anime Otaku.
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dufeu
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PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2013 12:21 am    Post subject: Re: KDE Japanese language support. Reply with quote

After mulling on your post overnight, I have some additional thoughts.

Budoka wrote:
1) The fonts are just god awful. Sometimes almost illegible. I have downloaded "nicer" fonts including the proprietary MS Truetype fonts for Japanese and it is still awful so I am not sure if the system is using them. Any advice? recommended How To's etc.

2) I am having all sorts of encoding issued with applications. Take for example Thunderbird. In the preview window I get gobbledygook and the main text will render properly. If I set the view encoding to the appropriate one it will flip. Preview OK main text gobbledygook. This leads me to believe that it is something to do with the application UI. This isn't just on TBird.

The kicker is this. If I use XFCE, which I rather not, this behaviour doesn't happen.It seems to handle multiple encoding nicely. Also, albeit not gorgeous, the fonts are at least readable.

So this leads me to believe it is something specific to KDE.

Any ideas? This is 4 years old but is this bug related http://bugs.quassel-irc.org/issues/640?

I know it is a vague question but any help would be appreciated. Japanese language support is a hard requirement for my box and would like to stay in KDE but will use XFCE if that is the only way.


Your question 1) - From your description, I'm fairly sure that you probably have the kde default anti-aliasing settings. Check and change as needed.

Your question 2) - As a maximalist featured windows manager, KDE makes preferred system default fonts available to any application that asks. Thunderbird, by design, tries to respect these defaults. You can either explicitly edit your thunderbird settings {usually through a custom CSS form} and specify each of the fonts to use for preview/main view modes OR you can set KDE's system default font settings based upon different uses. If you set KDE's default fonts, you need to change ALL of these to the font you want to use for each of these uses. If you have mix and matched fonts, some of which are JA unicode and some of which are not, then yes, some places will unexpectedly display garbage.

As a minimalist featured windows manager, XFCE does not present a list of system default fonts to most applications. In a case like this, thunderbird will make it's best guess at rendering the display based on LINGUAS and what ever it detects.

Of course, this situation will vary depending on how window manager/unicode/encodings aware a given application is. While the situation in greatly improved from even a few years ago, it's still very messy.

Finally, you'll encounter some files where there is only gobbledygook. I've seen this with some subtitle files from time to time. As best as I can figure, someone automatically/inadvertently saved such files in one encoding while the file was actually sourced in a different encoding. Don't get fooled into thinking that you've encountered a possible configuration/program bug every time when you can't render a file properly. Sometimes the file really is gobbledygook.

Hope this helps.
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Budoka
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PostPosted: Tue May 28, 2013 8:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks dufeu. I did indeed forget the CJK use and anti-aliasing. Although still not an ideal rendering it is IMMENSELY better.

Now if I can just get a handle on my QT config and IBus life will be good again.

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-960282-highlight-.html

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-956976-highlight-.html

Good luck with your Japanese studies.
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