Subject: GNU-WIN/32 on international versions of Windows
From: [email-masked] (Colin Peters)

6 Nov 1996 01:02:00 -0800
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In-reply-to: Neil Readshaw's message of Tue, 05 Nov 1996 09:27:11 -0800 <[email-masked]>
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This is a guess (with perhaps some basis in fact): Maybe it's rcl.

Maybe rcl reads in your resource script and converts your strings into
wide character equivalents (which it has to do if those files are in
ASCII, because resource strings are UNICODE under Win32). This is good,
but maybe it also does that to strings which are already wide character
strings... confirm or deny Gunther?

I don't know how the "big guys" resource compilers deal with this problem.
Unless there is some way inside the resource script of identifying the
encoding of the strings the only thing the resource compiler can do is
guess. Rcl, I think, guesses ASCII.

What this would mean is that your dialog boxes would end up looking like
Asian apps usually do on English Windows without and language add-on
(line noise), even when you are running under an Asian version, because it
would be perfectly acceptable UNICODE line noise.

This BTW, would also explain why the add-on product you mention handles
it fine, because it probably grabs every string on it's way to the screen
and runs a conversion on it, based on whether it looks wide character or
not, turning the line noise into readable characters.

I'm not sure how to go about solving this, if this is in fact the problem,
but I do have a strong feeling that this is at least what is going on.

> Date: Tue, 05 Nov 1996 09:27:11 -0800
> From: Neil Readshaw <[email-masked]>
> 
> If I have a resource such as a dialog box with some labels, entry
> fields, 
> etc, any labels that are not in English do not come out properly.  It 
> appears that each byte is trying to be represented as a character, not
> single byte character sets.  I am not sure the exact nature of this 
> problem, or what to do next.  I was wondering if you had included 
> resources in any applications that you had built with the GNU stuff.
> 
> I have tried putting the resources into True Type as well as the older
> style font types, like MS Sans Serif, both of which are supported in 
> the Japanese Windows I am working with.  A wierd thing is that on 
> another machine, I am trialling a product called Union Way (available
> on the Web), which puts a layer on English Windows to givw an Asian
> language environment.  On this setup, it works fine ??
> 
> I am using Gunther Ebert's RCL program to put the resources into my
> executable.  Perhaps there is some problem here - I am not sure.  I 
> am not sure which version of rcl.exe I am using, but the file size
> is 173264 bytes.  Perhaps I need a newer version ?
> 
> I have even tried changing the text labels in dialogs during the
> WM_INITDIALOG message, using SetWindowText or SetDlgItemText API
> calls, but the result is the same, so I fear that the problem is 
> related to the resources inside the executable, rather that something
> at the display end.

Ja mata,
Colin.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Colin Peters ------------ Saga Univ. Dept. of Information Science, Saga, JAPAN
http://www.fu.is.saga-u.ac.jp/~colin/home.html - [email-masked]
コリン ピーターズ - 佐賀大学理工学部情報科学科情報基礎学講座
                    - Current favorite kanji: 晴れ 芝生 -

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