Re: Arabic vim/mlterm on OS X

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

I'm not an OS-X user, but I'm CC'ing arabeyes' "general" list as I knew
of a couple of OS-X lurkers there-in (more below)...

--- Kenneth Reid Beesley <krbeesley at gmail dot com> wrote:
>
> I am trying to do the following:
> 
> 1.  edit Arabic script on OSX, using vim, running in an mlterm
> 2.  and use my own Arabic keymap
> 
> So far I haven't quite got it right.  I'm a beginner to vim and mlterm, and
> any advice would be much appreciated.
> 
> Here's what I've done so far (OS X version 10.4.8)
> 
> a.  installed new Xcode
> b.  installed MacPorts (formerly DarwinPorts)
> c.  using MacPorts, and your instructions from 1 May 2002 in "mlterm -
> the holy grail",
> installed fribidi and mlterm
> 
> sudo port install mlterm +bidi
> (this installs mlterm with --enable-fribidi)
> 
> I can run
> 
> mlterm -E utf8 -w 20
> 
> with good results for Latin scripts.
> 
> d.  I installed 10x20.bdf and 10x21.pcf in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/arabic/
> cd'ed to that directory and ran
> mkfontdir
> xset fp+ `pwd`
> xset fp rehash
> 
> e.  using MacPorts, installed vim
> sudo port install vim +multibyte +huge
> 
> (this results in a vim with +arabic support)
> 
> f.  Again, I will be running vim in mlterm, so I added the following
> to my .vimrc
> 
> "  FOR ARABIC (in mlterm)
> 
> " setting termbidi means "I'm using mlterm" (Is this right?)
> set termbidi
> 
> " set the overall direction of the text??
> " set rightleft
> " set norightleft
> 
> " N.B. the following is ignored with using mlterm (set termbidi)
> " set arabicshape
> " the mlterm will take care of the shaping
> 
> "my locale is already UTF-8
> set encoding=utf-8
> 
> " I'll be using my own keymap
> "set keymap=arabicB
> 
> "    Font
> " needed for non-GUI (mlterm)???  I've tried both, so far without success
> set guifont=-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20-200-75-75-c-100-iso10646-1
> "set guifont=-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20-200-75-75-c-100-arabeyes-1
> " this font is in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/arabic/
> " I put them there and
> " cd /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/arabic/
> " sudo mkfontdir
> " xset fp+ `pwd`
> " xset fp rehash
> 
> " to set a set of fonts, instead of using 'set guifont'
> "set guifontset=firstfont, secondfont
> 
> " end of selection from .vimrc
> 
> ********
> 
> When I launch vim, inside mlterm, I can do
> :set arabic
> 
> to use the built-in keymap or even choose my own keymap
> 
> :set keymap=arabicB
> 
> and when I type, the display goes right to left, but I get empty
> rectangles instead of Arabic glyphs.  Oddly enough, I DO see
> diacritics like fatHa, Damma and kasra, but
> not the main letters.
> 
> **************  Questions
> 
> 1.  Am I setting the font correctly?  I.e. do I set guifont even if
> I'm not using the GUI version?

Sounds like a font issue to me...

> 2.  Anything else obviously wrong?
> 
> Thanks for all your work to make Arabic editing possible.

We have alot more to do; the vim and mlterm work are far from complete
(as you'll see once you get going).  Any and all help in those areas
would be very welcome.

Salam.

 - Nadim

> Sincerely,
> 
> Ken Beesley


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