mined - a utf-8 editor

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

I'd come across mined (a UTF-8 supporting editor) awhile back (April I
think) and had contacted the author about some questions/changes - that's
the short of how I'm involved and why I'm e-mailing this.  I'd wanted
to share the info and to let those on 'developer' out there looking for
a challange to step forward and either hack the added Arabic support or
to lobby for it :-).  I'm not sure how interested Thomas (mined's author)
is in listening to us, but hey there is no harm in asking (again :-)

I'm including the two issues (note second email below) that I saw were
paramount for me to get mined working with Arabic (plus it would simplify
life for others).

How can I use mined eventhough it has no shaping or bidi support ?  Well,
simple -- use mlterm (mlterm.sf.net).  mlterm will do all your shaping
as well as bidi (bi-directionality), thus the only thing that needs to
be done is a way to be able to enter Arabic via the keyboard (ie. the
need for an Arabic keyboard mapping).

Note: most, if not all, Arabic supporting (and utf-8) editors out there
      have their own keymaps (emacs, katoob, vim, yudit, etc).

Salam.

 - Nadim


On Mon, 23 Sep 2002 01:13:02 +0200,
  Thomas Wolff (thomas at towo dot net) wrote:
>
>                        ANNOUNCEMENT
>
>                    mined 2000 release 4
>
> An editor that is small and easy to use but yet full of capabilities.
> Runs in plain text mode terminals.
> Supports Unicode. Provides mouse control and menus.
> Runs on Unix and DOS/Windows platforms.
>
> Short description
>
>         Good interactive features
>         * an intuitive user interface
>         * command control and pull-down menus available
>         * control and function key or mouse control
>
>         Many useful text editing features
>         * extensive Unicode support, including double-width and 
>           combining characters
>         * many text editing capabilities, e.g. paragraph wrapping, 
>           smart quotes, multi-line support in search and replacement
>           patterns
>         * program editing features, HTML support and syntax
>           highlighting, identifier search
>         * systematic text and file handling safety, avoiding loss
>           of data
>
>         "Small-footprint" operation and portability
>         * plain text mode (terminal) operation
>         * instant start-up
>         * cross-platform operation (Unix, DOS/Windows)
>
> More information (with screenshots and change log) and download
> are available from the mined web page at
>
>         http://towo.net/mined/

Here is the email noted above with the issues I saw which still
stand as far as I'm concerned.

On Tue, 6 Aug 2002 18:46:17 +0200 (MEST),
  Thomas Wolff (mined at towo dot net) wrote:
> 
> Nadim Shaikli wrote:
> >
> > Greetings, I recently stumbled on mined and had the following comments
> > and questions.
>
> >  Comment: It would really be nice to port mined to GNU's autotools,
> >           so that unix users can resort to 'configure' to compiled
> >           and install.
> 
> Yes, that would be great. I once spent an afternoon on an attempt to 
> do that and I surrended in regard of the incredible complexity of 
> autoconf. Honestly, I tend to refuse to study tools for days before 
> I can even have a first try. For my impression, this is almost as 
> confused as sendmail configuration.
> Do you have any different experience?
> 
> >  Question: How do I type in a different language other than english ?
> >            I tried to start mined with '-C', but everything I typed
> >            was english and not chinese.  Is there a way to switch to
> >            a different keymap -- I didn't see any info on this in the
> >            html or the man page.
> 
> mined -C would assume that the terminal you run in supports a mixed 
> 8/16 bit Chinese character set. E.g. an xterm variant called hanterm 
> is supported this way. The terminal has its own input mechanisms for 
> Chinese character input.  mined -C is not the right option for Arabic
> or Unicode editing.
> 
> > For instance, if I wanted to enter Arabic characters into mined, what
> > should I do and to go about it ?
> 
> Mined does not support its own keyboard mappings because that is 
> basically the task of the terminal environment (e.g. xterm variant) 
> or even the operating system or window system (X).  So if you work
> with Arabic text, you should use a terminal or a keyboard driver
> that supports Arabic character input by some appropriate means. This
> approach also has the advantage that keyboard-character mappings do
> not become application-proprietary.  Mined does have, however, support
> for input of single Unicode characters.  I will update the manual with
> a better overview.
> 
> * Direct character input: to be supported by your terminal, or use 
>   copy and paste from a Unicode character displayed in another xterm.
> * Hex input: press control-V, then #, then a sequence of hex digits, 
>   then a blank or return.
>   Example: "^V#62b " (where ^V is control-V) enters an Arabic character.
> * Mnemonic input: press control-V, then a blank, then a mnemonic 
>   character name or shortcut, then a blank or return.
>   Mnemonics according to RFC 1345 and others are recognized.
>   Example: "^V dk- " (where ^V is control-V) enters an Arabic character.
> 
> Also, there is implicit right-to-left support such that Arabic text 
> entered on a normal terminal will be written from right to left.
> 
> If you want to respond to my mail in the next 2 weeks, please include 
> the Cc: of this mail as a recipient.
> 
> Kind regards,
> Thomas Wolff


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