a software library for multilingualisation

[TAKAHASHI Naoto <ntakahas at m17n dot org>]

Dear Arabeyes developers,

Nadim Shaikli kindly encouraged me to post this information to this list.

We have been working on developing a software library to
multilingualise Unix/Linux software.  Our library helps writing
application programs that need to display/input/edit various languages
and scripts including, of course, Arabic.

  http://www.m17n.org/m17n-lib/

A snapshot of a sample program (a simple editor) using this library is
available at the following URL.

  http://www.m17n.org/ntakahas/tmpdir/un.png

The font used there is Riwaj.ttf.  I do not read Arabic, but it looks
farely beautiful.  However, the font fails to position vowel signs
correctly.  Look at this.

  http://www.m17n.org/ntakahas/tmpdir/poem.png

I have investigated all the opentype fonts available from the Arabeyes
web site. Unfortunately, none of them had appropriate GPOS features.
So I imagine that vowels signs have little importance to native
speakers.

Anyway, we will be very glad if you make use of our library to develop
Arabised application programs for Unix/Linux systems.

Best regards,

-- 
TAKAHASHI Naoto
ntakahas at m17n dot org
http://www.m17n.org/ntakahas/