Why don't we add a Japanese font to ReactOS?

[sabiki]

I think it was already discussed… Do you have some other suggestions?

Does Systema font look large?

[Lone_Rifle]

The filesize still makes me favour Misaki.. hto, not sure why you didn't go for it =)

[hto]

Does Systema font look large?

IMHO, it looks good.

• Systema

You're a Japanese user, so you should know better, which Japanese font to choose. ;)

The filesize still makes me favour Misaki.. hto, not sure why you didn't go for it =)

But it's so rough.

I am not sure why a font file should be added to the trunk. On release CD, on the other hand, file size is not very important, so it's not necessary to try to minimize it. I would first like to know what is the opinion of developers / testers before committing a file.

Now some digression. I see that many CJK fonts also include Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic letters. These alphabets have much in common, and font designers usually follow the same guidelines when designing letters for them. But it seems that CJK font designers hold another belief. That is what I mean:

[ external image ]

The words on every first line are written in Latin letters, on every second — in Cyrillic. There's a significant difference between them: while Latin is okay, Cyrillic often looks ugly.

[hto]

Well, will then different languages of usetup use different fonts?

No. Maybe Japanese vga font is not included.

I just tried 1st stage setup. That's what I have come out (Misaki 8x8 font, some random Japanese text). I think that it looks too pale. Maybe some other font would be better?

[sabiki]

How about Izumi Bitmap font?
Anyway,can Kanji character be displayed?

[hto]

Izumi has 16x16 glyphs. But 8x8 are needed. Scaling down will not help — the letter strokes will not become more thick after it.

I tried to search, but have not found such a font — 8x8 and bold. A way out is to draw letters myself.

Only katakana can be used.

[EmuandCo]

Wouldnt we need Hiragana and some Kanjis too?

[GoBusto]

Wouldnt we need Hiragana and some Kanjis too?

Quick question: How does first stage setup encode/display characters? Does it use ASCII, UTF-8, UTF-16, etc. or does it use codepages? I'm guessing that it uses UTF-16 since that's what NT uses internally?

[hto]

USetup uses codepages… 8-bit subset of CP-932 is used for Japanese language. Halfwidth katakana (U+FF61–U+FF9F) has occupied the 0xA1–0xDF range. And VGA font for CP-932 from Microsoft also allows to display only these Japanese letters. As I don't speak this language, I don't know, how large this obstacle for Japanese people. I just consulted with my sister (she knows Japanese), and she says that it is no problem to read the katakana (just as to understand spoken language).

[GoBusto]

USetup uses codepages… 8-bit subset of CP-932 is used for Japanese language. Halfwidth katakana (U+FF61–U+FF9F) has occupied the 0xA1–0xDF range. And VGA font for CP-932 from Microsoft also allows to display only these Japanese letters. As I don't speak this language, I don't know, how large this obstacle for Japanese people. I just consulted with my sister (she knows Japanese), and she says that it is no problem to read the katakana (just as to understand spoken language).

Speaking as someone with a (limited, non-native) knowledge of the language, it's not really a problem. Hiragana and katakana can be thought of as being roughly analogous to upper and lower case in English. While it's nice to have both, you can get by with just one of them.

Kanji characters can be written using either hiragana or katakana characters instead. See http://www.kanjisite.com/html/wak/wak8.html

There's nothing to stop you writing a kanji word (be it a compound, adjective or verb) entirely in hiragana - in fact, until you learn all the kanji you need, you won't have much choice.

[EmuandCo]

Of course they can, but many normally wont in the real writing.

[hto]

Kanji characters can be written using either hiragana or katakana characters instead.

The problem with using kana instead of kanji is that different kanji characters have identical kana representation. So Japanese poets can write verses with double and triple meaning. But it can be a problem in documents, where any ambiguity is undesirable.

[Lone_Rifle]

since when were you guys experts in Japanese!?

[GoBusto]

The problem with using kana instead of kanji is that different kanji characters have identical kana representation. So Japanese poets can write verses with double and triple meaning. But it can be a problem in documents, where any ambiguity is undesirable.

In Japanese, the word for "server" is pronounced "saaba", while "saba" is the word for mackerel.

ReactOS: Fish Edition.

[EmuandCo]

I am no expert, but my geek GF learns Japanese right now