Fonts: (a) need good char-map utility (b) accented, umlauts, etc. in apps

[dhfx]

I just installed the Windows Core TT fonts, and now Firefox looks "normal" (home page of The New York Times appears in REAL Times Roman instead of Nimbus pseudo-TR).

One thing I would like to find in Hardy is a font character-selector utility like the Windows character map, that would show nonexistent glyphs as blanks instead of filling in from some default font, and would show Unicode pages as well as the base 8-bit. Has anyone seen such an animal for (K)ubuntu?

Also, I notice that Kate, Kedit & co. don't seem to like characters with accents, umlauts, etc. (this applies even for 8-bit characters, never mind Unicode). How to change this? (How do French, Spanish, German etc. users manage?) Or do I have to install Wine so I can use one of the good Windows text editors, like the freeware Crimson Editor?

[DeathKitten]

Re: Fonts: (a) need good char-map utility (b) accented, umlauts, etc. in apps

I use KCharSelect for character map utilities, and everything seems to work beautifully.

As for the accented, umlauted, etc. characters, I seem to do okay with Open Office. *shrugs* I don't do much, but the occasional German ends up in my writing from time to time. I usually have more use for such characters in my html documents though, so I'm probably not the best source for such information.

[dhfx]

Re: Fonts: (a) need good char-map utility (b) accented, umlauts, etc. in apps

Tried installing KCharSelect, but it's a KDE 4.0 utility, and I'm still on 3.5.9.

Found some other character utilities: Character Map and Waterfall. CharacterMap shows all Unicode pages, but fills in missing glyphs from some other default font. Waterfall is a "quick brown fox" display that indicates missing glyphs as boxes (which is what I want) but it doesn't map the entire font.

Meanwhile, I found LeafEditor, which looks like a Linux version of Notepad. Nice thing is, it doesn't do funny things to accented and umlauted characters. I was able to load and correctly display the following text, which I offer as an example (note umlauts and special German double-S character):

Die unmögliche Tatsache
von Christian Morgenstern
__________________________

Palmström, etwas schon an Jahren,
wird an einer Straßenbeuge
und von einem Kraftfahrzeuge
überfahren.

Wie war (spricht er, sich erhebend
und entschlossen weiterlebend)
möglich, wie dies Unglück, ja -:
dass es überhaupt geschah?

Ist die Staatskunst anzuklagen
in Bezug auf Kraftfahrwagen?
Gab die Polizeivorschrift
hier dem Fahrer freie Trift?

Oder war vielmehr verboten
hier Lebendige zu Toten
umzuwandeln - kurz und schlicht:
Durfte hier der Kutscher nicht -?

Eingehüllt in feuchte Tücher,
prüft er die Gesetzesbücher
und ist alsobald im klaren:
Wagen durften dort nicht fahren!

Und er kommt zu dem Ergebnis:
Nur ein Traum war das Erlebnis.
Weil, so schließt er messerscharf,
nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf.

[askrieger]

Re: Fonts: (a) need good char-map utility (b) accented, umlauts, etc. in apps

Actually, kcharselect is available for KDE 3.5.9! It is in the universe repository and is part of the kdeutils package.

P.S. Could you translate the poem for us uneducated computer geeks who speak only C, C++, Fortran, Java, Python, BASH, and English.

[Snowhog]

Re: Fonts: (a) need good char-map utility (b) accented, umlauts, etc. in apps

The Impossible Fact

Palmstroem, old, an aimless rover,
walking in the wrong direction
at a busy intersection
is run over.

"How," he says, his life restoring
and with pluck his death ignoring,
"can an accident like this
ever happen? What's amiss?

"Did the state administration
fail in motor transportation?
Did police ignore the need
for reducing driving speed?

"Isn't there a prohibition,
barring motorized transmission
of the living to the dead?
Was the driver right who sped . . . ?"

Tightly swathed in dampened tissues
he explores the legal issues,
and it soon is clear as air:
Cars were not permitted there!

And he comes to the conclusion:
His mishap was an illusion,
for, he reasons pointedly,
that which must not, can not be.