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Chapter 7

Output to Display

Here 'Output to Display' does not mean translation of messages using

gettext

. I will con 

cern on whether characters are correctly displayed so that we can read it. For example, in 

stall

libcanna1g

package and display

/usr/doc/libcanna1g/README.jp.gz

on console or

xterm

(of course after ungzipping). This text file is written in Japanese but even Japanese people

can not read such a row of strange characters. Which you would prefer if you were a Japanese

speaker, an English message which can be read with a dictionary or such a row of strange charac 

ters which is a result of

gettext

ization?

1

Problems on displaying non English (non ASCII) characters are discussed below.

7.1 Console Softwares

In this section, problems on displaying characters on console are discussed.

2

Here, console in 

cludes a bare Linux console including framebuffer and conventional version, special consoles

such as kon2, jfbterm, chdrv, and so on constructed by special softwares, and X terminal emula 

tors such as xterm, kterm, hanterm, xiterm, rxvt, xvt, gnome terminal, wterm, aterm, eterm, and

so on. Remote environments via telnet and secure shell such as NCSA telnet for Macintosh and

Tera Term for Windows are also regarded as consoles.

The feature of console is that:

  All what a software has to do is to send a correct encoding to standard output. Softwares on

console don't need to care about fonts and so on.

1

(Yes, there are ways to display Japanese characters correctly  

kon

(in

kon2

package) for console and

kterm

for X,

and Japanese people are happy with

gettext

ized Japanese messages.)

2

This section does not include problems on developing console; This section includes problems on developing

softwares which run on console.