Comments on: Cannot write Greek Polytonic in Linux

By: Simos Xenitellis

Simos Xenitellis — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:29:01 +0000

Hi Phillip,

Have a look at my most recent post on Greek, Greek Polytonic, etc, at
http://simos.info/blog/archives/888

For your case you simply add the Greek keyboard layout (not ‘Polytonic’ or something else). The fact that your default layout is a Dvorak layout makes no difference.

The current Greek layout (that supports Greek Polytonic as well) follows the polytonic layout that is common for Greeks in Greece. You need to read the instructions for the placement of the accents, etc.
If you are used to a different layout for Greek (such as one of the ‘biblical’ layouts found at http://www.ntresources.com/unicode.htm), you may have to do a few more steps. If you can invest the time to get used to the standard Greek Polytonic Linux layout, I think you will find it reasonable.

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By: pphhiilliip dduuttttoonn

pphhiilliip dduuttttoonn — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 01:42:17 +0000

I use an English Dvorak layout primarily. However, I am now learning Koine Greek. I need to combine Dvorak layout keys (English) and Greek Polytonic. Will it work? Will this be difficult? Thanks for your time!

~pphhiilliipp dduuttttoonn
Columbia, SC, USA

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By: Αὐγουστῖνος Τσιριμῶκος

Αὐγουστῖνος Τσιριμῶκος — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:08:45 +0000

Κατ᾿ ἀρχὴν εὐχαριστῶ γιὰ τὴν ἄμεση ἀνταπόκριση. Γιὰ μιὰ ἀκόμα φορά – καὶ σὲ «γνωρίζω» ἀρκετὸ καιρὸ, τουλάχιστον ὅσο ἀσχολοῦμαι μὲ τὸ Λίνουξ – ἔδειξες ὅτι σέβεσαι τὴν κοινότητα καὶ νοιάζεσαι. Νά ᾿σαι καλά.
Κατὰ δεύτερον, ἐπειδὴ δοκίμασα τὶς πιὸ πρόσφατες ἐκδόσεις Antix, Puppel καὶ Vector Linux, ἀλλὰ ἀποτέλεσμα δὲν εἶδα – στὸ AbiWord δὲν βγαίνει ἐπιλογὴ μεθόδου εἰσαγωγῆς πέρα ἀπὸ ἕνα ξερὸ default – ἐξ οὗ καὶ ἡ ἀπογοήτευσή μου, θὰ συνεχίσω τὶς ἀναζητήσεις, ἀλλὰ θὰ ἤθελα καὶ νὰ ἀπευθύνω ἔκκληση πρὸς ὅποιον ἀσχολεῖται μὲ ἐναλλακτικὰ περιβάλλοντα ἐργασίας (IceWM, Fluxbox, Blackbox, Xfce) νὰ προτείνει ἰδέες σχετικὰ μὲ τὴν πολυτονικὴ ἑλληνικὴ γραφή.
Καὶ πάλι εὐχαριστῶ.

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By: Simos Xenitellis

Simos Xenitellis — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:25:33 +0000

@Αὐγουστῖνος: Στην περίπτωση διανομής που δε χρησιμοποιεί εφαρμογές GTK+, τότε αρκεί να ενεργοποιήσει κάποιος την πολυτονική διάταξη.
Δηλαδή, επιλέγουμε την ελληνική διάταξη πληκτρολογίου με την παραλλαγή (variant) ‘polytonic’.

Δεν γνωρίζω τις ιδιαιτερότητες κάθε διανομής όπως Fluxbuntu, οπότε θα χρειαστεί να δω τι επιλογές έχει για τη ρύθμιση διάταξης. Αν είναι Fluxbuntu 9.04, τότε απλά με τη ρύθμιση ελληνικών μπορείς να γράφεις και πολυτονικό με τις παρακάτω οδηγίες.

Σε νεώτερες διανομές (από την άνοιξη του 2009 και νεώτερες), έχουμε αλλάξει τη βασική διάταξη πληκτρολογίου για τα ελληνικά ώστε να μπορεί να γράψει κάποιος και πολυτονικό.
Υπάρχει τεκμηρίωση (διανομές Fedora, Ubuntu και άλλες) στα
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_4cqjn9zcj (αγγλικά)
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_3gx3bq5f9 (ελληνικά)
Μέχρι στιγμής δεν είχαμε προσφορά για οδηγίες για άλλα γραφικά περιβάλλοντα.

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By: Αὐγουστῖνος Τσιριμῶκος

Αὐγουστῖνος Τσιριμῶκος — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:05:32 +0000

Ἂν δὲν εἶναι παραπλανητικὸς ὁ τίτλος (Greek Polytonic in Linux), θὰ ἤθελα νὰ θυμίσω ὅτι ὑπάρχουν καὶ ἄλλες διανομὲς στὰ πέριξ, γιὰ τὶς ὁποῖες δὲν εἶναι αὐτονόητη ἡ ὕπαρξη GTK, πόσο μᾶλλον τὸ ἀρχεῖο /etc/environment. Ἀκόμη καὶ στὴν οἰκογένεια Ubuntu, τὸ Fluxbuntu ξεφεύγει ἀπὸ τὶς παραπάνω προδιαγραφές. Τὸ πρόβλημά μου παραμένει, λοιπόν: Στὸ πανάρχαιο laptop μου, τὸ ὁποῖο ὅμως δὲν μοῦ πάει καρδιὰ νὰ τὸ στείλω στὰ σκουπίδια, θέλω νὰ φορέσω κάτι ἐλαφρύ (π.χ. Antix, Zenwalk, Puppel, Fluxbuntu στὴν ἔσχατη ἀνάγκη). Παράλληλα, ὅμως, θέλω νὰ συνεχίσω νὰ γράφω πολυτονικά (πεῖτε με λοξό ἢ κολλημένο). Τί κάνω;
Κάθε βοήθεια δεκτή, ἀρκεῖ νὰ εἶναι κατανοητή ἀπὸ ἕναν ἡμιαρχάριο, σὰν ἐμένα!
Αὐγουστῖνος

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By: david pardue

david pardue — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 19:06:20 +0000

Simos,

εὐχαριστῶ πολύ! I just followed your steps for enabling the Polytonic Greek keyboard in Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) and they worked perfectly. Thanks for sharing your expertise and simplifying a topic which is more complicated than I anticipated.

I also use Fedora 9 (Sulphur) and would like to mention that its Polytonic Greek keyboard can be made to work by following the instructions here:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:ArielGlenn/polytonic_f7
(Valid for the GNOME version of Fedora 7, 8 [and 9])

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By: Simos Xenitellis

Simos Xenitellis — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:01:11 +0000

@auxsvr: Οι πολυτονικοί χαρακτήρες τις Arev Sans έχουν περάσει στην DejaVu Sans. Γενικά, αν δοκιμάσεις τη DejaVu Sans, θα έχει μεγαλύτερη πληρότητα, όπως για παράδειγμα νέους αρχαίους χαρακτήρες που μπήκαν από το Unicode 5.

Η έκδοση της Αγίας Γραφής είνα αυτή που αναφέρω στην εγγραφή του ιστολογίου. Δεν γνωρίζω πως προέκυψε. Από την πλευρά μου έκανα μικρές βελτιώσεις για το DTP και δημιούργησα εκδόσεις σε ODT και PDF.

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By: auxsvr

auxsvr — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:10:58 +0000

Σε opensuse γράφω σε πολυτονικό εδώ και ένα χρόνο περίπου με LANG=en_US.UTF-8 στο KDE. Υπήρχαν προβλήματα με το keyboard layout στο X, τα οποία έχουν διορθωθεί, και ένα πρόβλημα με την αναζήτηση στη Qt 3, το οποίο έχει διορθωθεί στην 4. Το δυσκολότερο είναι μέχρι στιγμής να βρω γραμματοσειρά που να διαβάζεται εύκολα, να έχει πολυτονικούς χαρακτήρες και να μην έχει πρόβλημα με το μέγεθος στο web. Μέχρι στιγμής χρησιμοποιώ την Arev Sans.

Παρεμπιπτόντως, μήπως γνωρίζετε ποια είναι η έκδοση της Αγίας Γραφής που διανέμετε;

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By: Simos Xenitellis

Simos Xenitellis — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:33:41 +0000

1. That’s correct. You can use VirtualBox, or install in a separate partition.
2. I have added a polytonic category to my relevant posts,
http://simos.info/blog/archives/category/i18n/polytonic

When «joining» the Polytonic and Extended variants into a comprehensive and usable single layout, the characters typed will still be the same Unicode ones. In technical terms, in this additional layout, a user would have to press AltGr + + letter to get polytonic characters. It’s AltGr that makes the difference, and will allow the majority of users not to get confused and produce weird documents.
This type of layout would not be unique to the Greek layouts; if you notice the default GB (UK English) layout, it allows you to type all sort of accents relating to latin characters, with AltGr + ;’#[]:@~{}.

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By: George J. Georganas

George J. Georganas — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 05:04:06 +0000

So, to make sure I understood :
1. Anyone interested to help should make some space on their disks to test upcoming debian-based distributions and make sure that polytonic support works. If it does not, we report to the maintainers of the distributions and on this blog.
2. This blog is a fine place to do “promotion/dissemination of information on how to write polytonic.” We post elsewhere, of course, but we can point here, too.

Regarding the merger of the Greek Polytonic and Greek Extended keyboard variants, I see no problem, as long as we are only concerned with the keyboard as an input device. One should check, however, that search for text strings is not adversely affected. For example, would Google search report both onotonic, polytonic and atonic variants of the same word ?

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By: Simos Xenitellis

Simos Xenitellis — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 07:15:50 +0000

It is great that it has worked for both of you.
Considering that the “change” did not take place fully, this means that in the following months we have to keep in mind this issue and test that new distributions get it right.
I have spent quite some time explaining this issue to end-users, it is good to have some more diverse testing effort in those various distributions.

The GTK+ library maintains its own copy of the Compose file. I am taking care so that this copy is in sync with the upstream version. Some work I did on this (includes dasia/psili) will go into the next versions of the distributions coming in about 3 months time from now. Once this is in effect, we do not need to use the XKB_IM_MODULE=xim line (which effectively bypasses GTK and uses the stock X.Org Compose files). As long as xkeyboard-config defines dead_psili/dead_dasia, any GTK+ application will work out of the box.

In addition to this, I am toying with the idea of merging the Greek Extended and Greek Polytonic keyboard layouts into a single, default keyboard layout for the Greek language. Users will still be able to use existing variants, however the default layout will fit for all. If you have this blog in your RSS feed, you should be able to get notice of the announcement.

@stelios: I am all in getting more OpenDocument files to use Greek Polytonic. I can help with the technical side of writing Polytonic with less difficulty. However, I would need help with the promotion/dissemination of information on how to write polytonic.

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By: stelios chronopoulos

stelios chronopoulos — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:03:46 +0000

Thanks a lot! It worked also for me, whereas the actual (final) problem, was that the definitions in the en_US file and those in the el_Gr were totally different.
Thanks a lot once more. Some colleagues of me and of course myself are grateful.

ps. If You are still interested, promoting Your idea about ancient greek texts in .odf fromat, and if You think I could help please let me know.
e-mail: schronopoulos AT gmail.com

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