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	<title>Mi blog lah! &#187; fonts</title>
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	<description>Το ιστολόγιό μου</description>
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		<title>Ubuntu Font Beta and Greek</title>
		<link>http://simos.info/blog/archives/1144?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=ubuntu-font-beta-and-greek</link>
		<comments>http://simos.info/blog/archives/1144#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:07:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Simos Xenitellis</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[fonts]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[10]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[font]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[greek]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[ubuntu]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://simos.info/blog/?p=1144</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Update: All open bugs for this font at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntufontbetatesting/+bugs File your bug. Currently there bugs relating to Greek, 1. Letter γ ((U03B3) has an untypical style 2.  In letters with YPOGEGRAMMENI, YPOGEGRAMMENI is expected to be under not on the right and 3. Many Greek small letters have untypical style Here we see some samples [...]


Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/646' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: StixFonts, finally available (beta)!'>StixFonts, finally available (beta)!</a> <small>The STIX Fonts project (website) has been developing for over...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/582' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Improving DejaVu Serif for Greek'>Improving DejaVu Serif for Greek</a> <small>Vangelis Karageorgos  sent an e-mail to the DejaVu Fonts mailing...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/587' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: The OLPC and Greek'>The OLPC and Greek</a> <small>(oh, I am writing this through a lousy Net connection;...</small></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Update</strong>: All open bugs for this font at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntufontbetatesting/+bugs File your bug. Currently there bugs relating to Greek, 1. <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntufontbetatesting/+bug/609289" target="_blank">Letter γ ((U03B3) has an untypical style</a> 2.  <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntufontbetatesting/+bug/609293" target="_blank">In letters with YPOGEGRAMMENI, YPOGEGRAMMENI is expected to be under not on the right</a> and 3. <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntufontbetatesting/+bug/609289" target="_blank">Many Greek small letters have untypical style </a></p>
<p>Here we see some samples of Greek with <a href="http://design.canonical.com/2010/07/the-ubuntu-font/" target="_blank">Ubuntu Font Beta</a>.</p>
<p>Ubuntu Font supports both Greek and Greek Polytonic.</p>
<p>In the following we compare between <a href="http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/Main_Page" target="_blank">DejaVu Sans (currently the default font in Ubuntu)</a> and the proposed Ubuntu Font Beta.</p>
<p><a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Screenshot-Waterfall-DejaVuSans.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1145" title="Screenshot Waterfall DejaVuSans" src="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Screenshot-Waterfall-DejaVuSans.png" alt="Screenshot Waterfall DejaVuSans" /></a></p>
<p>This is DejaVu Sans, showing the Greek Unicode Block. This means, modern Greek and Coptic.</p>
<p><a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Screenshot-Waterfall-UbuntuBeta-Greek.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1146" title="Screenshot Waterfall UbuntuBeta Greek" src="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Screenshot-Waterfall-UbuntuBeta-Greek.png" alt="Screenshot Waterfall UbuntuBeta Greek" /></a></p>
<p>This is Ubuntu Font Beta, showing the Greek Unicode Block. Coptic is not covered as it was not part of the requirements for this version of the font (actually Coptic currently uses a separate new Unicode Block so the Coptic here are too low of a priority).</p>
<p><a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Screenshot-Waterfall-DejaVu-Polytonic.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1147" title="Screenshot-Waterfall DejaVu Polytonic" src="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Screenshot-Waterfall-DejaVu-Polytonic.png" alt="Screenshot-Waterfall DejaVu Polytonic" /></a></p>
<p>This is DejaVu Sans showing the Greek Polytonic Unicode Block coverage. We show the second part of the Unicode Block which has the most exotic characters with up to three accents.</p>
<p><a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Screenshot-Waterfall-UbuntuFont-Beta-Polytonic.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1148" title="Screenshot Waterfall UbuntuFont Beta Polytonic" src="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Screenshot-Waterfall-UbuntuFont-Beta-Polytonic.png" alt="Screenshot Waterfall UbuntuFont Beta Polytonic" /></a></p>
<p>Same thing with Ubuntu Font Beta.</p>
<p>Note that those characters that appear as empty boxes are characters that either were not designed by the font designers, or are reserved characters that have not been defined yet.</p>
<p><a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Antigoni-keimeno.pdf">Antigoni text in DejaVu Sans and Ubuntu Font Beta (PDF, 12pt)</a></p>
<p><a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Antigoni-keimeno-10pt.pdf">Antigoni text in DejaVu Sans and Ubuntu Font Beta (PDF, 10pt)</a></p>
<p>If there are things to be fixed, this is the time to do them. Post a comment and we can take if further.</p>
<p>Traditionally, the letters γ and ν tend to have a unique form. In this case, in Ubuntu Font Beta, γ looks different to what a Greek user is accustomed to. I attach an SVG file of γ; if you have suggestions for enhancement, please use Inkscape, this <a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/gamma_UbuntuBeta-Regular.zip">gamma_UbuntuBeta-Regular</a> file and make your suggestion!</p>
<p>(see top of post for link to bug reports)</p>


<p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/646' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: StixFonts, finally available (beta)!'>StixFonts, finally available (beta)!</a> <small>The STIX Fonts project (website) has been developing for over...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/582' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Improving DejaVu Serif for Greek'>Improving DejaVu Serif for Greek</a> <small>Vangelis Karageorgos  sent an e-mail to the DejaVu Fonts mailing...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/587' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: The OLPC and Greek'>The OLPC and Greek</a> <small>(oh, I am writing this through a lousy Net connection;...</small></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Avestan keyboard layout</title>
		<link>http://simos.info/blog/archives/1134?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=avestan-keyboard-layout</link>
		<comments>http://simos.info/blog/archives/1134#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Jun 2010 18:03:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Simos Xenitellis</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[fonts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[language]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[planetellak]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pofo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[archaic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[avestan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[keyboard]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[layout]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[script]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[unicode]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://simos.info/blog/?p=1134</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[According to Wikipedia, Avestan (pronounced /əˈvɛstən/ [1]) is an Iranian language known only from its use as the language of Zoroastrian scripture, i.e. the Avesta, from which it derives its name. The language must also at some time have been a spoken language, but how long ago that was is unknown. Its status as a [...]


Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/13' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Keyboard layout for combining diacritics'>Keyboard layout for combining diacritics</a> <small>Typically, if you want to type characters with accents, such...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/695' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Keyboard layout editor UI concept'>Keyboard layout editor UI concept</a> <small>(click for bigger image) At the top we select the...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/747' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: The Keyboard Layout Editor'>The Keyboard Layout Editor</a> <small>(this entry is a repost, the original was lost in...</small></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>According to Wikipedia,</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avestan_language" target="_blank"><strong>Avestan</strong></a> (pronounced <a title="Wikipedia:IPA for English" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IPA_for_English">/əˈvɛstən/</a> <sup id="cite_ref-0"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avestan_language#cite_note-0">[1]</a></sup>) is an <a title="Iranian languages" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_languages">Iranian language</a> known only from its use as the language of <a title="Zoroastrianism" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism">Zoroastrian</a> scripture, i.e. the <a title="Avesta" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avesta">Avesta</a>, from which it derives its name. The language must also at some time have been a spoken language, but how long ago that was is unknown. Its status as a sacred language ensured its continuing use for new compositions long after the language had ceased to be a living language.</p>
<p>Only recently was the Avestan script added to the <a href="http://www.unicode.org/" target="_blank">Unicode standard</a> (<a href="http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.2.0/" target="_blank">Unicode 5.2</a>). For more, see <a href="http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.2.0/ch14.pdf">page 17 at the Archaic scripts section of Unicode 5.2 (PDF)</a> and <a href="http://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U10B00.pdf" target="_blank">the Unicode block details for U+10B00</a>. See also <a href="http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n3197.pdf" target="_blank">the proposal to add Avestan to Unicode as an archaic script</a>.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9288770&amp;postcount=27" target="_blank">user from UbuntuForums.org asked for help</a> to create a keyboard layout for the Avestan script.</p>
<p><a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Keyboard-Layout-Avestan.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1136" title="Keyboard Layout - Avestan" src="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Keyboard-Layout-Avestan.png" alt="Keyboard Layout - Avestan" /></a></p>
<p>After providing <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9365469&amp;postcount=32" target="_blank">the necessary details</a>, the keyboard layout was created, <a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/avestan.txt">Avestan keyboard layout for Linux</a>.</p>
<p>So, how can you use the new keyboard layout?</p>
<p>1. Add <a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/avestan.txt" target="_blank">avestan.txt</a> at the end of /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/ir</p>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">sudo gedit /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/ir</pre>
<p>in order to open (as administrator) the &#8216;ir&#8217; layout, and paste the contents of <a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/avestan.txt" target="_blank">avestan.txt</a> at the end of the &#8216;ir&#8217; file. Click Save and exit.</p>
<p>2. <em>Register</em> the new &#8216;avestan&#8217; layout in evdev.xml and base.xml files.</p>
<p>Both files have a section that looks like the following. Do a simple search for &#8216;ku_ara&#8217; or some other string in order to find the segment.</p>
<div>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;" dir="ltr">
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">        &lt;variant&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">          &lt;configItem&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">            &lt;name&gt;ku_ara&lt;/name&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">            &lt;description&gt;Kurdish, Arabic-Latin&lt;/description&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">            &lt;languageList&gt;&lt;iso639Id&gt;kur&lt;/iso639Id&gt;&lt;/languageList&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">          &lt;/configItem&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">        &lt;/variant&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">-----------HERE------------</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">      &lt;/variantList&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">    &lt;/layout&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">    &lt;layout&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">      &lt;configItem&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">        &lt;name&gt;iq&lt;/name&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">        &lt;shortDescription&gt;Irq&lt;/shortDescription&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">        &lt;description&gt;Iraq&lt;/description&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">        &lt;languageList&gt;&lt;iso639Id&gt;ara&lt;/iso639Id&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">                      &lt;iso639Id&gt;kur&lt;/iso639Id&gt;&lt;/languageList&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;">      &lt;/configItem&gt;</pre>
</pre>
</div>
<p>Open base.xml with</p>
<blockquote>
<pre>sudo gedit /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base.xml</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>Then open evdev.xml with</p>
<blockquote>
<pre>sudo gedit /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.xml</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>Replace the &#8216;<em>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;HERE&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;</em>&#8216; with the following lines:</p>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;"> &lt;variant&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;"> &lt;configItem&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;"> &lt;name&gt;avestan&lt;/name&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;"> &lt;description&gt;Avestan&lt;/description&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;"> &lt;languageList&gt;&lt;iso639Id&gt;ae&lt;/iso639Id&gt;&lt;/languageList&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;"> &lt;/configItem&gt;</pre>
<pre style="padding-left: 30px;"> &lt;/variant&gt;</pre>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">
<p>What we do here is we insert a variant description for the &#8216;avestan&#8217; keyboard layout.</p>
<p>Click Save and exit the text editor.</p>
<p>3. Install a suitable font. Follow the steps from <a href="http://www.bomahy.nl/hylke/blog/adding-fonts-in-gnome/" target="_blank">http://www.bomahy.nl/hylke/blog/adding-fonts-in-gnome/</a><br />
which says to install the font in your home directory, in a &#8216;.fonts&#8217; subdirectory. Normally, Ubuntu will pick up the font as soon as you copy it in there. Any newly started application should be able to use the new font.</p>
<p>4. Finally, add the new Avestan keyboard layout. Go to System → Preferences → Keyboard → Layouts, click on the [<strong>Add...</strong>] button and select from the list &#8216;Iran&#8217; and layout &#8216;Avestan&#8217;. Click OK. Notice the new keyboard layout indicator on the panel that allows you to switch between English and Avestan.</p>
<p>Increasingly <a href="http://www.unicode.org/charts/" target="_blank">more scripts and symbols</a> are added to the Unicode standard. These scripts are not useful unless there is a comfortable way to type in them. Find a script you like and help create a keyboard layout.</p>


<p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/13' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Keyboard layout for combining diacritics'>Keyboard layout for combining diacritics</a> <small>Typically, if you want to type characters with accents, such...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/695' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Keyboard layout editor UI concept'>Keyboard layout editor UI concept</a> <small>(click for bigger image) At the top we select the...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/747' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: The Keyboard Layout Editor'>The Keyboard Layout Editor</a> <small>(this entry is a repost, the original was lost in...</small></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<item>
		<title>Stix Fonts, eventually out.</title>
		<link>http://simos.info/blog/archives/1115?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=stix-fonts-eventually-out</link>
		<comments>http://simos.info/blog/archives/1115#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Jun 2010 19:12:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Simos Xenitellis</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Planet Ubuntu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fonts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[planetellak]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pofo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ubuntu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[font]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fontconfig]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[license]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ofl]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[otf]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stixfonts]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://simos.info/blog/?p=1115</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The StixFonts project is a project to produce high quality fonts for academic publications. It has been in progress for over ten years and there has been a beta about two years and a half ago. At the same time there had been a discussion on the relevant license for these fonts. The first draft [...]


Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/1042' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: OpenType support in OpenOffice 3.2 (Greek)'>OpenType support in OpenOffice 3.2 (Greek)</a> <small>The new version 3.2 of OpenOffice.org is being developed and...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/646' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: StixFonts, finally available (beta)!'>StixFonts, finally available (beta)!</a> <small>The STIX Fonts project (website) has been developing for over...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/648' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Droid fonts from Google (Android SDK)'>Droid fonts from Google (Android SDK)</a> <small>Update 10Feb2009: The Droid fonts are now available from android.git.kernel.org...</small></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The <a href="http://www.stixfonts.org/" target="_blank">StixFonts project</a> is a project to produce high quality fonts for academic publications.</p>
<p>It has been in progress for over ten years and there has been a beta about two years and a half ago. At the same time there had been a discussion on the relevant license for these fonts. The first draft of the license would have made the fonts obsolete as soon as they would be released. However, after public consultation, the project selected to use the <a href="http://scripts.sil.org/OFL" target="_blank">Open Font License (OFL)</a>.</p>
<h1>⬟⬠⬢⬤⬣⬲⬳⭆⭄⭃⬨⬍⬎⟲⟴✪◊▼◨◵↺↯⃟</h1>
<p>StixFonts support mathematical symbols from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapping_of_Unicode_characters" target="_blank">Plane 1</a>, however the WordPress post editor is not able to handle them and truncates the post when you save <img src='http://simos.info/blog/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_sad.gif' alt=':-(' class='wp-smiley' /> .</p>
<p>Apart from mathematical characters, StixFonts support Latin, Greek and Cyrillic. Compared with DejaVu (default font in Ubuntu), DejaVu still has overall bigger coverage. You would want to use StixFonts if you write academic documents and require to use a wide range of math symbols.</p>
<p>You can get the StixFonts from <a href="http://www.stixfonts.org/" target="_blank">the StixFonts project website, at version 1.0, in OpenType format</a>. From the zip archive with the fonts, extract the *.otf files into your home directory, in a subfolder called .fonts (if it does not exist, create it). No need to restart the system; any newly restarted applications should be able to see and use the fonts. OpenOffice.org 3.2+ is required (for example, in Ubuntu 10.04) due to the OpenType format of the fonts. If you use OpenOffice.org for your document writing, it might be a good idea to create special styles for your math content and set the StixFonts as the font of those styles. You can type in those math characters using Insert → Special Character&#8230; in OpenOffice.org as shown below.</p>
<p><a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Screenshot-Stix-Ubuntu.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1121" title="StixFonts in OpenOffice.org 3.2 (Insert Special Character)" src="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Screenshot-Stix-Ubuntu.png" alt="StixFonts in OpenOffice.org 3.2 (Insert Special Character)" /></a></p>
<p>These are the <a href="http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1D400.pdf" target="_blank">mathematical alphanumeric symbols</a> (fraktur style) in Plane 1. You may notice that some characters are missing (such as capital N fraktur style). It&#8217;s <a href="http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1D400.pdf" target="_blank">not a bug</a>. In OpenOffice.org, you click on characters and these are added in a string. Then, when you completed the string with all the special characters you click OK and they are inserted in your document. While we wrote <em>ubuntu</em> as sample text, these are symbols meant for math documents. However, the potential for geekiness in the Facebooks and the Twitters is easy to describe.</p>
<p>The beta version of the StixFonts are already packaged in Debian/Ubuntu as &#8216;otf-stix&#8217;. I suppose the package will be updated soon with the new version 1.0.</p>


<p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/1042' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: OpenType support in OpenOffice 3.2 (Greek)'>OpenType support in OpenOffice 3.2 (Greek)</a> <small>The new version 3.2 of OpenOffice.org is being developed and...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/646' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: StixFonts, finally available (beta)!'>StixFonts, finally available (beta)!</a> <small>The STIX Fonts project (website) has been developing for over...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/648' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Droid fonts from Google (Android SDK)'>Droid fonts from Google (Android SDK)</a> <small>Update 10Feb2009: The Droid fonts are now available from android.git.kernel.org...</small></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>How to type Greek, Greek Polytonic in Linux</title>
		<link>http://simos.info/blog/archives/888?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=how-to-type-greek-greek-polytonic-in-linux</link>
		<comments>http://simos.info/blog/archives/888#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 10 May 2009 21:29:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Simos Xenitellis</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Planet Ubuntu]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://simos.info/blog/?p=888</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Update 2010: Please see the docs.google.com edition of the guide as it has the latest material. See link below. There is a new guide on how to write Greek and Greek Polytonic in Linux, and in particular using the latest versions of Linux distributions. https://docs.google.com/View?docID=dccdrjqk_4cqjn9zcj (LATEST VERSION) The guide shows in detail how to add [...]


Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/639' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Cannot write Greek Polytonic in Linux'>Cannot write Greek Polytonic in Linux</a> <small>For up to date instructions for Greek and Greek Polytonic...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/763' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Οδηγός πολυτονικού &#8211; Write Greek Polytonic'>Οδηγός πολυτονικού &#8211; Write Greek Polytonic</a> <small>Update 10th May 2009: If you have Ubuntu 9.04 (or...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/493' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Greek Polytonic HOWTO'>Greek Polytonic HOWTO</a> <small>Dimitri Marinakis has written a HOWTO on Hellenic (Greek) Polytonic...</small></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Update 2010</strong>: <em>Please see the docs.google.com edition of the guide as it has the latest material. See link below.</em></p>
<p>There is a new guide on how to write Greek and Greek Polytonic in Linux, and in particular using the latest versions of Linux distributions.</p>
<p><a href="https://docs.google.com/View?docID=dccdrjqk_4cqjn9zcj" target="_blank">https://docs.google.com/View?docID=dccdrjqk_4cqjn9zcj</a> (<strong>LATEST VERSION</strong>)</p>
<p>The guide shows in detail how to add the Greek keyboard layout to your Linux desktop, and how to write Greek, Greek Polytonic and other Ancient Greek characters.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: line-through;">The guide is also available in both ODT and PDF format.</span> (<em>both files are somewhat obsolete. use google docs URL from above instead</em>)</p>
<p>For a Greek version of the guide, please see <a id="rf0t" title="http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_3gx3bq5f9" href="http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_3gx3bq5f9">http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_3gx3bq5f9</a> (does not update as often as the English version)</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: line-through;">We attach the HTML version of the guide in this post.</span> The docs.google.com version is the latest, please read that instead.</p>
<div id="doc-contents">
<div>Again, you can find the latest version of this document at<br />
<a id="jyhu" title="http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_4cqjn9zcj" href="http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_4cqjn9zcj">http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_4cqjn9zcj</a></div>
<div></div>
</div>


<p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/639' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Cannot write Greek Polytonic in Linux'>Cannot write Greek Polytonic in Linux</a> <small>For up to date instructions for Greek and Greek Polytonic...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/763' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Οδηγός πολυτονικού &#8211; Write Greek Polytonic'>Οδηγός πολυτονικού &#8211; Write Greek Polytonic</a> <small>Update 10th May 2009: If you have Ubuntu 9.04 (or...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/493' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Greek Polytonic HOWTO'>Greek Polytonic HOWTO</a> <small>Dimitri Marinakis has written a HOWTO on Hellenic (Greek) Polytonic...</small></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>9</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Ενημερωμένος οδηγός γραφής ελληνικών (και πολυτονικό)</title>
		<link>http://simos.info/blog/archives/886?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=%25ce%25b5%25ce%25bd%25ce%25b7%25ce%25bc%25ce%25b5%25cf%2581%25cf%2589%25ce%25bc%25ce%25ad%25ce%25bd%25ce%25bf%25cf%2582-%25ce%25bf%25ce%25b4%25ce%25b7%25ce%25b3%25cf%258c%25cf%2582-%25ce%25b3%25cf%2581%25ce%25b1%25cf%2586%25ce%25ae%25cf%2582-%25ce%25b5%25ce%25bb%25ce%25bb%25ce%25b7%25ce%25bd%25ce%25b9%25ce%25ba%25cf%258e</link>
		<comments>http://simos.info/blog/archives/886#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 10 May 2009 15:29:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Simos Xenitellis</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Linux]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fonts]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[greek]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[αρχαία]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://simos.info/blog/?p=886</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ενημέρωσα τον οδηγό για το γράψιμο ελληνικών (και πολυτονικό) και είναι διαθέσιμος από τη σελίδα http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_3gx3bq5f9 Είναι διαθέσιμος ο οδηγός για γράψιμο ελληνικών (και πολυτονικού) σε μορφή PDF. Είναι διαθέσιμος ο οδηγός για γράψιμο ελληνικών (και πολυτονικού) σε μορφή ODT. Ο οδηγός περιγράφει τη δυνατότητα γραφής μονοτονικού, πολυτονικού και αρχαίων ελληνικών χαρακτήρων. Ο οδηγός αυτός [...]


Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/467' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Οδηγός για τη ρύθμιση γραφής ελληνικών σε Ubuntu Linux 5.10'>Οδηγός για τη ρύθμιση γραφής ελληνικών σε Ubuntu Linux 5.10</a> <small>Δείτε την παρουσίαση για τη ρύθμιση γραφής ελληνικών σε Ubuntu...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/342' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Γράψιμο ελληνικών μέσα από GNOME'>Γράψιμο ελληνικών μέσα από GNOME</a> <small>Ενημέρωση 2010: Δείτε τις νεώτερες οδηγίες στο How to type...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/204' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Γράψιμο ελληνικών στο Linux (X.org), περί προσθήκης διορθώσεων'>Γράψιμο ελληνικών στο Linux (X.org), περί προσθήκης διορθώσεων</a> <small>Το λογισμικό X.org (δυνατότητα για την απεικόνιση γραφικού περιβάλλοντος σε...</small></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Ενημέρωσα τον οδηγό για το γράψιμο ελληνικών (και πολυτονικό) και είναι διαθέσιμος από τη σελίδα</p>
<p><a href="http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_3gx3bq5f9" target="_blank">http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_3gx3bq5f9<br />
</a></p>
<p>Είναι διαθέσιμος <a href="http://simos.info/pub/Writing_Greek_Polytonic_new_layout.pdf">ο οδηγός για γράψιμο ελληνικών (και πολυτονικού) σε μορφή PDF</a>.</p>
<p>Είναι διαθέσιμος <a href="http://simos.info/pub/Writing_Greek_Polytonic_new_layout.odt">ο οδηγός για γράψιμο ελληνικών (και πολυτονικού) σε μορφή ODT</a>.</p>
<p>Ο οδηγός περιγράφει τη δυνατότητα γραφής μονοτονικού, πολυτονικού και αρχαίων ελληνικών χαρακτήρων. Ο οδηγός αυτός διορθώνει μια σειρά από αβλεψίες στις οδηγίες.</p>
<p>Ο οδηγός ισχύει για τις διανομές Fedora 11 (ή νεώτερες), Ubuntu Linux 9.04 (ή νεώτερες) και άλλες διανομές που θα βγουν την Άνοιξη του 2009. Για προηγούμενες διανομές, δείτε τις οδηγίες (και τον αντίστοιχο παλαιότερο οδηγό) από το παρόν ιστολόγιο για το πως μπορείτε να προσθέσετε την νέα ελληνική διάταξη πληκτρολογίου.</p>
<p>Κάθε σχόλιο για βελτίωση του οδηγού είναι ευπρόσδεκτο.</p>


<p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/467' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Οδηγός για τη ρύθμιση γραφής ελληνικών σε Ubuntu Linux 5.10'>Οδηγός για τη ρύθμιση γραφής ελληνικών σε Ubuntu Linux 5.10</a> <small>Δείτε την παρουσίαση για τη ρύθμιση γραφής ελληνικών σε Ubuntu...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/342' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Γράψιμο ελληνικών μέσα από GNOME'>Γράψιμο ελληνικών μέσα από GNOME</a> <small>Ενημέρωση 2010: Δείτε τις νεώτερες οδηγίες στο How to type...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/204' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Γράψιμο ελληνικών στο Linux (X.org), περί προσθήκης διορθώσεων'>Γράψιμο ελληνικών στο Linux (X.org), περί προσθήκης διορθώσεων</a> <small>Το λογισμικό X.org (δυνατότητα για την απεικόνιση γραφικού περιβάλλοντος σε...</small></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Workaround for bad fonts in Google Earth 5 (Linux)</title>
		<link>http://simos.info/blog/archives/872?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=workaround-for-bad-fonts-in-google-earth-5-linux</link>
		<comments>http://simos.info/blog/archives/872#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:12:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Simos Xenitellis</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[fonts]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[ubuntu]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://simos.info/blog/?p=872</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[So you just installed Google Earth 5 and you can&#8217;t figure out what&#8217;s wrong with the fonts? If your language does not use the Latin script, you cannot see any text? Here is the workaround. The basic info comes from this google earth forum post and the reply that suggests to mess with the QT [...]


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<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/566' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Multimedia support in Ubuntu Linux 6.06'>Multimedia support in Ubuntu Linux 6.06</a> <small>With Ubuntu Linux 6.06, it is much clear how to...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/804' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: How to install the 64-bit Adobe Flash Player 10 for Linux in Ubuntu Linux?'>How to install the 64-bit Adobe Flash Player 10 for Linux in Ubuntu Linux?</a> <small>Update 2 May 2010: There is a repository for Flash...</small></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>So you just installed Google Earth 5 and you can&#8217;t figure out what&#8217;s wrong with the fonts? If your language does not use the Latin script, you cannot see any text?</p>
<p>Here is the workaround. The basic info comes from <a href="http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/earth/thread?tid=656ef9a98bc427dd&amp;hl=en" target="_blank">this google earth forum post</a> and the reply that suggests to mess with the QT libraries.</p>
<p>Google Earth 5 is based on the Qt library, and Google is using their own copies of the Qt libraries. This means that the customisation (including fonts) that you do with qtconfig-qt4 does not affect Google Earth. Here we use Ubuntu 8.10, and we simply installed the Qt libraries in order to use some Qt programs. You probably do not have qtconfig-qt4 installed, so you need to get it.</p>
<p>So, by following the advice in the post above and replacing key Qt libraries from Google Earth with the ones provided by our distro, solves (read: workaround) the problem. Here comes the science:</p>
<p>If you have a 32-bit version of Ubuntu,</p>
<pre>cd /opt/google-earth/
sudo mv libQtCore.so.4 libQtCore.so.4.bak
sudo mv libQtGui.so.4 libQtGui.so.4.bak
sudo mv libQtNetwork.so.4 libQtNetwork.so.4.bak
sudo mv libQtWebKit.so.4 libQtWebKit.so.4.bak
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4.4.3  libQtCore.so.4
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4.4.3  libQtGui.so.4
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libQtNetwork.so.4.4.3  libQtNetwork.so.4
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libQtWebKit.so.4.4.3  libQtWebKit.so.4</pre>
<p>If you have the 64-bit version of Ubuntu, try</p>
<p>cd /opt/google-earth/</p>
<p>sudo getlibs googleearth-bin<br />
sudo mv libQtCore.so.4 libQtCore.so.4.bak<br />
sudo mv libQtGui.so.4 libQtGui.so.4.bak<br />
sudo mv libQtNetwork.so.4 libQtNetwork.so.4.bak<br />
sudo mv libQtWebKit.so.4 libQtWebKit.so.4.bak<br />
sudo ln -s /usr/lib32/libQtCore.so.4.4.3  libQtCore.so.4<br />
sudo ln -s /usr/lib32/libQtGui.so.4.4.3  libQtGui.so.4<br />
sudo ln -s /usr/lib32/libQtNetwork.so.4.4.3  libQtNetwork.so.4<br />
sudo ln -s /usr/lib32/libQtWebKit.so.4.4.3  libQtWebKit.so.4</p>
<p>Requires to have <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=474790" target="_blank">getlibs</a> installed, and when prompted, install the 32-bit versions of the packages as instructed.</p>
<p>Now, with qtconfig-qt you can configure the font settings.</p>


<p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/648' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Droid fonts from Google (Android SDK)'>Droid fonts from Google (Android SDK)</a> <small>Update 10Feb2009: The Droid fonts are now available from android.git.kernel.org...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/566' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Multimedia support in Ubuntu Linux 6.06'>Multimedia support in Ubuntu Linux 6.06</a> <small>With Ubuntu Linux 6.06, it is much clear how to...</small></li>
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</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Help make «DocBook XML to PDF» work for Greek</title>
		<link>http://simos.info/blog/archives/817?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=making-docbook-xml-to-pdf-work-for-greek</link>
		<comments>http://simos.info/blog/archives/817#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:32:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Simos Xenitellis</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[fonts]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://simos.info/blog/?p=817</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#60;?xml version=&#8221;1.0&#8243; encoding=&#8221;utf-8&#8243;?&#62; &#60;!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC &#8220;-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN&#8221; &#8220;http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd&#8221;&#62; &#60;article lang=&#8221;en&#8221;&#62; &#60;section&#62;&#60;title&#62;Title&#60;/title&#62; &#60;para&#62;ëãáâṩẫëĝéõōåőȩçą&#60;/para&#62; &#60;para&#62;ЁЂыњѨѬѺѸѶѦщЖЊЌЍШЩзф&#60;/para&#62; &#60;para&#62;ᾶᾳὰέᾁᾂδϕϟϸϡϸϸαϷϕϲδϕϛ€ϕ©ϖϐͻ©ϖϐ&#60;/para&#62; &#60;/section&#62; &#60;/article&#62; This is an issue that I would appreciate if someone could help in solving. The above document (mytestfile.xml) is a DocBook XML document with text in many scripts (latin, cyrillic and greek). Normally it was difficult [...]


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<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/31' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Generating multilingual PDF files out of GNOME documentation'>Generating multilingual PDF files out of GNOME documentation</a> <small>Robert describes how to generate PDF files from GNOME documentation...</small></li>
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</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="padding-left: 30px;">&lt;?xml version=&#8221;1.0&#8243; encoding=&#8221;utf-8&#8243;?&gt;<br />
&lt;!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC &#8220;-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN&#8221;<br />
&#8220;http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd&#8221;&gt;<br />
&lt;article lang=&#8221;en&#8221;&gt;<br />
&lt;section&gt;&lt;title&gt;Title&lt;/title&gt;<br />
&lt;para&gt;ëãáâṩẫëĝéõōåőȩçą&lt;/para&gt;<br />
&lt;para&gt;ЁЂыњѨѬѺѸѶѦщЖЊЌЍШЩзф&lt;/para&gt;<br />
&lt;para&gt;ᾶᾳὰέᾁᾂδϕϟϸϡϸϸαϷϕϲδϕϛ€ϕ©ϖϐͻ©ϖϐ&lt;/para&gt;<br />
&lt;/section&gt;<br />
&lt;/article&gt;</p>
<p>This is an issue that I would appreciate if someone could help in solving.</p>
<p>The above document (mytestfile.xml) is a DocBook XML document with text in many scripts (latin, cyrillic and greek). Normally it was difficult to convert to PDF, until recently.</p>
<p>Now, one can run</p>
<pre>dblatex --backend=xetex --verbose mytestfile.xml</pre>
<p>(requires to install the <strong>dblatex</strong> package and any dependencies) and it creates <strong>mytestfile.pdf</strong>. If you have a fresh installation of Ubuntu 8.10 and you go through the process of installing these packages, please make a list of them, to use as advice for new users.</p>
<div id="attachment_822" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 510px"><a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/screenshot-mytestfile-enpdf.png"><img class="size-full wp-image-822" title="Generated PDF document with lang=en" src="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/screenshot-mytestfile-enpdf.png" alt="Generated PDF document with lang=en" width="500" height="299" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Generated PDF document with lang=en</p></div>
<p>Since we use XeTeX as a backend, we can work with Unicode text directly, which is the proper thing to do. Above you can see that all characters are shown (except a few obscure ones that are not found in DejaVu Sans and are shown as boxes). You can see Latin (+Extended), Cyrillic (+Extended), Greek (+Extended) in the same document.</p>
<div id="attachment_823" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 433px"><a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/screenshot-mytestfile-elpdf.png"><img class="size-full wp-image-823" title="Generated PDF document with lang=el" src="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/screenshot-mytestfile-elpdf.png" alt="Generated PDF document with lang=el" width="423" height="312" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Generated PDF document with lang=el</p></div>
<p>The issue arises when we change the <strong>lang</strong> modifier in the document above, from <em><strong>en</strong></em> to <em><strong>el</strong></em>. Here you see Τιτλε, which in fact is Title but with the characters replaced with their Greek <em>equivalent</em>. This is a sign for non-Unicode, 8-bit encoding conversion issue. In addition, some of the rest of the characters are shown, and apparently a strange conversion took place.</p>
<p>What we need to do is figure out is how to fix xetex when &#8216;lang=el&#8217;. There is some work to get Greek XeTeX support upstream, and there are instructions on <a href="http://ubuntu.opengr.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&amp;t=930" target="_blank">how to add local Greek XeTeX support</a> in your distribution.</p>
<blockquote><p>What we need is instructions on how to fix the Greek XeTeX support in Ubuntu 8.10, and test that <strong>dblatex</strong> can generate documents correctly when <em>lang=el</em>.</p>
<p>For your testing, here are the files <a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/mytestfile-en.pdf">mytestfile-en.pdf</a>, <a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/mytestfile-el.pdf">mytestfile-el.pdf</a>, <a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/mytestfile-en.xml">mytestfile-en.xml</a>, <a href="http://simos.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/mytestfile-el.xml">mytestfile-el.xml</a>.</p></blockquote>


<p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/284' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Docbook XML και ελληνικά (ενημέρωση)'>Docbook XML και ελληνικά (ενημέρωση)</a> <small>Μέχρι πριν από λίγα χρόνια, η κατάσταση παραγωγής αρχείων .PDF...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/31' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Generating multilingual PDF files out of GNOME documentation'>Generating multilingual PDF files out of GNOME documentation</a> <small>Robert describes how to generate PDF files from GNOME documentation...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/288' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: DocBook XML και ελληνικά, περισσότερα'>DocBook XML και ελληνικά, περισσότερα</a> <small>Στο Docbook XML και ελληνικά (ενημέρωση) έγινε αναφορά για τη...</small></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>FOSDEM &#8217;08, summary and comments</title>
		<link>http://simos.info/blog/archives/658?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=fosdem-08-summary-and-comments</link>
		<comments>http://simos.info/blog/archives/658#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:19:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Simos</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[I attended FOSDEM &#8217;08 which took place on the 23rd and 24th of February in Brussels. Compared to other events, FOSDEM is a big event with over 4000 (?) participants and over 200 lectures (from lightning talks to keynotes). It occupied three buildings at a local university. Many sessions were taking place at the same [...]


Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/938' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: GUADEC Day #2'>GUADEC Day #2</a> <small>(see http://www.guadec.org/schedule/warmup) At the first presentation, Quim Gil talked about...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/937' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: GUADEC Day #1'>GUADEC Day #1</a> <small>I am writing this in the morning of the second...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/650' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: The Google Highly Open Participation Contest'>The Google Highly Open Participation Contest</a> <small>One more initiative by Google to reach out to the...</small></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I attended <a href="http://www.fosdem.org" target="_blank">FOSDEM &#8217;08</a> which took place on the 23rd and 24th of February in Brussels.</p>
<p>Compared to other events, FOSDEM is a big event with over 4000 (?) participants and over 200 lectures (from lightning talks to keynotes). It occupied three buildings at a local university. Many sessions were taking place at the same time and you had to switch from one room to another. What follows is what I remember from the talks. Remember, people recollect  &lt;8% of the material they hear in a talk.</p>
<p>The first keynote was by Robin Rowe and Gabrielle Pantera, on using Linux in the motion picture industry. They showed a huge list of movies that were created using Linux farms. The first big item in the list was the movie Titanic (1997). The list stopped at around 2005 and the reason was that since then any significant movie that employs digital editing or 3D animation is created on Linux systems. They showed trailers from popular movies and explained how technology advanced to create realistic scenes. Part of being realistic, a generated scene may need to be blurred so that it does not look too crisp.</p>
<p>Next, Robert Watson gave a keynote on FreeBSD and the development community. He explained lots of things from the community that someone who is not using the distribution does not know about. FreeBSD apparently has a close-knit community, with people having specific roles. To become a developer, you go through a structured mentoring process which is great. I did not see such structured approach described in other open-source projects.</p>
<p>Pieter Hintjens, the former president of the FFII, talked about software patents. Software patents are bad because they describe ideas and not some concrete invention. This has been the view so that the target of the FFII effort fits on software patents. However, Pieter thinks that patents in general are bad, and it would be good to push this idea.</p>
<p>CMake is a build system, similar to what one gets with automake/autoconf/makefile. I have not seen this project before, and from what I saw, they look quite ambitious. Apparently it is very easy to get your compilation results on the web when you use CMake. In order to make their project more visible, they should make effort on migration of existing projects to using CMake. I did not see yet a major open-source package being developed with CMake, apart from CMake itself.</p>
<p>Richard Hughes talked about PackageKit, a layer that removes the complexity of packaging systems. You have GNOME and your distribution is either Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora or something else. PackageKit allows to have a common interface, and simplifies the workflow of managing the installation of packages and the updates.</p>
<p>In the Virtualisation tracks, two talks were really amazing. Xen and VirtualBox. Virtualisation is hot property and both companies were bought recently by Citrix and Sun Microsystems respectively. Xen is a Type 1 (native, bare metal) hypervisor while VirtualBox is a Type 2 (hosted) hypervisor. You would typically use Xen if you want to supply different services on a fast server. VirtualBox is amazingly good when you want to have a desktop running on your computer.</p>
<p>Ian Pratt (Xen) explained well the advantages of using a hypervisor, going into many details. For example, if you have a service that is single-threaded, then it makes sense to use Xen and install it on a dual-core system. Then, you can install some other services on the same system, increasing the utilisation of your investment.</p>
<p>Achim Hasenmueller gave an amazing talk. He started with a joke; <em>I have recently been demoted. From CEO to head of virtualisation department (name?) at Sun Microsystems</em>. He walked through the audience on the steps of his company. The first virtualisation product of his company was sold to Connectix, which then was sold to Microsoft as VirtualPC. Around 2005, he started a new company, Innotek and the product VirtualBox. The first customers were government agencies in Germany and only recently (2007) they started selling to end-users.</p>
<p>Virtualisation is quite complex, and it becomes more complex if your offering is cross platform. They manage the complexity by making VirtualBox modular.</p>
<p>VirtualBox comes in two versions; an open-source version and a binary edition. The difference is that with the binary edition you get USB support and you can use RDP to access the host. If you installed VirtualBox from the repository of your distribution, there is no USB support. He did not commit whether the USB/RDP support would make it to the open-source version, though it might happen since Sun Microsystems bought the company. I think that if enough people request it, then it might happen.</p>
<p>VirtualBox uses QT 3.3 as the cross platform toolkit, and there is a plan to migrate to QT 4.0. GTK+ was considered, though it was not chosen because it does not provide yet good support in Win32 (applications do not look very native on Windows). wxWidgets were considered as well, but also rejected. Apparently, moving from QT 3.3 to QT 4.0 is a lot of effort.</p>
<p><a href="http://zee-nix.blogspot.com/2008/02/gupnp-presentation-at-fosdem.html" target="_blank">Zeeshan Ali demonstrated GUPnP</a>, a library that allows applications to use the UPnP (Universal Plug n Play) protocol. This protocol is used when your computer tells your ADSL model to open a port so that an external computer can communicate directly with you (bypassing firewall/NAT). UPnP can also be used to access the content of your media station. The gupnp library comes with two interesting tools; <em>gupnp-universal-cp</em> and <em>gupnp-network-light</em>. The first is a browser of UPnP devices; it can show you what devices are available, what functionality they export, and you can control said devices. For example, you can use GUPnP to open a port on your router; when someone connects from the Internet to port 22 on your modem, he is redirected to your server, at port 22.</p>
<p>You can also use the same tool to figure out what port mapping took place already on your modem.</p>
<p>The demo with the network light is that you run the browser on one computer and the network light on another, both on the local LAN (this thing works only on the local LAN). Then, you can use the browser to switch on/off the light using the UPnP protocol.</p>
<p><a href="http://dimitris.glezos.com/weblog/2008/03/01/fosdem08-slide-deck/" target="_blank">Dimitris Glezos gave a talk on transifex</a>, the translation management framework that is currently used in Fedora. Translating software is a tedious task, and currently translators spent time on management tasks that have little to do with translation. We see several people dropping from translations due to this. Transifex is an evolving platform to make the work of the translator easier.</p>
<p>Dimitris talked about a command-line version of transifex coming out soon. Apparently, you can use this tool to grab the Greek translation of package gedit, branch HEAD. Do the translation and upload back the file.</p>
<p>What I would like to see here is a tool that you can instruct it to grab all PO files from a collection of projects (such as GNOME 2.22, UI Translations), and then you translate with your scripts/tools/etc. Then, you can use transifex to upload all those files using your SVN account.</p>
<p>The workflow would be something like</p>
<pre>$ tfx --project=gnome-2.22 --collection=gnome-desktop --action=get</pre>
<pre>Reading from http://svn.gnome.org/svn/damned-lies/trunk/releases.xml.in... done.</pre>
<pre>Getting alacarte... done.</pre>
<pre>Getting bug-buddy... done.</pre>
<pre>...</pre>
<pre>Completed in 4:11s.</pre>
<pre>$ _</pre>
<p>Now we translate any of the files we downloaded, and we push back upstream (of course, only those files that were changed).</p>
<pre>$ tfx --project=gnome-2.22 --collection=gnome-desktop --user=simos --action=send</pre>
<pre> Reading local files...</pre>
<pre>Found 6 changed files.</pre>
<pre>Uploading alacarte... done.</pre>
<pre>...</pre>
<pre>Completed uploading translation files to gnome-2.22.</pre>
<pre>$ _</pre>
<p>Berend Cornelius talked about creating OpenOffice.org Wizards. You get such wizards when you click on File/Wizards&#8230;, and you can use them to fill in entries in a template document (such as your name, address, etc in a letter), or use to install the spellchecker files. Actually, one of the most common uses is to get those spellchecker files installed.</p>
<p>A wizard is actually an OpenOffice.org extension; once you write it and install it (Tools/Extensions&#8230;), you can have it appear as a button on a toolbar or a menu item among other menus.</p>
<p>You write wizards in C++, and one would normally work on an existing wizard as base for new ones.</p>
<p>When people type in a word-processor, they typically abuse it (that&#8217;s my statement, not Berend&#8217;s) by omitting the use of styles and formatting. This makes documents difficult to maintain. Having a wizard teach a new user <a href="http://simos.info/blog/archives/651" target="_blank">how to write a structured document</a> would be a good idea.</p>
<p>Perry Ismangil talked about <a href="http://www.pjsip.org/" target="_blank">pjsip</a>, the portable open-source SIP and media stack. This means that you can have Internet telephony on different devices. Considering that Internet Telephony is a commodity, this is very cool. He demonstrated pjsip running two small devices, a Nintendo DS and an iPhone. Apparently pjsip can go on your OpenWRT router as well, giving you many more exciting opportunities.</p>
<p><a href="http://clutter-project.org/" target="_blank">Clutter</a> is a library to create fast animations and other effects on the GNOME desktop. It uses hardware acceleration to make up for the speed. You don&#8217;t need to learn OpenGL stuff; Clutter is there to provide the glue.</p>
<p>Gutsy has Clutter 0.4.0 in the repositories and the latest version is 0.6.0. To try out, you need at least the clutter tarball from the Clutter website. To start programming for your desktop, you need to try some of the bindings packages.</p>
<p>I had the chance to spend time with the <a href="http://dejavu.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank">DejaVu</a> guys (Hi Denis, Ben!). Also met up with Alexios, Dimitris x2, Serafeim, Markos and others from the Greek <em>mission</em>.</p>
<p>Overall, FOSDEM is a cool event. In two days there is so much material and interesting talks. It&#8217;s a recommended technical event.</p>


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<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/937' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: GUADEC Day #1'>GUADEC Day #1</a> <small>I am writing this in the morning of the second...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/650' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: The Google Highly Open Participation Contest'>The Google Highly Open Participation Contest</a> <small>One more initiative by Google to reach out to the...</small></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Droid fonts from Google (Android SDK)</title>
		<link>http://simos.info/blog/archives/648?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=droid-fonts-from-google-android-sdk</link>
		<comments>http://simos.info/blog/archives/648#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:57:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Simos</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Update 10Feb2009: The Droid fonts are now available from android.git.kernel.org (Download tar.gz archive), under the Apache License, Version 2.0. Ascender (the company who created Droid), has now a dedicated website at http://www.droidfonts.com/ (thanks Rex!). At this dedicated website, Ascender presents the Droid Pro family which has several additions to Droid. For the open-source crowd, it [...]


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<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/1115' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Stix Fonts, eventually out.'>Stix Fonts, eventually out.</a> <small>The StixFonts project is a project to produce high quality...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/658' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: FOSDEM &#8217;08, summary and comments'>FOSDEM &#8217;08, summary and comments</a> <small>I attended FOSDEM &#8217;08 which took place on the 23rd...</small></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Update 10Feb2009</strong>: The Droid fonts are now available from android.git.kernel.org (<a title="Droid fonts" href="http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/frameworks/base.git;a=snapshot;h=6b8721393400f8e98bb6c29d47b38c79be7ade32;sf=tgz" target="_blank">Download tar.gz archive</a>), under the Apache License, Version 2.0. Ascender (the company who created Droid), has now a dedicated website at <a href="http://www.droidfonts.com/" target="_blank">http://www.droidfonts.com/</a> (thanks Rex!). At this dedicated website, Ascender presents the Droid Pro family which has several additions to Droid. For the open-source crowd, it is important to have the initial Droid font family dual-licensed under the “<a href="http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&amp;id=OFL" target="_blank">OpenFont License</a>”, which would enable the best use with the rest of the OFL licensed fonts.</p>
<p>Two years ago, <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2005/tc20050817_0949_tc024.htm" target="_blank">Google bought a start-up called Android</a> in order to deliver an open platform for mobile applications. A few days ago the <a href="http://code.google.com/android/" target="_blank">Android SDK</a> has been released and you can develop now Android applications that can run in the emulator. Android handsets are expected at some point next year.</p>
<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2120/2037665344_1140883bda_o.png" alt="" /></p>
<p>Even if you do not plan to develop applications for Android, you can still run the emulator which is functional, includes quite a few samples, and comes with a browser shown above. To get it, download the <a href="http://code.google.com/android/" target="_blank">Android SDK for your system</a>, uncompress it and run</p>
<blockquote><p>./android_sdk_linux_m3-rc20a/tools/emulator</p></blockquote>
<p>An interesting aspect of Android is that it comes with a set of fonts that have been specially designed for mobile devices, the <a href="http://www.ascendercorp.com/pr/pr2007_11_12.html" target="_blank">Droid fonts</a>. The fonts are embedded in the Android <em>image</em>, in android_sdk_linux_m3-rc20a/tools/lib/images/system.img, <a href="http://benno.id.au/blog/2007/11/14/android-filesystems" target="_blank">a clever guy managed to extract them</a> and <a href="http://damieng.com/blog/" target="_blank">a modest guy</a> <a href="http://simos.info/blog/archives/648#comment-393947" target="_blank">corrected me</a> (<a href="http://damieng.com/blog/2007/11/14/droid-font-family-courtesy-of-google-ascender" target="_blank">Damien&#8217;s blog to download</a>).</p>
<p>The fonts are probably licensed under the same license as <a href="http://code.google.com/android/kb/licensingandoss.html" target="_blank">the SDK (Apache License)</a>, however it is better to hear from Google first.</p>
<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2331/2036868223_e47d5a7719_o.png" alt="" /></p>
<p>In the meantime, here is a screenshot of Ubuntu 7.10 with Droid.</p>
<p><strong>Update</strong>: To extract the fonts from the SDK, run the emulator with the <em>-console</em> parameter. The emulator starts and at the same time you get a shell to the filesystem of the running emulator. You can locate the fonts in <strong><em>system/fonts/</em></strong>. Once located the full path of a file, you can extract with <strong>./adb pull system/fonts/DroidSans.ttf /tmp/DroidSans.ttf</strong> (thanks <a href="http://www.cosmix.org/" target="_blank">cosmix</a> for the tip).</p>


<p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/872' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Workaround for bad fonts in Google Earth 5 (Linux)'>Workaround for bad fonts in Google Earth 5 (Linux)</a> <small>So you just installed Google Earth 5 and you can&#8217;t...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/1115' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Stix Fonts, eventually out.'>Stix Fonts, eventually out.</a> <small>The StixFonts project is a project to produce high quality...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/658' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: FOSDEM &#8217;08, summary and comments'>FOSDEM &#8217;08, summary and comments</a> <small>I attended FOSDEM &#8217;08 which took place on the 23rd...</small></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>StixFonts, finally available (beta)!</title>
		<link>http://simos.info/blog/archives/646?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=stixfonts-finally-available-beta</link>
		<comments>http://simos.info/blog/archives/646#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 04 Nov 2007 02:05:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Simos</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://simos.info/blog/archives/646</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The STIX Fonts project (website) has been developing for over 10 years a font suitable to be used in academic publications. It boasts support from Elsevier, IEEE and other academic publishers or associations. A few days ago, they published a beta version of the font in an effort to get public feedback. The beta period [...]


Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/1115' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Stix Fonts, eventually out.'>Stix Fonts, eventually out.</a> <small>The StixFonts project is a project to produce high quality...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/1144' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Ubuntu Font Beta and Greek'>Ubuntu Font Beta and Greek</a> <small>Update: All open bugs for this font at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntufontbetatesting/+bugs File...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/553' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Can you read Coptic?'>Can you read Coptic?</a> <small>Coptic is the most recent phase of ancient Egyptian. It...</small></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The <a title="STIX fonts project" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIX_Fonts_project" target="_blank">STIX Fonts project</a> (<a href="http://www.stixfonts.org/" target="_blank">website</a>) has been developing for over 10 years a font suitable to be used in academic publications. It boasts support from <a href="http://www.elsevier.com/" target="_blank">Elsevier</a>, <a href="http://www.ieee.org/" target="_blank">IEEE</a> and other academic publishers or associations.</p>
<p>A few days ago, they published a beta version of the font in an effort to get public feedback. The beta period runs until the 15th December.</p>
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<td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/simos.lists/STIXFontsBeta/photo#5128794826811177730"><img src="http://lh6.google.com/simos.lists/Ry0juLHw-wI/AAAAAAAAADQ/mjBXAHfy-JU/s800/STIXBeta-Greek-Regular.png" alt="" /></a></td>
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<td style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: right">STIX Fonts Beta showing Greek (Regular), from <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/simos.lists/STIXFontsBeta">STIX Fonts Beta</a><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/simos.lists/STIXFontsBeta"></a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>STIX Fonts Beta currently support modern Greek. An effort to get <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-greek/2005/10/msg00009.html" target="_blank">support for Greek Polytonic</a> did not work out well a few years back.</p>
<table style="width: auto;" border="0">
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<td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/simos.lists/STIXFontsBeta/photo#5128794831106145042"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/simos.lists/Ry0jubHw-xI/AAAAAAAAADY/AhQioAMnxNY/s800/STIXBeta-Greek-Italic.png" alt="" /></a></td>
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<td style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: right">STIX Fonts Beta showing Greek (Italic), from <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/simos.lists/STIXFontsBeta">STIX Fonts Beta</a><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/simos.lists/STIXFontsBeta"></a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
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<p>The main benefit of STIX Fonts is the support for mathematical and other technical symbols. This helps when writing academic publications and other technical documents.</p>
<table style="width: auto;" border="0">
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<td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/simos.lists/STIXFontsBeta/photo#5128794831106145058"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/simos.lists/Ry0jubHw-yI/AAAAAAAAADg/GGXSL8sA-nM/s800/STIXBeta-Greek-Bold.png" alt="" /></a></td>
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<td style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: right">STIX Fonts Beta showing Greek (Bold), from <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/simos.lists/STIXFontsBeta">STIX Fonts Beta</a><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/simos.lists/STIXFontsBeta"></a></td>
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</table>
<p>STIX Fonts have extensive support of mathematical symbols, symbols that exist in Unicode Plane-1.</p>
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<td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/simos.lists/STIXFontsBeta/photo#5128794831106145074"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/simos.lists/Ry0jubHw-zI/AAAAAAAAADo/qAOWIy-2TI8/s800/STIXBeta-Greek-BoldItalic.png" alt="" /></a></td>
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<td style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: right">STIX Fonts Beta showing Greek (Bold Italic), from <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/simos.lists/STIXFontsBeta">STIX Fonts Beta</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>If there is any modification that we would like to have in STIX fonts, we should do now. Once they are released, they will be widely distributed. Currently, Fedora has packaged STIX Fonts and made them available already.</p>


<p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/1115' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Stix Fonts, eventually out.'>Stix Fonts, eventually out.</a> <small>The StixFonts project is a project to produce high quality...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/1144' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Ubuntu Font Beta and Greek'>Ubuntu Font Beta and Greek</a> <small>Update: All open bugs for this font at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntufontbetatesting/+bugs File...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/553' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Can you read Coptic?'>Can you read Coptic?</a> <small>Coptic is the most recent phase of ancient Egyptian. It...</small></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts</title>
		<link>http://simos.info/blog/archives/627?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=unicode-fonts-for-ancient-scripts</link>
		<comments>http://simos.info/blog/archives/627#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Jun 2007 18:34:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Simos</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[fonts]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://simos.info/blog/archives/627</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[George Douros created a set of Unicode fonts that cover the part of the Unicode standard for ancient scripts and symbols. Linear B Ideograms; Ιδεογράμματα Γραμμικής Β Ancient Greek numbers; Αρχαίοι ελληνικοί αριθμοί Click here to see more screenshots on the Ancient fonts gallery. Related posts:Convert your legacy font to Unicode There exist quite a [...]


Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/606' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Convert your legacy font to Unicode'>Convert your legacy font to Unicode</a> <small>There exist quite a few legacy fonts, from the time...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/553' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Can you read Coptic?'>Can you read Coptic?</a> <small>Coptic is the most recent phase of ancient Egyptian. It...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/648' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Droid fonts from Google (Android SDK)'>Droid fonts from Google (Android SDK)</a> <small>Update 10Feb2009: The Droid fonts are now available from android.git.kernel.org...</small></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://greekfonts.teilar.gr/">George Douros</a> created <a href="http://greekfonts.teilar.gr/">a set of Unicode fonts</a> that cover the part of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode">Unicode standard</a> for <a href="http://www.unicode.org/charts/">ancient scripts and symbols</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/simos.lists/AncientScriptsFontsByGeorgeDouros/photo#5072643673254775954"><img src="http://lh4.google.com/image/simos.lists/RmWmi3h7zJI/AAAAAAAAAAw/9l9ugtMvc1k/s800/LinearB.jpg" /></a><br />
<em>Linear B Ideograms; Ιδεογράμματα Γραμμικής Β</em></p>
<p><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/simos.lists/AncientScriptsFontsByGeorgeDouros/photo"><img src="http://lh6.google.com/image/simos.lists/RmWmmXh7zMI/AAAAAAAAABI/kmsCSn1q7hY/AncientGreekNumbers.jpg" /></a><br />
<em>Ancient Greek numbers; Αρχαίοι ελληνικοί αριθμοί</em></p>
<p>Click here to see more screenshots on<br />
<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/simos.lists/AncientScriptsFontsByGeorgeDouros/">the Ancient fonts gallery</a>.</p>


<p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/606' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Convert your legacy font to Unicode'>Convert your legacy font to Unicode</a> <small>There exist quite a few legacy fonts, from the time...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/553' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Can you read Coptic?'>Can you read Coptic?</a> <small>Coptic is the most recent phase of ancient Egyptian. It...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/648' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Droid fonts from Google (Android SDK)'>Droid fonts from Google (Android SDK)</a> <small>Update 10Feb2009: The Droid fonts are now available from android.git.kernel.org...</small></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
		</item>
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		<title>Convert your legacy font to Unicode</title>
		<link>http://simos.info/blog/archives/606?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=convert-your-legacy-font-to-unicode</link>
		<comments>http://simos.info/blog/archives/606#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 29 Mar 2007 09:43:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Simos</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://simos.info/blog/archives/606</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There exist quite a few legacy fonts, from the time that 8-bit-style encodings was the norm. Nowdays, most (if not all) spoken and ancient scripts have been added to the Unicode standard. Therefore, if you have a legacy font, you can convert to Unicode using a guide by William J Poser. The guide uses Linear [...]


Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/301' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Οδηγός &#8220;Unicode Font Guide For Free/Libre Open Source Operating Systems&#8221;'>Οδηγός &#8220;Unicode Font Guide For Free/Libre Open Source Operating Systems&#8221;</a> <small>Ο Edward H. Trager, γνωστός από το έργο για πληροφορίες...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/603' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Multimedia support in Ubuntu Linux 6.10'>Multimedia support in Ubuntu Linux 6.10</a> <small>This is a follow-up to the article Multimedia support in...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/627' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts'>Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts</a> <small>George Douros created a set of Unicode fonts that cover...</small></li>
</ol>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>There exist quite a few legacy fonts, from the time that 8-bit-style encodings was the norm. Nowdays, most (if not all) spoken and ancient scripts have been added to the <a href="http://www.unicode.org/charts/">Unicode standard</a>.<br />
Therefore, if you have a legacy font, you can convert to Unicode using <a href="http://billposer.org/Linguistics/Computation/Reencoding/HowTo.html">a guide by William J Poser</a>. The guide uses Linear B as an example.</p>
<p>The program mentioned in the guide is pfaedit, which is now known as FontForge. FontForge is available in your Ubuntu distribution; simply search using the package manager.</p>
<p>Once you have a Unicode font, the next step is to prepare an input method so that you can write in this script. But that&#8217;s another blog post.</p>


<p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/301' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Οδηγός &#8220;Unicode Font Guide For Free/Libre Open Source Operating Systems&#8221;'>Οδηγός &#8220;Unicode Font Guide For Free/Libre Open Source Operating Systems&#8221;</a> <small>Ο Edward H. Trager, γνωστός από το έργο για πληροφορίες...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/603' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Multimedia support in Ubuntu Linux 6.10'>Multimedia support in Ubuntu Linux 6.10</a> <small>This is a follow-up to the article Multimedia support in...</small></li>
<li><a href='http://simos.info/blog/archives/627' rel='bookmark' title='Permanent Link: Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts'>Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts</a> <small>George Douros created a set of Unicode fonts that cover...</small></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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