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Re: Configure country

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On 4 Oct 2025 as I do recall,
          Matthew Phillips  wrote:

> In message <912342665c.harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk>
>  on 4 Oct 2025 Harriet Bazley  wrote:
> 
> > I suspect that any website into which you try to enter Cyrillic
> > probably wouldn't recognise RISC OS 'Cyrillic encoding' but would expect
> > Unicode of some flavour, but I haven't even managed to get that far....
> 
> If you manage to type or paste characters into a form in NetSurf and see 
> Cyrillic, then you will be fine.

Good point - I already discovered that copying and pasting Cyrillic text
already being displayed by Netsurf itself is supported (although dragged
saves are not, so I have to remember to go via the global clipboard!)


> NetSurf is well aware of character encodings and will make sure that
> what is transmitted to the server is encoded in some form of Unicode
> where appropriate.
> 
> I have not met KeyMap (where do you get it?)

I was recommended it on the NetSurf mailing list:  it resides at
http://www.riscos.sprie.nl/sprang.riscos/Pages/KeyMap.html

Its main applicability in this case was supposed to be the ability to
generate Unicode output, but I only got this working in the case of
typing directly into the minimal !Dict window (as opposed to the normal
iconbar-resident application) and didn't get Dict working with Russian
input.  Originally the issue was the lack of an appropriate dictionary
server (the ones supplied in the download are no longer valid), but when
I tried it again just now it simply crashed instead of generating
output.
Although to be fair it may have crashed due to trying to use an
inappropriate server....

Mainly I use it as a convenient Russian keyboard layout display, as my
touch-typing is still far from reliable!  I suppose using it as a !Chars
analogue might actually be faster now that I have worked out the correct
configuration settings to do it, but of course my Russian keyboard
layout typing will never improve without practice.   :-(

> but I have experimented with XChars from Martin Wuerthner.  It allows
> you to show fonts in different encodings. I have also just been trying
> out Chars version 2.05 which I hadn't explored before because our main
> day-to-day RISC OS computer is still on quite an old version of the
> operating system.

I seem to have !Chars 2.06, which does offer the possibility to set
Encoding and Category.

> 
> I can't offer any help on keyboards, but if you want to use Chars or 
> XChars to enter characters into NetSurf, what I find is crucial is the 
> alphabet setting.  NetSurf assumes (as all applications should) that the 
> key values transmitted in the Key Pressed event (8) are encoded in the 
> current alphabet.  You can view the current alphabet with *alphabet and 
> the list of available alphabets with *alphabets.
> 
> If you change the alphabet to UTF8:
> *alphabet utf8
> and then run Chars, selecting a decent font with Cyrillic characters in 
> (e.g. FreeSans or FreeSerif) then you can switch to UTF-8 encoding in 
> Chars and the category Cyrillic.  You should then find that none of the 
> characters are shown greyed out, and you can left click over any of them 
> or press Shift to insert them into the keyboard stream.  What then happens 
> is that the Wimp will send multiple Key Pressed events, each corresponding 
> to a single byte of the UTF-8 encoding for the character, and 
> knowledgeable applications like NetSurf will then do the right thing with 
> them.

This doesn't seem to work for me (with the Cyberbit font) unless I also
use KeyMap to change the keyboard mapping.

(Oh wait, it did that time...)

Interestingly, if I switch to the Bukinist.1251 font with Encoding UTF-8
and Category Latin, I can see the Cyrillic characters but not type them;
the 'help text' at the bottom of the !Chars window correctly predicts
what will appear if that character is actually clicked upon, as opposed
to what is displayed, e.g. a Cyrillic YA is described as U+00DF LATIN
SMALL LETTER SHARP S, and if I use Chars to enter that letter into a
Netsurf input box I get an eszett.

But if I ask Chars to display the Bukinist.1251 font with Encoding
Cyrillic and Category Cyrillic, the lower part of the display window is
completely blank (no greyed-out letters), but clicking on the invisible
letters as per the help text (e.g. U+042F CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER YA)
does generate the advertised Unicode character.   You just can't see
them.

[snip]

> 
> Another way of working is to set the alphabet to Latin1 initially and then 
> start Chars or XChars.  Display the font you want, and pick an 8-bit 
> encoding (so not UTF-8) that contains the characters you want to type 
> (e.g. Cyrillic).  Then issue the command "*alphabet cyrillic", and you 
> will find that Chars or XChars will send the correct key codes for NetSurf 
> to pick them up and enter Cyrillic in the form.  It's a bit of a faff to 
> issue the star command whenever you switch encoding in the Chars display.

Yes, does seem to work with Cyberbit and DejaVu, both of which contain
Cyrillic encoding.    (Doesn't work with Bukinist because as mentioned
the characters are there but invisible, so you can't see what you're
going to get!  I think some part of the font definition must be missing
on that one....)

-- 
Harriet Bazley                     ==  Loyaulte me lie ==

Everyone hates me because I'm paranoid.

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Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-09-08 23:14 +0100
  Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-09-09 09:39 +0100
    Re: Configure country Jean-Michel <jmc.bruck@orange.fr> - 2025-09-12 10:02 +0200
      Re: Configure country Paul Sprangers <Paul@sprie.nl> - 2025-09-12 13:57 +0200
      Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-09-12 15:26 +0100
        Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-09-29 17:13 +0100
          Re: Configure country Jean-Michel <jmc.bruck@orange.fr> - 2025-09-30 11:36 +0200
            Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-09-30 19:18 +0100
              Re: Configure country Paul Stewart <phorefaux@gmail.com> - 2025-09-30 20:38 +0100
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-09-30 22:40 +0100
                Re: Configure country Paul Stewart <paulstewart@phawfaux.co.uk> - 2025-10-03 22:26 +0100
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-10-04 01:02 +0100
              Re: Configure country J Peachey <john@jpeachey.co.uk> - 2025-09-30 20:00 +0000
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-09-30 22:42 +0100
                Re: Configure country Jean-Michel <jmc.bruck@orange.fr> - 2025-10-01 10:26 +0200
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-10-04 01:20 +0100
                Re: Configure country Jean-Michel <jmc.bruck@orange.fr> - 2025-10-04 10:16 +0200
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-10-04 13:41 +0100
                Re: Configure country Sniffer <sniffer@dewberryfields.co.uk> - 2025-10-04 14:50 +0100
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-10-04 18:08 +0100
                Re: Configure country Paul Sprangers <Paul@sprie.nl> - 2025-10-04 19:51 +0200
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-10-04 20:27 +0100
                Re: Configure country Paul Sprangers <Paul@sprie.nl> - 2025-10-04 12:17 +0200
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-10-04 13:19 +0100
                Re: Configure country Matthew Phillips <spam2011m@yahoo.co.uk> - 2025-10-04 13:18 +0100
                Re: Configure country Paul Sprangers <Paul@sprie.nl> - 2025-10-04 14:27 +0200
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-10-04 18:04 +0100
                Re: Configure country Paul Sprangers <Paul@sprie.nl> - 2025-10-04 19:47 +0200
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-10-04 20:23 +0100
                Re: Configure country druck <news@druck.org.uk> - 2025-10-04 20:40 +0100
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-10-04 18:50 +0100
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-10-04 18:47 +0100
                Re: Configure country Paul Sprangers <Paul@sprie.nl> - 2025-10-04 19:59 +0200
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-10-04 20:35 +0100
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-10-04 21:12 +0100
                Re: Configure country Paul Sprangers <Paul@sprie.nl> - 2025-10-04 23:33 +0200
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-10-05 10:30 +0100
                Re: Configure country Paul Sprangers <Paul@sprie.nl> - 2025-10-05 12:40 +0200
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-10-05 12:46 +0100
                Re: Configure country Paul Sprangers <Paul@sprie.nl> - 2025-10-05 17:54 +0200
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-10-05 13:27 +0100
                Configure country Paul Sprangers <Paul@sprie.nl> - 2025-10-04 23:30 +0200
                Re: Configure country Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2025-10-05 10:19 +0100

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