26 april 2001 unicode and windows xp, iuc 18 (hong kong) unicode and windows xp cathy wissink...

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

Unicode and Windows XPUnicode and Windows XP

Cathy WissinkProgram Manager, Globalization Windows DivisionMicrosoft

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

AgendaAgenda

Brief Overview of Approach and History International Functionality on Windows What’s Different in Windows XP? What’s Beyond Windows XP? Conclusions and Resources

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

Approach and HistoryApproach and History

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

Our Approach Our Approach (or: How did we get where we are today?)(or: How did we get where we are today?)

Include full Unicode support from onset Leverage Uniscribe, OpenType, NLS Migrate towards a single worldwide

source (reached in Windows 2000) Develop and refine Multilingual User

Interface functionality Continue to add new international

functionality (Windows Text Services Framework, etc.)

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

Our History Our History (or: Well, how did we get here?)(or: Well, how did we get here?)

Genesis of NT (1991): Go with Unicode! NT 4.0 (1996): many Unicode components,

but still strong code page dependency NT 5.0, renamed Windows 2000 (2000):

single worldwide source Windows XP (2001): merge of the NT

international functionality with the consumer experience of Windows 95/98/ME

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

International FunctionalityInternational Functionality

NLS (National Language Support), including the locale model

Uniscribe (including OpenType)Windows Text Services FrameworkMUI (Multilingual User Interface

Pack for Windows)

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

National Language SupportNational Language Support

NLS provides the information that supports culturally appropriate behavior:

Sorting and casing Formatting (dates, times, currency,

numbers) Conversions (normalization, character

encodings) Other (calendars, native digits)

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

National Language Support, cont.National Language Support, cont.

NLS data for a particular culture grouped into a locale (generally, a country + language combination).

There were different types of “locales” on Windows 2000, which have been renamed for Windows XP (as seen in Regional Options)…

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

LocalesLocales

Windows 2000“User locale” (cultural conventions and

data)

“Input locale”(keyboards and IMEs)

“System locale”(code page conversions)

Windows XP“Standards and

Formats”

“Input Language and Method”

“Language for non-Unicode Programs”

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

Uniscribe Uniscribe

The technology used to handle the layout, rendering and editing of complex scripts

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

Examples of Complex ScriptsExamples of Complex Scripts

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

Some of the text issues Some of the text issues handled by Uniscribehandled by Uniscribe

Word breaking (Thai)Bi-directional text (Hebrew, Arabic)Multiple diacritics on a base

character (Vietnamese)Contextual shaping (Indic, Arabic)Illegal character combination

filtering (Thai)

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

Windows Text Services Windows Text Services FrameworkFramework

New to Windows XP!Extends input methods to include

natural language recognition (speech, handwriting)

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

MUIMUI

Short for Multilingual User InterfaceMUI changes language of the

system’s menus, dialogs and Help files into one of 24 different languages

Available as add-on pack for Windows XP Professional (Multilingual User Interface Pack)

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

MUI, continuedMUI, continued

MUI built by copying resources from localized versions

Testers check for same issues as for localized versions

Resource loader checks user’s UI language setting to load the appropriate resources

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

MUI vs. other international MUI vs. other international functionalityfunctionality

MUI– changes the user’s UI language– only available as an add-on pack to the

English version of Windows XP

All other international functionality– impacts language content and

formatting– available on all versions of Windows XP

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

What’s new for Windows XP?What’s new for Windows XP?

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

NLSNLS9 new locales + invariant locale;

136 locales total– Punjabi, Gujarati, Telugu, Kannada, Kyrgyz,

Mongolian (Cyrillic), Galician, Divehi and Syriac

Old Hangul sortingGB18030 encodingNew location (“Geo”) APIs Overhaul of Regional Options

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

Regional OptionsRegional Options

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

UniscribeUniscribe

New script support – Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Telugu,

Divehi, and Syriac Improvements to resolution, layout and

formatting made possible by GDI+ Default system installation of Uniscribe Improved font fallback support

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

MUIMUI

Closer parity to 100% localized builds:– UI strings removed from registry and

kernel– Improvements to Shell, Desktop and

Console resource handling– Help files enabled for UI language

switching

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

If you take away just one thing If you take away just one thing from this talk…from this talk…

As a result of pervasive Unicode support built into Windows XP, international functionality (except MUI) is available on all versions

This includes: Localized versions MUI version Base (English) version

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

What’s beyond Windows XP?What’s beyond Windows XP?

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

Looking to the future…Looking to the future…

New research for languages and cultures

Marry MUI and localization?Eventual goal: “English is just

another language”

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

ResourcesResources

Windows Global Development Website

http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/mailto:gdhelp@microsoft.com (Global Dev Help)mailto:drintl@microsoft.com (Dr. International)

Microsoft Typography Website (OpenType, Uniscribe)

http://www.microsoft.com/typography

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

Other Related Talks at IUC 18Other Related Talks at IUC 18

(later today) Kaplan, Surrogate Support on MS

Products Hall, MUI on Windows 2000

(proceedings to earlier presentations) Pratley, Unicode in Office XP Kaplan, Unicode and SQL Collation

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

Well, what about us Win9x fans?Well, what about us Win9x fans?

Gee, not everyone can go out and buy Windows XP tomorrow…

Some of us have a customer base on Windows 95/98/ME…

We’d love to be able to write Unicode apps, but we have to run on both NT and Win9x…

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

Microsoft Layer for Unicode Microsoft Layer for Unicode on Windows 95/98/ME on Windows 95/98/ME

Systems (Systems (MSLU)MSLU)

Goals: extend the NT set of Unicode APIs to the

Windows 95/98/ME platforms provide a means for customers to

reasonably compile Unicode versions of their applications

further promote the use of Unicode

26 April 2001 Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 18 (Hong Kong)

Why MSLU?Why MSLU?

Too much need for single binary on NT and Win9x platforms

Cannot fully leverage Unicode without some support mechanism on down-level Win9x platforms

MS needed to provide a solution that is included in the Platform SDK