[Isis-users] isis-users Digest, Vol 44, Issue 6 / Unicode ABCD

Wed Jun 11 15:53:56 CEST 2014

Well, Unicode is available for (C)ISIS but it not supported by BIREME. This means we will have to beg for some assistance whenever, like now, new things are being done on the CISIS utilities (making it compatible with new Linux-versions), or when - as is also the case now - there are still incompatibilities with (their !) Site and iAH. There might be some goodwill available also however and people are very reasonable, only they have to incorporate things into their high-pressure priorities list.

Entries in the new tables for ISIS UTF-8 (isisactab_utf8.tab) look like this : 
065		        # A
195 128		# A grave
219 191		# ARABIC LETTER HEH WITH INVERTED V
225 136 128	# ETHIOPIC SYLLABLE HA	
representing reps. a normal capital A, an accented A (both from Latin Alphabet), an Arabic character and an Amharic (syllabic) character. The part after # is just optional to give info on the character listed.
The decimal numbers have to be found in the offical UTF-8 tables for the various alphabets.
As you can see in UTF-8 some alphabets take two (Arabic) or three (Ethopic) bytes for one character, not just one. This is the main difference with ASCI/ANSI.

If you understand this, you could produce a table incorporating the special African characters you need.

Egbert de Smet
Universiteit Antwerpen
________________________________________
From: Werner Hillebrecht [werner.hillebrecht at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2014 3:13 PM
To: De Smet Egbert
Cc: Nguyên Ninh; isis-users at iccisis.org
Subject: Re: [Isis-users] isis-users Digest, Vol 44, Issue 6 / Unicode ABCD

Unicode would be extremely helpful not only for non-Latin scripts but
also for a number of African languages which are basically Latin
alphabet but having a few special characters, either uncommon
accentuated Latin characters or characters that are entirely on their
own, like the four clicks in Khoisan languages represented by / // !
and the mathematical "unequal" sign. These have been a problem for us
in Namibia, with one of our main indigenous languages using those
characters, and we found a workable solution with ASCII graphic
characters on DOS CDS/ISIS by modifyting the isisac.tab which again
could be translated with some problems into WINISIS by modifying the
ansioem and oemansi.tab, but Unicode would definitely be much more
elegant.

Werner Hillebrecht
National Archives of Namibia

On 6/9/14, De Smet Egbert <egbert.desmet at uantwerpen.be> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> there is a Unicode-compatible version now indeed for CISIS, allowing ABCD to
> deal with Unicode alphabets in the databases themselves. But we still face a
> problem with it when called directly from the Site (through the Metasearch).
> In iAH the problem is only that the alphabetical navigation in the index
> lists obviously is only based on the Latin alphabet A-Z whereas an unlimited
> number of other alphabets exist which makes it very tricky to provide
> entries from all those others. But searching straight from the search-box
> works well. In ABCD Central is seems to work mostly o.k. based on my tests.
> Unless all this is fully tested and corrected we can't publish it in ABCD
> v2.0, where Unicode would indeed be one of the major new features for ABCD.
>
> In reality a lot more pressure will need to be developed from the
> international users' community (e.g. by this list) in order to move the
> experts (at BIREME and outside) to taking the Unicode version more
> seriously. I have tried my best but as an individual I am not having
> sufficient impact clearly to move things fast enough. In Latin-America the
> need for and therefore the interest in Unicode is simply unexisting. As
> frustrating and in fact narrow-minded it is in the international
> 'information Society' context, it is a sad reality. Personally I think if
> ISIS wants to remain one of the outstanding international information tools,
> it highly needs to give higher priority to Unicode.
>
> Concretely and in order to end positively, I can send the Unicode versions
> of CISIS for experimenting and all help, e.g. in constructing the tables
> listing the actual (decimal) values of the characters for specific alphabets
> in the tables used, is welcome. E.g. I did the tables for Amharic, Arabic,
> some Devanagari (India) and Russian but not for Vietnamese (or Chinese or
> ...).
>
> Egbert de Smet
> Universiteit Antwerpen
> ________________________________________
> From: isis-users [isis-users-bounces+egbert.desmet=ua.ac.be at iccisis.org] on
> behalf of Nguyên Ninh [itpro.lib at gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, June 09, 2014 3:40 AM
> To: isis-users at iccisis.org
> Subject: Re: [Isis-users] isis-users Digest, Vol 44, Issue 6
>
> Dear all,
> Please help me downloading ABCD Ver 2.0, as it supports Unicode and my
> language could be used there fore.
> Many thanks!
>
> NGUYÊN NINH
> ===========
>
> NATIONAL LIBRARY OF VIETNAM
> Alo: +84.1233.833.666
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 5:00 PM,
> <isis-users-request at iccisis.org<mailto:isis-users-request at iccisis.org>>
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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: ABCD 1.3t - Renova??o - Renovaci?n (Guilda Ascencio)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 09:10:12 -0430
> From: Guilda Ascencio <gascencio at msinfo.info<mailto:gascencio at msinfo.info>>
> To: Edwin H?bner <edwin.hubner at gmail.com<mailto:edwin.hubner at gmail.com>>
> Cc: isis-users <isis-users at iccisis.org<mailto:isis-users at iccisis.org>>
> Subject: Re: [Isis-users] ABCD 1.3t - Renova??o - Renovaci?n
> Message-ID:
>
> <CAPspBaQhjGOSQnJ58XvdDid0WuyksTgbG_X=asNwsTcHbmKtCQ at mail.gmail.com<mailto:asNwsTcHbmKtCQ at mail.gmail.com>>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Hola Edwin.
>
> No he podido identificar el error ya que pruebo y me da resultados
> correctos.  Supongo que le est?s llegando desde el bot?n "renovar" y por
> eso te da el error. Con cu?l versi?n est?s trabajando tu?. Podr?as enviarme
> el script circulation/renovar_ex.php
>
> Saludos
>
>
>
>
>
> 2014-06-04 6<tel:2014-06-04%206>:04 GMT-04:30 Edwin H?bner
> <edwin.hubner at gmail.com<mailto:edwin.hubner at gmail.com>>:
>
>> (En espa?ol m?s abajo)
>>
>> Ol?!
>> Tenho problemas com renova??o. Est? apresentando a mesagem "O item n?o
>> pode ser renovado. Limite atingido". Gostaria de saber a que limite se
>> refere. No meu caso a pl?tica permite renova??o quando o usu?rio est? com
>> empr?stimos vencidos. Todos os par?metros est?o dentro dos limites.
>> Quando
>> o empr?stimo ainda n?o est? vencido, a renova??o funciona.
>> Veja exemplo anexo.
>> Algu?m pode esclarecer?
>> Obrigado,
>> Edwin
>>
>> ----------
>>
>>
>> Hola!
>> Tengo problemas con la renovaci?n. Presenta la mesagem "El item no se
>> puede renovar. L?mite alcanzado". Me pregunto lo que se refiere al l?mite.
>> En
>> mi caso la plitica permite la renovaci?n cuando el usuario est? prestamos
>> vencidos. Todos los par?metros est?n dentro de los l?mites. Cuando el
>> pr?stamo
>> a?n no esta vencido, la renovaci?n funciona.
>> V?ase ejemplo adjunto.
>> ?Alguien puede aclarar?
>> Gracias,
>> Edwin
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Edwin H?bner
>> (21)9647-1675<tel:%2821%299647-1675>
>>
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