Solaris 9 Language Support

The Solaris 9 operating environment now includes support for 162 locale environments that cover 39 languages. These environments are provided on the Solaris 9 DVD, the Solaris 9 Software CDs, and the Solaris 9 Languages CD. The following section provides information on language support features.

For further information, see the International Language Environments Guide.

Improved Data Interoperability

Data interoperability with non-Solaris environments has been improved in the Solaris 9 release. Additions include new iconv utilities for data conversion between UTF-8 and the following native encodings: HKSCS, GB18030, ISO 8859-11, and Hindi. Additionally, Japanese language support has been expanded through iconv modules. These modules convert between Solaris Japanese locale codesets and Japanese mainframe codesets from Fujitsu, Hitachi, and NEC.

For further information on language support in the Solaris 9 release, see the International Language Environments Guide.

New TrueType Fonts

The new TrueType fonts provide a common appearance between the codesets and offer support for the same typefaces across the codesets. The TrueType fonts are common to all European locales. Each Asian locale has its own TrueType fonts file.

For further information, see the International Language Environments Guide.

Expanded Unicode Support

The Solaris 9 release offers broader support for Unicode. Additions include new Unicode (UTF-8) locales for Thailand, India, Hong Kong, Turkey, Egypt, Brazil, Finland, and Belgium-Walloon.

For further information about Unicode support in the Solaris 9 release, see the International Language Environments Guide.

Print Filter Enhancement--the mp Program

The mp program accepts international text files from various Solaris locales. The program produces output for the specified locale. Because the complex text layout (CTL) is supported in the mp program, the output contains proper text layout, such as bidirectional text rendering and shaping. Depending on the mp system font configuration for each locale, the PostScript output file can contain glyph images from Solaris system-resident scalable or bitmap fonts.

For more information, see "Print Filter Enhancement With" in International Language Environments Guide.

New iconv Modules

iconv modules enable conversion between native encoded data and Unicode. The following new iconv modules have been added to support new character sets:

• UTF-8 <---> HKSCS

• UTF-8 <---> GB18030

• UTF-8 <---> ISO8859-11

• UTF-8 <---> Hindi

Enhanced Conversion of Dtpad File Open/Save Codeset

Enhancements include the addition of an "encoding" option to the File Open/Save dialog box. This option supports file encoding changes with the iconv utility. This option enables users to open or save files in various encodings, such as UTF-8 and UTF-16.

See the iconv(3C) man page.

Support for the New Chinese GB18030-2000 Character Set

The Solaris platform enables input, display, and print for the entire GB18030-2000 character set, including nearly 30,000 characters. Any application that runs on the Solaris platform can thus benefit from a wider set of Chinese characters. These glyphs are primarily Han characters, but the encoding also includes glyphs for minority languages such as Tibetan, Wei, Yi, and Mongolian.

GB18030-2000 support in the Solaris 9 release also includes backward compatibility to previous Chinese codesets, GBK, and GB2312. Conversion to other codesets such as Unicode is also included. Solaris developers do not need to change their procedures to access this new encoding support. Standard toolkits can use the new support.

For Java applications that need GB18030-2000 support, review J2SE at the following Web site:

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4

New zh_CN.GB18030 Locale Enhanced From zh_CN.GBK

This new zh_CN.GB18030 locale is provided to support the new GB18030 standard encoding. This encoding is required by a law that the Chinese government has enacted.

New Chinese and Korean Collation Locales

Collation locales provide different collation options to users, such as stroke count and radical, phonetic, and dictionary options.

Wordbreaker Modules for Thai

The wordbreaker module is used to correctly break the Thai text into proper paragraphs, sentences, and words within Motif.

New Asian UTF-8 (Unicode) Locales

The File System Safe Universal Transformation Format, or UTF-8, is an encoding that is defined by X/Open® as a multibyte representation of Unicode. UTF-8 encompasses almost all of the characters for traditional single-byte and multibyte locales for European and Asian languages for Solaris locales.

• th_TH.UTF-8 locale is the Unicode locale for Thailand.

• hi_IN.UTF-8 locale is the Unicode locale for India.

• zh_HK.UTF-8 locale is the Unicode locale for Hong Kong, China.

New Thai Input Method

The new Thai input method supports the Thai input sequence checking, as defined in TIS 1566-2541 "Thai input/output methods for computer" standard (or "WTT") by the Thai Industrial Standards Institute. The input sequence checking has 3 levels: level 0 (passthrough), level 1 (basic check), and level 2 (strict).

New Chinese Input Methods

More popular, powerful input methods (IM) in the Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese locales have been added for new character sets and new locales:

• New Chuyin IM for Traditional Chinese locales

• Cantonese IM for all Chinese locales

• English-Chinese IM for all Chinese locales

New Auxiliary Window for Chinese Input Methods

The Auxiliary window provides a user interface (UI) for input methods. The UI is "friendly" and extensible for all Chinese locales. New functions that are supported by the auxiliary window are as follows:

• Input method switching

• Input method properties configuration

• Look-up tables for GB2312, GBK, GB18030, HKSCS, CNS, Big-5, and Unicode character sets

• Code table management tool

• A visual keyboard