[B-Greek] RE: Frustrated Greek Learner!!! (AlphabeticizingGreek)
Alex and Alison Hopkins
alexali at surf.net.au
Wed Sep 8 09:19:57 EDT 2004
(Rod Decker) >Unfortunately, FileMaker does not sort correctly. You can
specify a Unicode sort (in the Sort dialog, check "Override field's
language for sort" and specify Unicode), but this is strictly in Unicode
code point sequence--which is not alphabetical with diacritics. The
other option to sort by a specific language *does* list Greek, but it is
a monotonic sort. I've been using a numeric field for most of my
work--but that's largely due to a carry over of that field from earlier,
pre-Unicode versions of FM. I haven't worked with the new version long
enough or had enough time to see how one might go about sorting
polytonic correctly--if it can be done. I suspect it is possible, but
not easily. (Prob. would require a custom sort based on a custom list,
etc.)
That's what I thought was probably the case. I'd be confident that the
sorting can be done, judging by the sorting I've done using the Visual
Basic language, though the syntax will be different for FM's macro
language, of course. I did indeed write a custom sort based on a custom
list; tedious, but not overly taxing. I assumed precomposed letters,
but it wouldn't be difficult to handle non-precomposed letters (what's
the right technical word?!) as the accents can safely be ignored for
alphabeticization.
Thanks for the feedback. I imagine that Access would be pretty much at
the same stage, ie now able to work with Unicode and therefore of some
use for Greek, but without the ability to do the customized sorting we
would wish. But this is a guess - does anyone know? It certainly
didn't strike me as suitable for serious NT Greek work when I last
looked at it with such a view in mind, but that was not the current
version, which is itself now some years old.
Alex Hopkins
Melbourne, Australia
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