Subject: Temporary Solution: Chinese in Standard Windows

From: "L.S.Ng" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 May 1994 17:42:04 BST

At first sight, it seems that the Standard Windows does not support
Chinese TTF Fonts directly. But this does not mean Chinese TTF fonts
cannot be used at all in the Standard Windwos (stdwin). What need to be
done is a suit of subroutines for translating the Chinese TTF physical
data in the font file into bitmaps. Consequently, Chinese characters can
be manipulated like bitmaps.

In the mean time, an easy temporary solution could be using the HBF
Bitmap files. Here's a system block diagram:

HBF Bitmap file e.g. cclib.16
                V
                V
Read HBF Bitmap file to Font Buffer
                V
                V
Font Buffer residing in RAM
                V
                V
Windows Bitmap Structure

The above solution is temporary.  In long term, there are at least two
tasks to deal with at the moment.  One is to find or develop or port
(port from Chinese Windows) font engine capable of handling Chinese TTF
as a DLL. Secondly is to reduce the size of Chinese TTF file by using
the Composition Structure as mentioned in the TTF spec. It seems to me
that although Composition is mention in the TTF spec, but it has not
been implemented in the Chinese TTF.

In the mean time, the temporary solution also offer an advantage that is
the size of the font files.  Clearly there exist a gap between TTF files
and Bitmap files, the former being 3MB plus each (at least 8MB for Big5)
while the latter is about 600KB plus each (24x24 for GB, at about 1MB
for Big5).  Until the TTF can be reduced by composition to about 1MB per
font, it is not favourable in Standard Windows because of the following
reasons:

The whole point of developing Chinese apps in Stdwin instead of Chinese
Windows is the advantage of portability and performance.  One issue
involved is the ease of installation -> size of font files.

Let's call the Chinese apps in Stadard Windows (or other environment
such as DOS) 'Standard Chinese apps' and Chinese apps in Chinese Windows
(or other environment such as Eten) as 'Chinese Chinese Apps'.

At present, Chinese Chinese apps is the mainstream Chinese apps.  But
Standard Chinese apps must have the advantage of being 'small, slim and
smart' in order to outdo Chinese Chinese apps and sell.  The
sluggishness of the Chinese Chinese apps are mainly due to the sheer
size and complexity of the Chinese system they based upon. One major
contribution to the size and complexity is the array of fonts and
dictionary and complex interface offered by the Chinese system.

Typical Standard Chinese Apps such as NJStar or CWB or Xialibaren can
run very quickly on a 286.  However, Chinese Chinese apps for Chinese
Windows would normally require a fast (very fast) 486, with lots of RAM
(and lots and lots of RAM) to run comfortably.  It is very difficult to
optimise Chinese Chinese apps because due to the sheer size and
complexity of Chinese system, the Chinese system itself is very
difficult to optimise.

It maybe unfair to compare NJStar et.  el.  to apps in Chinese Windows
because the former is DOS base and DOS base apps are suppose to run
faster than Windows apps anyway.  But we shall see how a carefully
design Std Chinese apps in Standard Windows can run significantly faster
than its Chinese Windows counterpart.  Another comparison can be made
between Chinese Chinese DOS Word processor running in Eten with the Std
Chinese apps.

Maybe the rich and power PC use will sneer at the performance issue.
But I suppose many Chinese still could not afford or reluctant to spend
Kilo-Yuans on too many Megabytes on both Harddisk and RAM.

Yours,
Liangsheng Wu
Southampton, UK