For those who want to view Japanese text in Amaya MacOs

Hello,

I follow my posts on how to handle Japanese in Amaya 9.2.2 MacOs  
standalone version.

At the time of writing, I still can't input Japanese, but at least, I  
can view Japanese text input previously with another software (like  
BBEdit for example).

I decided to summarise my efforts for viewing Japanese since it may  
be useful for others.

I first read the Amaya FAQ related to fonts:
http://www.w3.org/Amaya/User/FAQ.html#Change%20Fonts

Basically, if you want to add a new font into Amaya, you have to edit  
the following file:
Amaya.app/Contents/MacOS/Amaya-9.2.2/config/fonts.gl.mac.def

The Unicode or Japanese fonts have to be added at the end of the file  
under the section called :
0;#Unicode (.or ... JAPANESe)

Then, I searched for already installed true type fonts.
Unfortunately, the unicode/Japanese fonts that come with the MacOs X  
system are not true type but open type.
It seems that they can't be used with Amaya.

Then I searched for third party Japanese capable installed true type  
fonts.
I was more lucky this time. I found several ones that come with the  
Microsoft Office 2004 installer. Namely Ms Mincho, MS Gothic, MS  
PMincho and MS PGothic.  They were located in:
/Users/mylogin/Library/Fonts/

I tried to add them directly in the fonts.gl.mac.def file but I had  
problems with the space included in the font names. I tried to quote  
the path, to escape the space with a \ but nothing worked.
Then I copied them into the Amaya font directory:
Amaya.app/Contents/MacOS/Amaya-9.2.2/fonts
and renamed them without any space:
MSMincho.ttf
MSGothic.ttf
MSPMincho.ttf
MSPGothic.ttf

Then I added the correspondong lines in the config/fonts.gl.mac.def:
1;1=$THOTDIR/fonts/MSMincho.ttf;2=.........5=...;
2;1=$THOTDIR/fonts/MSMincho.ttf;2=.........5=...;
.........
5;1=$THOTDIR/fonts/MSMincho.ttf;2=.........5=...;

I also found another Unicode/Japanese capable truetype font. I built  
it when I installed the possibility to handle Japanese into my LaTeX  
package on my mac following these instructions: http:// 
www.ece.uci.edu/~chou/unicode-tex.html
This font is the well known Bitstream cyberbit font. You may be able  
to download it somewhere on the web from an ftp server. It is very  
interesting since it contains glyphs for the widest range of unicode  
chars.
I copied the cyberbit.ttf file into the Amaya fonts dir Amaya.app/ 
Contents/MacOS/Amaya-9.2.2/fonts
and added the corresponding lines in the config/fonts.gl.mac.def:
1;1=$THOTDIR/fonts/cyberbit.ttf;2=.........5=...;
...

Well, I was not fully satisfied because none of these fonts are  
preinstalled with MacOsX or free/libre. so I searched a little bit  
more on the web and I fond the Sazanami Gothic ゴシック體 and  
Mincho 明朝體 fonts that are provided by the Wada Laboratory of the  
University of Tokyo and Electronic Font Open Laboratory.
http://sourceforge.jp/projects/efont/files/?release_id=10087#10087
I installed the sazanami-mincho.ttf and sazanami-gothic.ttf font  
files into the Amaya fonts dir:
Amaya.app/Contents/MacOS/Amaya-9.2.2/fonts
and added the corresponding lines in the fonts.gl.mac.def file and  
then I was able to view Japanese text in Amaya.
1;1=$THOTDIR/fonts/sazanami-mincho.ttf;2=.........5=...;
2;1=$THOTDIR/fonts/sazanami-gothic.ttf;2=.........5=...;
...

The next step will be to be able to input Japanese directly with  
Amaya by using the built-in Japanese input method.
If anyone has a clue...

Mathieu

Mathieu MANGEOT-NAGATA
Condillac - LISTIC - Université de Savoie
Campus Scientifique
F-73376 LE BOURGET DU LAC CEDEX
Tel: +33 4 79 75 81 89 / 87 85