RE: Arabisation and character sets

MS IE4.01 for Arabic also supports display of Arabic on non-Arabic systems
such as Win95 US and Japanese.

	install MS IE4.01 Arabic on a non-enabled system

	copy the Arabic fonts from a Win95/Arabic system to the non-enabled
system

restart IE -- it will now display Arabic in ISO 8859-6, ASMO, 1256, UTF-8
etc.

The display for Arabic obeys the Unicode bidirectional algorithm on all
platforms i.e. it does not depend on the version of Win32.

The same procedure will work with other scripts e.g. if you copy the Thai
fonts to the non-enabled system you can view Thai pages. IE4/CS is also
compatible with the IE4 language packs so you can add support for Japanese,
Pan-European etc. I have all of these installed on my US NT4 system and I
routinely view pages in many languages.

IE4.01 for Arabic also supports the CHARSET element and allows the user to
manually override the code page if it is incorrect (this is a change from
the US version of IE4.01).

John I. McConnell                          
Microsoft Corp. 28/3128                     
One Redmond Way 98052-6399
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Ahmed Sallam [mailto:asa@sakhr.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 1998 07:50
To: Khaled Zarkah
Cc: www-international@w3.org
Subject: Re: Arabisation and character sets


Sindbad Netscape Navigator 4.x, 3.x and Communicator 4.x provides more than
one level of support for Arabic charsets as follows: 
-1- Web page "CHARSET" element is supported based on the definitions in RFC
2070. 
-2- User option to make manual choice for the Arabic code page, if the code
page is not specified in the web page. 
-3- Automatic detection for the Arabic code page if the code page is not
specified in the web page nor identified manually by the user. 
The supported code pages list includes most of the Arabic code pages
available in the Arabic market including Microsoft 1256, ISO 8859-6, ASM˙O,
etc. 

The last versions of Sindbad for Netscape 3.x and 4.x are available on :
http://www.sakhr.com, we provide English edition of our web site. 




  _____  


Khaled Zarkah wrote: 

Hello, 

We published a review in PC Magazine, Arabic Edition, May 1997 issue, for 
MS Arabic IE 3.02, Sindbad Netscpae 3.0, and Alis Tango Browser 3.0. 


Another review for MS Arabic IE 4.0 will be published in 'Internet Al-Aalam 
Al-Arabi' in May 1998 issue. 


>   - ALis Tango and MS IE 4.0 (on Arabic Enabled Windows) render 
>     iso-8859-6 correctly 


That's right, and Tango renders 8859-6 correctly, even on Latin versions of 
Windows 95. 


>   - Netscape on an Arabic Windows and Netscape with Shakr 
>     plug-in on "normal" Windows do not render correctly. 


Wrong. The Sindbad add-on works fine, even on Latin Windows 95, but 
Navigator alone with Arabic Windows 95 can not render 8859-6 correctly. 


>   - using the proprietary Microsoft standard Windows 1256 all 
>     browsers render correctly. 


Right. 
  
  


============================= 
Khaled Zarkah 
Technical Editor 
DIT (PC Magazine, Arabic Edition & Internet Al-Aalam Al-Arabi) 
URL: www.dit.net 
Phone: +9714-240700 
Fax:   +9714-240750 
P.O.Box 60934 
Dubai 
United Arab Emirates

  

Received on Tuesday, 31 March 1998 13:35:18 UTC