Chapter 1 Overview of Features

The Simplified Chinese Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) is the internationalization and the localization of the current Solaris Operating System and the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) window system.

This chapter describes the new features and the language support that are available in the Simplified Chinese Solaris release.

New Localized Features

New to this release is the Wubi input method, support for the 3.2 version of the Unicode Standard, and improvements to the mp print filter. This filter replaces the xetops and the xutops utilities.

• Wubi Input Method. One of the main advantages of Wubi and other shape-based input methods is a very low repetition rate. A single Wubi code seldom represents more than one character, meaning that you can enter text more quickly.

  Under the authorization of Wangma Company, the following Wubi features are available in the Solaris 10 release:

  • GB18030-2000 character set support – The GB18030 Chinese character set is the national character encoding standard issued by Chinese government in 2000. The Wubi input method supports the GB18030-2000 character set. Wubi makes working with the smaller character sets contained in GB18030-2000 easier.

  • Easy character set switching – Solaris Wangma Wubi divides GB18030 into three character sets: GB2312, GBK and GB18030. You can use keyboard shortcuts to switch between character sets as you type.

  • New radical mechanism for Simplified and Traditional Chinese. – Patented by professor Wang Yongmin, who invented the Wubi input method, this new mechanism was developed from the old radical system, version 86. With no additional training, users of Wubi version 86 can access three times more characters of the same encoding and the same typing rules.

• Unicode 3.2 support. The zh_CN.UTF-8 (zh.UTF-8) locale has been updated to support the new 3.2 version of the Unicode Standard. The new version introduces an additional 1,016 new characters and contains various normative and informative changes.

  Unicode 3.2 also defines the following newly invalid UTF-8 byte sequences:

  • 0xED as the first byte.

  • 0xA0 to 0xBF as the second byte.

    These sequences exclude the surrogate code points between U+D800 and U+DFFF. To comply with the new definition, the Simplified UTF-8 iconv modules have been enhanced to detect the newly defined UTF-8 invalid byte sequences.

• In the current Solaris release, the mp printing utility replaces the xetops and the xutops utilities.

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  Note –

  The xetops and xutops printing utilities are no longer supported in the Solaris Operating System. The utilities were formerly used to convert Simplified Chinese text files to PostScript. The conversion enabled the printing of Simplified Chinese characters to PostScript printers with no resident Asian fonts. The xetops utility was used in the zh_CN.EUC/zh locale and in the zh_CN.GBK/zh.GBK locale. The xutops utility was used in the zh_CN.UTF-8/zh.UTF-8 locale.

  The mp printing utility was first released with the Solaris 9 Operating System.

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Language Support

The current Solaris release builds inherent internationalization features into every localized product. Localization facilities support the ANSI C recommendations for internationalization and localization that define the locale and related categories.

Locale Attributes

A locale contains the culturally specific information and conventions of the language for a particular global region. Each process in the Solaris Operating System has the following set of locale attributes:

• Locale settings, which provide the locale and setlocale commands you use to list and set attributes before you start a process from the command line.

  For example, the Simplified Chinese locales and the English/ASCII locale both have a category that defines the display of time and date according to the cultural format, as well as the actual Simplified Chinese or English/ASCII characters for the time and date.

• Code sets, which support coding conventions for the GB2312 and the GB18030 character sets. These sets enable you to input, display, and print Simplified Chinese text in file names, system messages, and terminal (TTY), email, and data file content.

• htt input method server, which handles Simplified Chinese input for the Solaris Operating System. The htt server receives your keyboard input and converts it to Simplified Chinese characters that are used in Simplified Chinese applications.

Simplified Chinese Locales

The Simplified Chinese Solaris Operating System provides simultaneous support for the locales in the following table. The locales look the same to the end user, but the internal character encoding is different.

Table 1–1 Simplified Chinese Locales

Locale	Description
zh_CN.EUC (zh)	Simplified Chinese EUC (GB2312)
zh_CN.GBK (zh.GBK)	Simplified Chinese GBK
zh_CN.GB18030	Simplified Chinese GB18030-2000
zh_CN.UTF-8 (zh.UTF-8)	Simplified Chinese UTF-8 (Unicode 3.2)

Simplified Chinese Code Sets

The following table lists supported code sets for each Simplified Chinese locale.

Table 1–2 Simplified Chinese Code Sets

Locale	Code Set
zh_CN.EUC (zh)	gb2312
zh_CN.GBK (zh.GBK)	GBK
zh_CN.GB18030	GB18030–2000
zh_CN.UTF-8 (zh.UTF-8)	UTF-8

Simplified Chinese Input Methods and Fonts

The Simplified Chinese Solaris Operating System provides input methods and fonts for the locales shown in the lists and tables in this section.

The following input methods are supported for the zh locale:

• New QuanPin

• New ShuangPin

• NeiMa

• QuanPin

• ShuangPin

• GB2312 NeiMa

• WangMa Wubi

• English-Chinese

• Optional code table input methods

• Input method auxiliary window support for Simplified Chinese

The following input methods are supported for the zh_CN.GB18030 locale:

• New QuanPin

• New ShuangPin

• QuanPin

• ShuangPin

• GB18030–2000 NeiMa

• WangMa Wubi

• English-Chinese

• Optional code table input methods

• Input method auxiliary window support for Simplified Chinese

For a complete list of fonts supported for the Simplified Chinese locales, see Bitmap and TrueType Fonts.

Input Method Auxiliary Window

The input method auxiliary window supports the following functions.

• Input method switching

• Input methods properties configuration

• Lookup tables for the following character sets:

  • GB2312

  • GBK

  • GB18030-2000

  • Unicode

• User-defined characters

• Input method help

• Virtual keyboard

Locale Categories

In the Simplified Chinese Solaris Operating System, you can use the following general and specific categories as defined by ANSI C for the Simplified Chinese and English locales:

• General LC_ALL setting that invokes all of the categories for locale-related aspects of the environment.

• Specific settings for particular aspects of the environment, which include the following categories:

  • LC_CTYPE

  • LC_TIME

  • LC_NUMERIC

  • LC_MONETARY

  • LC_COLLATE

  • LC_MESSAGES

For example, the Simplified Chinese and the English/ASCII locales have the LC_TIME category that defines the display of the time and date according to the cultural format, as well as the actual Simplified Chinese or English/ASCII characters used in the display.