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mlterm indic support

Following is a instruction of setting up mlterm indic support.

* Installation
  $ ./configure --enable-ind (--enable-anti-alias)
  $ make
  $ make install

  You can download mlterm for win32gdi which supports indic scripts from
  http://mlterm.sf.net/bin.html

  If you try bengali or assamese with --type=xft or --type=cairo option,
  execute following steps or rebuild fontconfig with
  http://mlterm.sf.net/fontconfig-2.8.0-fix4indic.patch
  $ cd xwindow/libtype
  $ make libfc_wrapper.la
    (You may need to change <freetype/freetype.h> to <freetype2/freetype.h>
     in fc_wrapper.c according to your environment.)
  $ make install_fc_wrapper
  $ chmod 755 (INSTALLED DIRECTORY)/bin/mlterm

  Then, install indic fonts to your system and setup ~/.mlterm/font or
  ~/.mlterm/aafont. (etc/font.indic, etc/aafont and etc/font.win32 in
  mlterm source tree are sample files.)
  Note that mlterm doesn't support modern OpenType fonts but supports
  following old ISCII fonts.

  Asdr0ntt.TTF for assamese (AS\-TTDurga)
  DVYG0ntt.ttf for devanagari (DV\-TTYogesh)
  DVSR0ntt.ttf for devanagari (DV\-TTSurekh)
  GJAV0ntt.ttf for gujarati (GJ\-TTAvantika)
  MLKR0ntt.ttf for malayalam (ML\-TTKarthika)
  ORSR0ntt.ttf for oriya (OR\-TTSarala)
  PNAM0ntt.ttf for pubjabi (PN\-TTAmar)
  BNDR0ntt.ttf for bengali (BN\-TTDurga)
  KNUM0ntt.ttf for kannada (KN\-TTUma)
  TLHM0ntt.ttf for telugu (TL\-TTHemalatha)
  TMVL0ntt.ttf for tamil (TM\-TTValluvar)

* Usage
  $ mlterm -E utf8 -w 16 --im=kbd:isciihindi --lsp 6 --ind --type=xft

  o -E option specifies character encoding.
    "utf8" or "isciixxx"(like "isciihindi") are available.
  o -w [font size] specifies font size you want to use. (optional)
  o --im option specifies input method to be used. For ISCII use kbd input
    method.
  o --lsp [line space size] specifies pixels of line space according to appearance of
    a selected font. (optional)
  o --ind enables rendering indic characters.
  o --type=xft enables xft. --type=cairo is also available. (optional)
    This option is not necessary on win32gdi.
  o If console applications you use don't support combining characters, try -m=false.
  o Don't specify -bi option which disables rendering indic scripts.

  Pressing the key defined as IM_HOTKEY in ~/.mlterm/key lets you use ISCII
  inputting.
  IM_HOTKEY switches the loop Inscript => Phonetic => US ASCII => Inscript ...

  If you try indic scripts except devanagari, start mlterm with LD_PRELOAD as follows.
  $ LD_PRELOAD=(INSTALLED DIRECTORY)/lib/mlterm/libfc_wrapper.so mlterm ...

* Notice
  o Support for indic scripts except devanagari and bengali is buggy.
  o We are not a native speaker and mlterm indic support itself may be still
    unstable.
    So if you find something strange or wrong about it, please report it without
    reservation to Mlterm-dev-en.
    (http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mlterm-dev-en)


Following e-mail describes how to setup mlterm to show and input hindi characters.
(Thanks to sumeet inani)
Note that -V option is no longer necessary since mlterm version 3.0.9.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 12:33:22 +0530
Subject: Re: installing mterm with indic support
From: sumeet inani
To: Araki Ken <arakiken@users.sf.net>

Success achieved with your inputs.

Here is what I did
(1)installed mlterm-3.0.6post-20110807 using (output logs attached)

./configure --enable-fribidi --enable-ind --enable-m17nlib --enable-scim
--enable-anti-alias
make
make install
(2)Created file ~/.mlter/aafont containing ' ISCII_HINDI = DV\-TTYogesh 23 '
Installed font DVYG0ntt.ttf from http://mlterm.sf.net/DVYG0ntt.ttf
Created another file ~/.mlterm/key containing  ' Shift+space=IM_HOTKEY '  .
Though I use scim-transliteration.
(3)Now i ran
mlterm -E utf8 --im=scim  --bi=false --ind --type=xft -V

Result.jpg shows beautiful hindi letters .


I read meaning of those options.
-V variable column width
xft rendering engine
indic rendering enabled , while right-to-left language disabled.

You can forward this when you come across another newbie.

Thank You . Very much.
