tlug: Canna and looking for other comments on a new install

["C. Oda" <craig@example.com>]

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tlug note from "C. Oda" <craig@example.com>
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Hi,
I'm getting information in preparation for a major disk reformat
and reinstall on my home system after a disasterous night when
I trashed my system at 2:30 a.m.

I've been reviewing skk, Wnn, kinput2, and Canna by going to
ftp.lab.kdd.co.jp and downloading the source and reading the
docs.  The most recent doc for Canna 3.5 was written on Dec 2, 1996
by Yuko Misao and Akira Kon of NEC.  There is a 100 page book
in PostScript for SKK 9.6 dated Feb 1997.  Most of the stuff
for Wnn seem to be dated around 1994.  

A review of the docs, makes me favor an attempt at Canna for my
next install.  The fairly recent documents tend to indicate that
there is still active development on the freely available Canna.
Also, one of the big reasons for the development of Canna was 
in "providing a unified user interface to input Japanese." 
[Kon, Misao (1996)]

Here is another relevant section from the doc.  

   ...in using X clients, we were eager to use Egg's user interface
   ... We found a lot of good tools on the X window system such as
   xmh and xcalendar.  Our desire was to localize those clients
   into our national language and operate them with Egg's user 
   interface.
   Thus, we decided to create an Egg like system and to provide it
   in a library.  This is the Canna.  Now, Canna provides more features
   than Egg.  Canna can be used in Emacs, in X environments, and also
   on TTYs. 

Also relevant to see why future development appears to be leaning
more toward Canna:

   Providing a library which supports a unified user interface

   A user-interface library is provided.  With this library, 
   programmers can easily add a Japanese input system with unified
   user interface to application programs.
   This library has higher-level functions than those of Wnn's high-
   level library has, and interpretation of each input key is also
   processed inside of this library.  

So, this is my current plan:

  o  Install Debian Hamm (1.4?) base system.  
  o  Install Canna from Debian-JP 1.3 bo.  
  o  Compile Xemacs 20.x from source with canna support
     and then create a debian package.  Does this exist already?
     If this is successful, attempt to compile with xim support
     and use kinput2
  o  Install kinput2 with Canna support from Debian-JP bo package
  o  install fetchmail (will use IMAP) and Mew (hope to use it 
      with Xemacs) from Debian-JP.  Though, I will probably fail
      to do this since Mew depends on a mule install, so I'm going
      to have to force my package dependencies..  :-(
  o  compile Mosaic 2.6 with L10N localization patch from source
     with lesstif.  I've done this and it works.  :-)  Create
     debian package and install. 
  o  compile Perl5.004 from source with Japanese patch and install
  o  install JDK 1.1.1 and adjust font.properties to support
     Japanese.
  o  take a nap

Note that my plan is contingent on how sleepy I get after lunch.
;-)   It is highly likely that I'll jump to the last step first.

I was wondering if anyone had any other recommendations.  I've
never used Mew before and am basing this on TLUG recommendations.
I've only used fetchmail briefly and am basing my decision on
JWT's experience.  

The last thing I would like to note is that I've started using
Mosaic 2.6 to print Japanese web pages since I have yet to 
be able to get Netscape to print Japanese properly.  I'm 
compiling Mosaic 2.6 with LessTif even though I do have
MooTiff because LessTif is freely available  and it does have some
interesting merits in learning a bit more about Motif.
I first looked at LessTif about a year ago.  I never figured
the Hungry Programmers would get this far.  However, they have.
If they ever get Motif 1.2 compatibility with a stable lib
set, it opens up a lot of possibilities for GUI programming.
One of the reasons I didn't like Motif is that it was hard
to share programs with other Linuxers and to do joint
development if the other person was anti-commercial soft.
Mosaic seems pretty stable with Lesstif.  :-)  I can also
print Japanese web pages with inline graphics now.  

Regards,
Craig


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transform all else."
Craig Oda 	craig@example.com	
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