[MiNT] MiNT 1.18 RC (XaAES 1.1.6)

["Helmut Karlowski" <helmut.karlowski@ish.de>]

Hi,

we think it is a good time now to prepare the release of MiNT 1.18,  
especially to spread the new multilanguage-feature in XaAES.

It would be great if the current build would be tested by users.

It would also be great if the language-files (xaaes009.rsl, xa_help.*)  
would be included in the builds, so people may test (or improve) their  
language in XaAES.

Below a summary of the most important changes since the 1.17-release.


- Xaloader

      runs <sysdir>/xaaes/xaaes<CPU>.km by default. CPU is any of

         . 000

         . 020

         . 030

         . 040

         . 060

 when xaloader has pid 1 it is considered to be the direct child of the
 kernel, and restarts the module after it has exited.

- Global config-variables

  keyboards = <character-sequence> Define Ctrl-Alt-Shortcut to be  used
      for keytable-switching. See Keytable-Selection.

  LANG <2 characters> (default empty) -  define  language  to  use. See
      Language Support

  FONT_ID <number> (default 1) - Standard GDOS fontid  for  all  XaAES-
      output. This may be any font-type (system, speedo, True-Type).

- Client config-variables

  ignore_rsc_size <bool> (default false) -  if  true  load even if rsc-
      file has wrong size, i.e. file-size  and  size  given  in  header
      differ.

  rsc_lang <number> (default 0) -  if  not  0  XaAES  creates or uses a
      translation file (.rsl) for this application.

         . 0 No translation

         . 1 Read an existing  translation  file  (or  create,  if  not
           present)

         . 2 Always create a translation file (overwrite existing one)

      See Language Support.

- Keyboard-shortcuts

    . J: restart XaAES

 5.1  Language Support
 =====================

 XaAES is able to use any language for its  the  screen-output  of  any
 client,  including  XaAES itself. The different languages are replaced
 when reading  the  resource-file.  They  reside  in  a  separate  file
 (resource-base.rsl)  in the same directory as the resource-file itself
 with the following structure:


      entries: entry '_'<newline> entries
      entry: <lang> <separator> <text> [@] | <comment>
      lang: <two-characters>
      text: sequence of characters
      separator: [:+]
      comment: '#' <text>


 lang can be set by the new config-variable lang, e.g.: lang=it.

 A special value for lang is 'nn' to indicate the original string to be
 replaced.  text  is  used  instead  of  the original string during the
 program's runtime.

 An optional @ at the end of an  entry  indicates  the  length  of  the
 string,  and is ignored. There has to be at least one blank before the
 @-symbol, else it is considered to be part of the string.

 If the replacement is longer than the original it  is  truncatated  to
 the  original's  length, when ':' is used as separator. If '+' is used
 as separator, the complete replacement is used. If the original  is  a
 menu-title,  this is valid for the whole box below this title, and the
 width of the drop-down-box gets adjusted accordingly. Also  the  menu-
 titles get shifted if necessary, to avoid overlapping.


 5.2  Keytable-Selection
 =======================

 You can  switch  between  different keyboard-layouts using a Ctrl-Alt-
 shortcut.

 To enable this, define in xaaes.cnf:

      keyboards = <key>, <layout1>, <layout2>, <layout3>


 Where:

      <key>:     ALT-CTRL shortcut key for switching between keyboard-
                  tables (layouts). NOTE: The character you use should be
                  present and equal in ALL layouts.
      <layout*>: Names of keyboard.tbl files (without .tbl extension).
                  Please copy the needed files from /keyboard/ to
                  /mint/1-*-*/ folder.


 It is possible to define up to three different layouts.

 Example:

      keyboards = <, british, german, french


- Fileslector

    . The font-size is incremented by pressing Alt+, and decremented by
      Alt-.
    . position, size, and font-size of fileselector is  remembered,  so
      the layout is the same when opening it again.
    . File-Pattern  is  case-sensitive  except  the  filesystem  is not
      case-preserving (like ext2) or the caller runs in TOS-domain. See
      also: XaAES Pattern Matching




--
Helmut Karlowski