(pIqaD Support)
- June 23rd, 2009
- Posted in Announcements . Blogging . Computers . Klingon . Windows . tlhIngan Hol
- Write comment
Over the past few weeks I’ve been working on a package for Windows Vista/Windows 7 that will enable pIqaD (Klingon writing) support throughout the operating system.
I have created a new Klingon local, a pIqaD keyboard layout, a Unicode pIqaD font and a registry script to link the font into the system. This package enables pIqaD to be used in any unicode aware application without having to make specific font changes. Check out these screen shots:
You can download this package right here: pIqaD Installer
Installing this should also enable the language bar so you can switch to the Klingon keyboard (it’s called OL in the language bar, MS won’t let you change everything). If you download this package and try it out, please comment on this thread and let me know if you’re successful or if you have any errors.
DISCLAIMER: While I’m 99% sure this won’t do anything harmful to your system, it is a “beta” version. If you do decide to install it and your PC blows up or something else happens, please don’t send me death threats. I will try and help in anyway I can, but somethings are beyond my control.
If your using Windows XP and want to add pIqaD support, check out this post on the Klingon Language Institutes Wiki (also by me).
<- Once the font is installed you should be able to read this too.
Hm. While I can type in tlhIngan if I try really hard, it generally involves manually setting the font in programs like Wordpad and Notepad to pIqaD, and pIqaD characters are apparently not available at all in inputboxes using system fonts. So, sadly, no typing in web addresses and usernames and passwords in pIqaD yet.
I’m using Vista Ultimate 64-bit, if that’s informative.
I used the installer, and am able to view the pIqaD in websites, and in notepad. It doesn’t work in WordPad. In MS Works’ Word Processor I’m able to type in pIqaD when I select the pIqaD font from the list and change the language bar to OL. Right now it is set to EN and I still see the pIqaD in Firefox’s title bar, and on the Windows taskbar button. My current OS is Windows Vista Home Basic.
Qapla’! majQa’!
I’ve had slightly better success with it; pIqaD display properly when the font is Times New Roman in MS Word (it doesn’t work in Notepad at all) and pIqaD appeared in the Vista search bar. Firefox does not display pIqaD. Is it improperly linked to Arial?
it would be nice to see a Uk english version, because i hate seeing the date look goddam retarded.
After a bit of searching and frustration, the inherent problem is that a while back the Firefox coders decided to break the PUA for everyone rather than risk mojibake; for codepoints in the PUA to display on FF the site has to force a font with the relevant codepoints by CSS. User-specification of the font has been deliberately broken. Google Chrome gave me no problems; IE didn’t display the characters until I set the font to Code2000 and then blocked styles (since IE doesn’t recognize any pIqaD fonts as sans-serif).
Qenatlh, I replaced Segoe UI as my system font with Code2000 (for other reasons), and since then I have no problems typing pIqaD into Windows system bars. It should be possible to replace Segoe UI with pIqaD and then add a fallback list for scripts it doesn’t handle.
Edit: Firefox didn’t succeed in breaking the PUA 100%. If you set your Western (or whatever your default encoding is) fonts to Code2000 (not pIqaD because it lacks the Western script), pIqaD will display. System default or User Defined is not sufficient. Then override page font settings and pIqaD will display.
System font fallback for the PUA was intentionally disabled on FF, which is reasonable. Having to jump through hoops to make the PUA display isn’t.