----- Forwarded message from "Alka S. Irani" alka@sarathi.ncst.ernet.in -----

Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 12:56:18 +0530 (IST) From: "Alka S. Irani" alka@sarathi.ncst.ernet.in Subject: Indix Developers' Workshop

Hello everybody,

Will appreciate if you can nominate a person for this workshop. It is free for deserving students/FOSS enthusiasts!

Regards,

-- alka

(also available on http://staf.ncst.ernet.in/alka/workshop.pdf)

IndiX Developer's Workshop 27 June - 1st July 2005 Call for Participation

What is this workshop?

X11 is the dominant Graphical User Interface on Unix and GNU Linux workstations. Developed twenty years ago at MIT, X11 has a network-transparent client server architecture with multiple applications running on client machines anywhere on the network. The X11 Server running on the workstation controls the display and input hardware and provides the X11 services including text and graphics to the user.

Initially X11 could display only Latin (English) text. With Internationalization several attempts were made to enable X11 to handle other scripts. For complex text like Indic scripts, most of the attempts aimed at enhancing the X11 client to cook the Indic text and present the almost fully cooked text to the X11 Server.

IndiX rebelled against this apartheid. If the X11 server handles the fonts and converts Latin text characters to glyphs on the window screen, it should do the same for Indic scripts.

IndiX has analysed text processing in Latin and Indic scripts and abstracted the basic interfaces required for text input, editing and display. IndiX bases its characters to glyphs processing on the ISO/IEC 10646 model. So, for example, all the characters of an Indic syllable are treated as an indivisible unit like a single Latin character and presented for conversion to glyph at the lowermost level of the font. It is the font that has to form conjuncts and other shapes and place them appropriately. In IndiX these operations are not carried out at the higher levels as a text layout operation. The first figure shows how X11 handles Latin text for simple display. The second shows how IndiX enhanced X11 displays Indic text.

X11 is a large, complex and working software. The IndiX development team wishes to share with other developers, its experience with enhancing the text processing components of X11.

Outline of the workshop

X11 architecture, and text processing. Indic text processing. Building X11 system. Source tree, Configuration, Imake and Make. Debugging X11 modifications. Enhancement of X11 Server. UTF-8 to UCS-2 conversion. Script based selection of font. Formation of conjuncts (Substitutions). Positioning. Enhancement of X11 Client. Interaction between Page and Text layout with XDrawText. Syllable handling.

The participants will be grouped into teams of two. Each team will be given a bare X11 environment without any Indic support. A test program to display Indic text will be run and it will show blank boxes. The participants will then carry out the stepwise enhancements, the Indic characters will start appearing crudely at first. Finally, by the end of the week the display should be befitting Indic scripts.

The workshop will be conducted by Sandeep Rao and Vinod Kumar, developers of the IndiX Project.

Who should attend? This workshop is not for users of X11 or IndiX. It is for developers who maintain, and enhance X11, specifically its text processing sytem. The emphasis is on Indic text processing under the X11 architecture and not on Indic text processing per se. We seek to limit the number of participants to less than ten. Developers who have already enhanced or modified and recompiled X11 would be welcome and we as well as other participants would like to benefit from these experienced developers. In that way, the workshop hopes to bring together and foster X11 development experience in India.

Schedule and Venue Mon, June 27, 2005 to Fri, July 1, 2005 Lecture Theatre, C-DAC Mumbai Gulmohar Cross Road No 9 Juhu VileParle Mumbai 400 049

Phone: 022 26201606 email: indix@ncst.ernet.in

No fees for deserving Students and Open source volnteers Workshop fee: Rs 5000/=

How to apply? Please send an email to indix@ncst.ernet.in by 26 June 2005. We shall confirm your registration on 26 June 2005. Your email should be with the following details.

Name, Organization and Responsibility Prior development experience with X11. What do you expect to gain from this workshop? Any suggestions on restructuring or refocussing the workshop.

On confirmation please send your cheques of aforementioned amount, drawn in favour of "C-DAC, Mumbai" and send it to our office address.

IndiX Developer's Workshop C-DAC Mumbai Gulmohar Cross Road No 9 Juhu VileParle Mumbai 400 049

Dr Alka Irani, Sr Research Scientist, C-DAC (Mumbai) (formely National Centre for Software Technology, Mumbai, India) Tel: 91-022-2620 1606 91-022-2202 4641

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