[Help-smalltalk] Iliad localization: managing layouts, #render: someText on: aWidget message

[Bèrto ëd Sèra]

Hi!

In my blog post
(http://smalltalk.gnu.org/blog/bertodsera/iliad-localization-package
), I had stated that top-bottom layouts were a “hope for the future”.
I was wrong. The future is now, as I found out today. See
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms531187(VS.85).aspx

Note that only Latin chars will appear as 90 degs rotated, Oriental
scripts that make a normal use of this layout do appear as vertical.

I provided to correct the post and to add the reference. This is good
news, because it means that 98% of the users are immediately able to
use this feature (with only us heretics funnily barred out from things
that are supposed to be “socially responsible, i.e., our bag).

I'm aware that most western coders won't currently use it, because it
will fail on non-IE browsers, yet my take is that the power of the
Eastern markets will drive anyone to adopt it pretty soon.

Anyway, this means two things:
1.there is already a widespread industry standard for this issue that
almost anyone can use
2.it gets important that we can manage it, as AFAIK no other framework can

As a first reaction I will turn the #asString message into an
#asMsWritingMode message. I did not really like to call it #asString
because it doesn't do what a usual #asString does. This MS thing
provides me with a readable solution that returns a well readable
standard, one that can be widely used in HTML tagging. I will also
re-factor TextLayout, to make it properly map all of the 8 existing
layouts.

Now to the question raised by Stefan about a possible #render:
someText on: aWidget message. As long as I wasn't aware of this MS
solution I would have quoted an old song and answered “take me into
shallow waters, before I get too deep...” . It really looked like we
were trying to use a non-existing thing, based on our imagination
only. Now things have changed, because we DO have a tool and can
verify the results (even if this sadly means I have to reinstall
Windows on some box).

I'm still trying to digest the news, so I won't immediately venture
into details. I'd just like to ask Stefan if he could clarify what
this message was expected to do.

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