Update⁴ for Romanian and Bulgarian

What does the [cracked] SiaO crystal ball say about language support in XP SP3?

Sorting It All Out — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:31:07 GMT

Over on the Microsoft VOLT users community, SpaceyT-17 asked: What updates related to Uniscribe, locales

Putting the camel's nose in Building 24

Sorting It All Out — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 21:24:17 GMT

There is an old expression, usually attributed to an Arab (without citation) that goes something like:

re: Update⁴ for Romanian and Bulgarian

Michael S. Kaplan — Wed, 09 May 2007 16:07:56 GMT

Cristi, didn't I say that the page was using the cedilla characters, and why? :-)

As for the reason that the update was done, even the title makes it clear that if nothing else the timing is based on the expansion of the EU to include Romania and Bulgaria -- and thus specific characters needed by the language of these countries was added.

:-)

re: Update⁴ for Romanian and Bulgarian

Cristian Secară — Wed, 09 May 2007 15:02:25 GMT

Well done !

As for "they added Trebuchet MS to the mix -- turns out this font is used by some parts of Office that made the lack of coverage quite noticeable. :-)" no, it is not this the (main) reason.

The problem lies with the Windows desktop appearance which uses the Trebuchet font in title bars when in "Windwos XP Style" mode. If (1) an application window title or web page title contains ș and/or ț wit comma below and (2) the desktop appearance is Windows XP Style, then (1) + (2) = the respective title bars looks either with blank squares or with obvious glyph substitution.

The only really stupid thing in the Microsoft's Romanian page I consider to be the title: "Actualizare de fonturi corespunzătoare extinderii Uniunii Europene" which means something like "Font update that corresponds to the EU expansion". This means that the font update is there only because the EU has expanded, not beacause the Romanian (and Bulgarian) languages have some rules that have to be applied, regardless the EU thing :-/

To Mihai: if you can see the page, then that means nothing :) The page uses the incorrect ş and/or ţ with cedillas *), so any (old) system will display them normally.

*) if in doubt, just copy & paste any portion of text into Wordpad, then Alt+X after any ş and/or ţ character; the result is 0x015E/F and/or 0x0162/3, which is wrong from the official perspective

Cristi

re: Update⁴ for Romanian and Bulgarian

Mihai — Tue, 08 May 2007 20:10:33 GMT

As you say, if I can see the page, then I don't need the update.

So it is not a bug, is a feature :-)

And you know what? Even if the page would use plain ASCII (no Romanian characters at all), it would still be cool that the update is available!

Thanks!