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Unibook: Introductory Walkthrough

Bob Hallissy, 2003-03-03; 12298 reads

Contents

    Installation & Setup
        Download and install:
        Font setup
            Exercise 1: Adding Code2000 to Unibook
        Other configuration files
    Toolbar
    Chart
        Style
            Exercise 2: Chart style selection
        Character Set
            Exercise 3: Character set selection
        Popup
            Exercise 4: Popup configuration
    Finding things
        By codepoint...
        By block...
        By Name...
        By Font...
            Exercise 5: Testing addition of Code2000 font
        By Property
            Exercise 6: Locating characters by property
    Single-font mode (a.k.a, a Unicode Font Viewer)
        Exercise 7: Single-font mode
    Navigation
    Advanced Tools
    Uninstalling Unibook

Installation & Setup

There is no installer — follow instructions carefully

Download and install:

UniBook
- If you use Windows 2000 or Windows XP: download the newest version of Unibook.
- If you use Windows 9x or Windows ME: download Unibook 3.0.
- Under C:\Program Files\ create a folder called Unibook.
- Unzip the file you downloaded to this folder.
- Download

Delete Unibook Registry
Lorna Priest, 2003-03-03
Download "DeleteUnibookRegistry.inf.zip", ZIP archive, 1KB [702 downloads]

Navigate to C:\Program Files\Unibook, unzip the file you just downloaded and then right-click on DeleteUnibookRegistry.inf and select Install.

Also in C:\Program Files\Unibook, double-click Install.bat. You’ll need to enter your name and company, click on View License / OK / Accept. Unibook will be open.

Close Unibook.

Create a shortcut on your desktop for Unibook.exe

Right-click on the file and select Send To / Desktop (create shortcut). Drag the shortcut to where you want it on the desktop.
You can rename the shortcut by right-clicking on it, selecting Properties and change the name under the General tab. Change the name to Unibook.

Font setup

Unibook depends on fonts you have installed

Default configuration will take advantage of:

Times New Roman
Arial
Arial Unicode MS
Lucida Sans Unicode
MS Mincho
Batang
MS Song

Other fonts can be added via Font List (.CFL) file

Exercise 1: Adding Code2000 to Unibook

Make sure Code2000 font is installed
Make a copy of default.cfl called MyFonts.cfl
Edit MyFonts.cfl in Notepad or equivalent
Locate section starting with this comment: ; LARGE FONTS FOR ALPHABETICS AND SYMBOLS
Add this line a few lines down (priority is given to fonts that are mentioned earlier in .CFL file): Code2000,22
Save MyFonts.cfl.
In Unibook, click File / Open, select Files of Type: “Font use list (*.cfl)”, select MyFonts.cfl, and click Open.
If you get messages such as:

then you can remove the unused font entry from MyFonts.cfl and try again.

Other configuration files

For casual use you can probably live with all other configurations as supplied.

If you want “perfect” rendering you may want to play with other files:

.FMT — formatting styles
.CMB — combining list
.RTL — combining RTL list
.SET, .CMB, .TXT — highlight set
.FTB — fonts table
.LST — Name list

Finally, Unibook can save your configuration (i.e., a given set of configuration files) in a Unibook Project (.UPR) file.

Toolbar

All Toolbar buttons are shortcuts for menu items. Pictures of the buttons will be included below to indicate their functions.

Chart

Style

There are 5 styles — three of which have buttons on toolbar.

View / Show As ...

Index — compact character view ( )
Charts — like Book Style but just charts
No Charts — like Book Style but just character info
Book Style — like the Unicode Standard book ( )
ISO Style — like ISO 10646 publication ( )

Exercise 2: Chart style selection

Experiment with different chart styles:

Select using toolbar
Select using View / Show As

Character Set

Normally Unibook is used to display the Unicode character set. But it also has knowledge of other internationally recognized character sets. As such it can be used as a “Codepage viewer”:

F5 (View / Character set, )

When you want to return to Unicode character set, select codepage 1200 or select Unibook or ISO chart styles, or press again.

Exercise 3: Character set selection

Use Unibook to view Windows standard (western) codepage:

Press F5
Select codepage 1252, click Select button
Note chart style automatically changes
Switch back to Unicode view

Popup

When you click on a character, a configurable popup appears.

Options / Character Popup ...

Large Character
Glyph Information
Character Information
Font Information

Exercise 4: Popup configuration

Experiment with different popup views.

Finding things

By codepoint...

Press Ctl-G (Go To / Go To ...)
Type in number
Press Enter

By block...

Press Ctl-B (Go To / Block ...)
Pick from list (sorted By Range or By Name)
OR, if you know the starting codepoint, use By Codepoint method

By Name...

Press Ctl-F (Go To / Find ...)
Select to Search “Character Information”
Enter what you want to find
Select appropriate Options
Click Find All .
Cells that match your criteria are highlighted
Press F7 (Go To / Property / Prev Highlight, ) or F8 (Go To / Property / Next Highlight, ) to locate next page containing highlighted cells.

By Font...

Same as By Name, except in step 2 select to Search “Font coverage”

Exercise 5: Testing addition of Code2000 font

Use the above to locate some characters that Unibook is rendering using Code2000 to prove that Exercise 1 was successful.

By Property

Unicode defines various properties for all its characters. Microsoft Windows also define character properties. Unibook can search for characters with specific properties.

Press F6 (View / Properties, )
Pick tab that identifies source of properties you are interested in:
1. Windows
2. Unicode Character Database
3. Additional properties
4. External Property (you can define this with an external file)
Select Property Group you are interested in
Select one (or more, if permitted) property values
Click OK
Cells that match your criteria are highlighted
Press F7 (Go To / Property / Prev Highlight, ) or F8 (Go To / Property / Next Highlight, ) to locate other pages containing highlighted cells.

Exercise 6: Locating characters by property

Use the above to locate some characters that that have a property of interest to you. For example, locate all characters that Unicode says are marks of some kind (Non-Spacing, Spacing Combining, or Enclosing).
Use F7 and F8 to see other characters with this property.

Single-font mode (a.k.a, a Unicode Font Viewer)

You can turn Unibook into a font viewer so that it ignores the current Combining Font List (.CFL) configuration and displays only those characters supported by a given font.

Options / Font ...
Select the font of interest, click OK
At this point Unibook attempts to get !!all characters!! from the font you selected. You may need to configure other items under Options / Format to get what you want.
To undo this and go back to using all the available fonts, you must either explicitly load a .CFL file (the one you want may be on your File menu) or exit and restart Unibook.

Exercise 7: Single-font mode

Use Options / Font to get Unibook to display a single font of interest, e.g., “Doulos SIL”.
Notice a lot of empty cells now!
Revert back to normal using all available fonts.

Navigation

The Toolbar and Go To menu provide other navigation aids, e.g., go to first/last/next/previous page, section, plane, etc., as well as a general “Go back” (Backspace, ) function

Advanced Tools

Unibook contains implementations of Unicode’s “bidi” and “linebreak” algorithms. You can experiment with these algorithms, trying out different data sequences.

Important note: Both of these tools use “pseudo-data” rather than actual Unicode data. The pseudo-data mechanism assigns various Unicode properties to the ASCII characters, and then you enter the sequence of ASCII characters that mimics the properties of the sequence of data you are interested in.

For example, if you wanted to see how the bidi algorithm dealt with a Hebrew word embedded in between two English words, then you might enter the data sequence “abcde GHIK fghij” because in the Unibook’s bidi sample implementation, letters a-z represent characters with bidi property “L” (e.g., English letters), while G-Z stand for characters with bidi property “R” (which is what the Hebrew letters have.) Using Tools / Bidi..., Unibook shows that that sequence would display as “abcde KIHG fghij”, thus we see the Hebrew letters now in visual order.

Further information about Unibook’s advanced tools is beyond the scope of this tutorial.

Uninstalling Unibook

Navigate to C:\Program Files\Unibook, right-click on DeleteUnibookRegistry.inf and select Install.
Go to \Program Files and delete \UniBook

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