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Unibook: Introductory Walkthrough

Bob Hallissy, 2003-03-03

Contents

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 [2463 downloads]

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

Also in C:Program FilesUnibook, double-click unibook.exe. 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

1. Make sure  Code2000 font is installed
2. Make a copy of default.cfl called MyFonts.cfl
3. Edit MyFonts.cfl in Notepad or equivalent
4. Locate section starting with this comment: ; LARGE FONTS FOR ALPHABETICS AND SYMBOLS
5. Add this line a few lines down (priority is given to fonts that are mentioned earlier in .CFL file): Code2000,22
6. Save MyFonts.cfl.
7. In Unibook, click File / Open, select Files of Type: “Font use list (*.cfl)”, select MyFonts.cfl, and click Open.
8. 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:

1. Press  F5 
2. Select codepage 1252, click  Select  button
3. Note chart style automatically changes
4. 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...

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

By block...

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

By Name...

1. Press  Ctl-F  (Go To / Find ...)
2. Select to Search “Character Information”
3. Enter what you want to find
4. Select appropriate Options
5. Click  Find All .
6. Cells that match your criteria are highlighted
7. 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.

1. Press  F6  (View / Properties, )
2. 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)
3. Select Property Group you are interested in
4. Select one (or more, if permitted) property values
5. Click  OK 
6. Cells that match your criteria are highlighted
7. 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

1. 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).
2. 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

1. Use Options / Font to get Unibook to display a single font of interest, e.g., “Doulos SIL”.
2. Notice a lot of empty cells now!
3. 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 FilesUnibook, right-click on DeleteUnibookRegistry.inf and select Install.
• Go to Program Files and delete Unibook

Page History Unibook: Introductory Walkthrough

2011-05-23 JW: minor change to use unibook.exe instead of install.bat.

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