Magellan user's manual

Some languages which have limitations on MacOS


14-14. About language conversion

You can convert the language of text selection with 'Convert' command in the Edit menu. It will be done only in case the selection consists of the language you want to convert into. US-ascii alphabets can be converted to any language because they are included in most languages.
This command is effective especially for Kanji characters.
Japanese text sometimes turned into Chinese in Unicode document, you can put back the text into Japanese by this function.

Select any part of text, then select the language you will convert to.


Following is the example of language conversion.





This is the conversion of Japanese Text into other 2 byte languages.

To Korean, all character are successfully converted.
The character "" is missing because it is not included in Simplified Chinese.
Only Kanji is converted to Traditional Chinese, because it does not have Hiragana and Katakana Characters.

Most Japanese characters can convert to Simplified Chinese and Korean, except Japanese 2 byte macron and some Kanji characters. In the same way, most characters of Traditional Chinese can be converted into Japanese.




14-15. Handling of languages which have limitations on MacOS

Some languages on MacOS proved to have problems which are caused by the differences with the way of language handling on the Internet. This chapter explains about contradictions in the handling of these languages on MacOS.




14-15-1. Unavailable combination of languages

Combination of following languages or Scripts are unavailable on MacOS. The limitations are not only on e-mail but on any other use of language such as writing document. As this is caused by the way how the MacOS handles the languages, the only solution is making language Script itself specially for application.

The limitations are the following.


These languages have additional limitations in the use of e-mail. Please read the following explanation.





14-15-2. About use of Turkish

Macintosh has Turkish Operating System. Thus Macintosh handles Turkish as an independent language. There are two ways in the use of characters on Macintosh: Turkish Roman and Turkish Cyril. The former Turkish Roman uses Roman character, the latter Turkish Cyril consists of Cyrillic and uses Cyrillic characters. Turkish Roman is also called Mac Turkish: using Macintosh original Roman based character table. On the Internet, Turkish is handled as iso-8859-9 (Latin5) however, Macintosh considers Mac Turkish as Roman. This means that character set and encoding is different, and this point causes contradictions.

For example, e-mail written in French and German can be sent by Latin1 of course: the character set and encoding are consistent. But e-mail written in French and Turkish become Roman on MacOS, if this e-mail which Macintosh considered as "Roman"is sent by Latin1 simply, the part of Turkish character is not sent correctly.

Sending e-mail>>>

Roman character part is handled as Latin5 and other Turkish part is handled as Latin1. Because most of Roman characters are included in the Latin5, Turkish and other Roman languages (except Icelandic) can be sent consistently.

Receiving e-mail>>>

Received e-mail which is sent by Latin5 is converted to virtual Turkish Script. However the indication is Roman, thus on operating system that Turkish has been installed all characters including Turkish (except Icelandic) are indicated correctly. There is no problem even on other e-mail client software or operating system which supports Latin5.





14-15-3. About use of Croatian and Romanian

Macintosh has Croatian and Romanian Operating System. Thus Macintosh handles Croatian and Romanian as independent languages. On the Internet, both languages are handled as iso-8859-2. (Latin2: Central European) However, because Macintosh considers these languages as Roman, contradictions are caused.

For example, e-mail written in French and German can be sent by Latin1 of course: these character set and encoding are consistent. But MacOS handles all characters of e-mail written in French and Croatian as Roman, neither Latin1 nor Latin2 can sent both languages correctly.


Sending e-mail>>>

MacOS considers Croatian / Romanian as Roman, but Magellan handles Croatian / Romanian on own independent virtual Script.
If message includes Croatian / Romanian peculiar characters, it is sent by Latin2. In other case that such characters are not included even in the Croatian / Romanian, it is sent by Latin1.

If message is handled as Latin2, other Roman language part will also be handled as Latin2, thus the characters that does not included in Latin2 will be replaced by '?'. Please notice that even though entire message encoding is Latin2, because message includes Central European part and other Latin2 language part, MutliScript will be applied.

Receiving e-mail>>>

On the computer system that Central European has been installed, when Latin2 encoded message including Croatian / Romanian was received, it is handled as Central European. However, because Central European system of the Macintosh does not have certain Latin2 characters, in other words, Croatian/Romanian peculiar characters are not included in MacCentralEuropean, the characters cannot be decoded correctly. On the system that Central European has not been installed but MacCroatian/MacRomanian only has been installed, message will be converted on the virtual Croatian / Romanian Script and its indication is correctly handled as Roman.
There is no problem even on other e-mail client software or operating system which has Croatian / Romanian font.


As stated above, use of Croatian / Romanian on single Script (language) has no problem however, intentional use of MultiScript cannot be not recommended.

The MacOS Systems of these languages still have many problems. It is very possible that localized MacOS will be changed in the future. If you have any information or opinion about these languages, please let us know.

We can develop a function of auto-conversion that Latin 2 message will be decoded to MacCroatian / MacRomanian, not to Central European, if you wish. As we do not know which coexistence is more important with Roman, or with other Central European for those who use Croatian / Romanian, present method is as following. Magellan has a table of Croatian /Romanian peculiar characters which MacRoman does not have. Inversely, if Magellan had two tables of Croatian Latin2 characters and Romanian Latin2 characters which MacCentralEuropean does not have, Magellan could allow coexistence of Central European and Croatian /Romanian. We will appreciate your opinion and information about these languages.





14-15-4. Setting of Turkish / Croatian / Romanian


If Turkish and Croatian / Romanian are installed on your system, Main language of CentralEuropean and Romanian is available.
Re-encoding of received e-mail is also available, if each languages is installed.







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