The FAT binary version of Unicorn Editor is a styled text editor for 68k and PPC Mac.
Enclosed in this release is some bitmap fonts transfered from Etan.16 (┴c┼Θ⌐·) and cclib.16 (╝≥╠σ╦╬). The font in the Macblue Telnet's distribution is Beijing (╝≥╠σ╓╨╬─) and Taipei (┴c┼Θñññσ). I did not find too much difference in cclib and Beijing font, but the Etan font is exceptional. Note, the loaded font will take memories and if the application memory is not large enough font loading will skip and stop. So you should decide how many fonts is best for you and how much memory you should give to the Editor. My belief never changes: custom bitmap is not the right way for Chinese editing and font belongs to the system resource. For any bitmap, only bold and underline styles are available.
Who should use it:
Unicorn Editor can be used as a styled editor without the Chinese, Japaness, Korean system support. For those people who already have some kind of localized 2-byte system, such as Chinese Talk, Kanji Talk, Unicorn Editor's built-in input method provides alternative Unix compatible input method. Personally, I found the association or phrase input borrowed from Unix is much better than those in CLK. For those who does not have/afford/dislike system level 2-byte language support, but still want 2-byte language editing, Unicorn Editor is a dream come true.
Things to do:
a) Without the input module, the Unicorn Editor is also a standalone worldscript compatible styled text editor. That means, it will work with CLK or any Chinese system. Unicorn Editor also support MacBlue Telnet's input method modules converted from Unix .tit file. To use this feature, download the macblue telnet from ftp://ifcss.org/pub/software/mac/networking and the input methods from ftp://ifcss.org/pub/software/mac/input for your choice of input module. (Jis, Korean, simp. or trad. Chinese.) MacBlue telnet distribution also contains 2 bitmap fonts which may be of interests to some users. The Korean and Japanese fonts go with the input module found in ftp://ifcss.org/pub/software/mac/input.
b) the directory arrangement could be the same as that of MacBlue Telnet:
traditional chinese (big5) HanZi font is required even if you only want to handle simplified Chinese. If you use MacBlue Telnet regularly, you may consider to move the HanZi Font folder and HanZi Input folder into system folder. This way both Unicorn Editor and MacBlue Telnet can share the same font and input module.
c) Worldscript II is optional for Chinese handling. If you do not need the ordinary mac format font such as NTU font, you probably do not need Worldscript II. If you would like to take advantage of the NTU outline font for fancy Chinese editing, you should have WorldScript II installed. If you don't have it on your system, you can get it from CLK updater 1.1.1 from ftp: This is a diskcopy 4.2 diskimage file. You would need diskcopy 4.2 application from Apple (ftp://ftp.support.apple.com) to trasfer the image file to floppy. In the floppy, there is a folder named "support files", drag and drop the content except the simpletext onto the system folder icon and let system to put them in the right place. Then reboot the Mac. After that, you have worldscript installed. (Note, you can also install worldscript by using Apple's Worldscript updater installer (ftp://ftp.support.apple.com) and then use the CLK updater's language scripts and other extensions as indicated above. Such assembled worldscript system may not print for unknown reason. (I did not try the Worldscript updater method, though). If you does not have any Chinese font, you can get the big5 (trad. Chinese) true type font from ftp://ifcss.org/pub/software/fonts/big5/mac.
d) One can also use the built-in bitmap font for Chinese display and printing. Honestly this functionality is against Apple programming guideline. I add it just for those who do not want (or afford) any system-level Chinese support at all. Because the font is bitmap, the printing effect well be very poor with the state of the art GX printing. For printing, it is strongly recommended to turn off the GX printing because GX printing for bitmap is always 72bpi with regardless of printer resolution. The hanzi font is fully functional in mutli-style editing.
Known Problems:
1) crashing if clicked on the corner of the input method panel (the updating function needs some work, this may not be very reproducible. Crashing only happens if one clicks and then holds the mouse for extended period. )
2) On MacIIci/system 7.5/home-made Chinese OS, find/replace can crash. This is not very reproducible on my C660av and P6115av/system 7.5.1/CLK.
3) GX printing does not support the form feed command (page breaking), because GX printing is simply a screen redraw and then QuickDraw GX translation instead of real print command.
4) If one saves document with some fonts as the bitmap font, the style will only be saved if user does not add/delete new bitmap font in the HanZi Fonts folder. If by any chance, user adds/delete some bitmap fonts, next time when you opened the document which use custom bitmap fonts you need to reset the font manually. This problem can not be solved because custom bitmap font ID is simply the sequence of font loading, and therefore, its ID is not unique.
5) For custom font with big5 code only: because the second byte of a Chinese word is not necessarily 8-bit, backward delete in big5 font may delete only half of the Chinese word. This is not the case with gb because gb are all 8-bit. When this happens, use mouse to select and delete the left-over half Chinese font glyph.
6) Printing with arbitrary line spacing is disabled for this release for technique reason.
About the source code:
The C source code of Unicorn Editor is based on WASTE demo C source code. For Hanzi input method, the source code from MacBlue Telnet is borrowed for users' convevience as an alternate input methods. Rest of the codes are my own code to handle Chinese code set, various dialogs, printing, preference, window handling, GUI, etc. The feature set is modeled after Tex-Edit Plus. (I don't know Pascal, therefore could not use its source code, even though it is available.) The source code of MacBlue Telnet is available in public domain. Thank you, MacBlue, for your beautiful work.
