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Twenty-second International Unicode Conference
Presentations
DownloadWindows XP Language Interface Packs (LIPs) – Localized OS for the Masses
Globalization of the Testing Process – World–Ready Software from the QA Perspective
The MS Layer for Unicode on Windows 95/98/ME Systems
Sorting It All Out: An introduction to Collation
Unicode and Windows XP
Supplementary Character Support in Microsoft Products
Building Localized Applications with Microsoft .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET
Unicode Support for Mathematics
Going Global with Microsoft SQL Server
A Case Study on Unicode Integration: Microsoft's Visual Basic, version 3.0 to version 7.0
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The Twenty-second International Unicode Conference was held between September 9 – 13, 2002 in San Jose, California, USA. The following presentations were given by Microsoft representatives:
On This Page
Windows XP Language Interface Packs (LIPs) – Localized OS for the Masses
A Language Interface Pack (LIP) is a package that allows users to install a particular language skin on top of their English operating system to provide them with an almost fully localized operating system (OS) User Interface (UI) for the chosen language. This is accomplished via Microsoft's Unicode–based Multilanguage User Interface (MUI) technology which allows the localization of resources for the most visible and most commonly used features of the operating system.
This paper will first describe the Unicode–based MUI technology that allows for the creation of LIPs. Secondly, it will explain how the decisions were made on what should be localized for use in LIPs and how it differs from MUI. In closing, the current status of LIPs and our future strategy in providing localized OS UIs for many different language markets will be discussed.
Windows XP Language Interface Packs (LIPs) – Localized OS for the Masses
(2.6MB PowerPoint presentation)
Russ Rolfe, Program Manager
Globalization of the Testing Process – World–Ready Software from the QA Perspective
For a product to be world–ready, the whole design, development, and QA process must be globalized. Consequently, QA will need to modify its processes, requiring that all design documents, practices, and procedures be world–ready. This paper describes how the challenges of globalization can be addressed by a test team, at the organizational level and in the way basic functionality is verified. Proper organization of the test process will help to produce software that can be simultaneously released on multiple language markets and localized to many languages. The solution that builds a single process for creation of multiple language versions of a product include:
| • | Globalization of the functional test – modification of functionality testing to cover the multilingual capabilities of text handling and locale–sensitive functionality |
| • | Adding a localizability test pass: this verifies that the UI of the program being tested can be translated to any target language without code modifications. Localizability simplifies the task of localizers and reduces the complexity of testing localized versions of the product |
| • | Localization testing, which checks how well the build has been translated into a particular target language. Based on the results of globalized testing, this test should focus on things that are altered during localization, such as the UI and content files, and be less technical and more linguistic. |
Globalization of the Testing Process – World–Ready Software from the QA Perspective
(886KB PowerPoint presentation)
Rostislav Shabalin, Software Design Engineer in Test
The MS Layer for Unicode on Windows 95/98/ME Systems
The Microsoft Layer for Unicode on Windows 95/98/ME Systems" (MSLU for short) is a programmatic layer that gives you a way to write a single Unicode binary that can run on all 32–bit Windows platforms. This integral part of the Platform SDK can allow you to fully leverage Unicode on Windows 2000 and XP, rather than writing an "ANSI" application that cannot even support every language, let alone multiple languages.
This presentation will aim to explain why Microsoft considers Unicode to be so important strategically and how MSLU fits into that strategy. It will discuss how the component works, ways to override its behavior, and where to go for more information. It will also show some sample integrations of existing apps and demo some actual external products that use MSLU to provide their Unicode story. Finally, it will show the things that MSLU is not and cannot really ever be, since it is based on the (non–Unicode) Win9x platform. Attendees will walk away with a better understanding of Microsoft's position on Unicode in general, and how they have chosen to specifically encourage adoption of the Unicode functionality in Windows.
The MS Layer for Unicode on Windows 95/98/ME Systems
(808KB PDF Document)
Cathy Wissink, Program Manager
Michael Kaplan, Software Design Engineer
Also available in Word Document (62KB)
Sorting It All Out: An introduction to Collation
People use collation in their daily lives: finding names in a phone book, perusing a library card catalog, reading a book index. As such, people have expectations on where to find information within a structure. What complicates the process is the fact that these expectations vary from culture to culture. In addition, people have implicit knowledge of the correctness of collation (is it right or wrong?), but generally cannot explain what the rules of correctness are.
In a properly globalized product, users will have properly collated data–e.g., in the file system, in a database, in an e–mail address book. How should implementers go about ensuring culturally–correct collation in product? What are the basic linguistic issues of collation, and how do they manifest themselves in technology?
This presentation will explain the basic tenets of collation in language, debunk some myths about collation in globalized software, show how collation functions are used (using examples from the Win32 API), and touch upon best practices.
Sorting It All Out: An introduction to Collation
(911KB Powerpoint Presentation)
Cathy Wissink, Program Manager
Michael Kaplan, Software Design Engineer
Also available in Word Document (297KB)
Unicode and Windows XP
Windows XP, released October 25, 2001, builds upon the international functionality of the Windows 2000 platform. Windows XP provides improved globalization features related to Unicode such as support for new scripts, languages and locales, a wider variety of input locales and rendering features, enhanced support for surrogates and improved Multilingual User Interface (MUI) support.
The primary purpose of this paper is to outline the international support in Windows XP, describe this support within the historical context of Unicode on the Windows NT platform, discuss how language support is integrated into a single worldwide source, and finally, demonstrate that Unicode support is essential to building a fully globalized operating system. The trends in globalization in the next releases of Windows will also be discussed.
Unicode and Windows XP
(404KB Powerpoint Presentation)
Cathy Wissink, Program Manager
Supplementary Character Support in Microsoft Products
The surrogate range of Unicode is how Unicode supports over 1,000,000 possible characters, and now that there are officially supplementary characters defined, people need to be thinking about these characters and how they will be supported. Under Windows, there is some support (in Windows 2000 and XP, Office, as well as in the Visual Studio.NET) and this support will be discussed, as well as how to best use it in your applications and components.
Supplementary Character Support in Microsoft Products
(141KB Powerpoint Presentation)
Michael Kaplan, Software Design Engineer
Building Localized Applications with Microsoft .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET
Microsoft .NET Framework in combination with Visual Studio .NET makes it easy to develop localized applications for the .NET Developer Platform and Windows.
This talk covers how Microsoft .NET Framework allows application developers to create easily localizable applications for both Windows and the Web. In particular, it explores how to create and deploy multi–lingual projects and provides a detailed overview of the resource model and the related API. It also demonstrates how tools in the .NET Framework Software Development Kit and Visual Studio .NET support the creation of localizable applications.
Building Localized Applications with Microsoft .NET
Framework and Visual Studio .NET
(106KB PowerPoint presentation)
Achim Ruopp, International Program Manager
Unicode Support for Mathematics
Unicode 3.2 contains a complete set (2287) of standard math characters in Unicode to support math publications on and off the web. MathML is a major beneficiary of this support, and a remarkably successful plain–text encoding is also possible. This talk discusses Unicode's support for display of mathematics and gives examples from MathML, TeX, and plain–text representations.
Unicode Support for Mathematics
(274KB PowerPoint presentation)
Murray Sargent, Sr. Software Design Engineer
Going Global with Microsoft SQL Server
With Unicode support as its foundation Microsoft SQL Server supports a very powerful model for the storage, manipulation, and normalization of multilingual data. And with its collation enhancements; Microsoft SQL Server 2000 includes powerful features to support international operations and environments.
Extensive multilingual features make SQL Server 2000 a compelling database product and applications platform. With the importance of the Internet and the World Wide Web, it is crucial that applications and databases are able to meet this need, and the ever–increasing needs of e–commerce and global communication require a database product that can support them. SQL Server 2000 is the database of choice for global organizations.
This talk will walk you through setting up multilingual collations down to the column level, so that your users can retrieve data easily for any language. It will also cover how your data travels from client to the server, in a multi–tier Internet application architecture, dealing with non–Unicode and Unicode data, allowing you to support all the worlds' languages. This session will give you insight to make the most of Microsoft SQL Server multilingual features to best support your global community
Going Global with Microsoft SQL Server
(1383KB Powerpoint Presentation)
Beverly Sherry, Program Manager
Fernando Caro, Lead International Program Manager
A Case Study on Unicode Integration: Microsoft's Visual Basic, version 3.0 to version 7.0
Visual Basic is Microsoft's most popular development platform, and they currently claim 3 million developers are using it. Since version 4.0, it has integrated Unicode, but there have always been issues with what they implemented for developers. It actually makes VB a perfect case study for what happens when you do not consider all of the issues that are important when adding Unicode support to a software product.
Specific issues with how Unicode is used (and not used) in VB are highlighted, for all versions 3.0 through the new VB.NET, which finally solves many (but not all!) of the issues. In the end, you will understand both how to get things working properly in VB, and how to avoid the same issues in your own applications.
A Case Study on Unicode Integration: Microsoft's Visual Basic, version
3.0 to version 7.0
(218KB Powerpoint Presentation)
Michael Kaplan, Software Design Engineer
