We are in the process of creating a Blaise instrument using the Chinese language. We have read the paper written by Gina-Qian Cheung and Youhong Liu for the 2003 Blaise Conference. Has anyone else created an instrument using Chinese? We are looking for information as to what software works best for this application and any problems we need to look out for. Any help or tips regarding this subject will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Fred Crane
Battelle, Durham, NC
Tue, 04/28/2009 - 16:39
#1
Displaying Chinese Characters In Blaise
I received an e-mail from Gina-Qian Cheung (University of Michigan) with a solution to my problem. It seems that Windows XP has provided a solution and I did not even know it. I was directed to go into the Control Panel and modify a setting in the Regional and Language options. Under the Languages tab I found a check box marked "Install files for East Asian Languages". After checking that box and clicking OK, the language files were installed. In some cases, you may be prompted to put the Windows XP disk in the CD drive. After re-booting the machine, I went back to the Regional and Language options and clicked on the tab marked Advanced. There, I found a drop-down list under the header of Language for non-Unicode programs. Gina directed me to use Chinese (PRC) and after I re-booted the box again I discovered that I now have a language bar with both English and Chinese showing in my task bar. I started the Blaise control center and opened a new source file. I found that I could copy and paste Chinese characters directly into the source code file. The code compiled OK and when I ran the program I was viewing Chinese text in Blaise! All this time I thought you needed to use software that could read and write Unicode files to get this to work. I learned something new today, thanks to Gina-Qian Cheung!
Please note that if you are going to use a language like Chinese in your Blaise instruments, you will want to insure that you go into the Mode Lib editor and check the box marked "Ignore Hard Spaces". If you fail to do that, any hard spaces in your source code will show up as a Chinese character. This was noted in Gina's article she wrote for the 2003 Blaise Conference.