WorldScript

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WorldScript is the multilingual text rendering engine for Apple Macintosh's classic Mac OS, before Mac OS X was introduced.

Classic Mac OS original operating system of Apple Mac (1984–2001)

Classic Mac OS is a colloquial term used to describe a series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Inc. from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The Macintosh operating system is credited with having popularized the graphical user interface concept. It was included with every Macintosh that was sold during the era in which it was developed, and many updates to the system software were done in conjunction with the introduction of new Macintosh systems.

macOS operating system for Apple computers, launched in 2001 as Mac OS X

macOS is a series of graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac family of computers. Within the market of desktop, laptop and home computers, and by web usage, it is the second most widely used desktop OS, after Microsoft Windows.

Starting with version 7.1, Apple unified the implementation of non-Roman script systems in a programming interface called WorldScript. WorldScript I was used for all one-byte character sets and WorldScript II for two-byte sets. Support for new script systems was added by so-called Language Kits. Some kits were provided with foreign versions of the system software, and others were sold by Apple and third parties. Application support for WorldScript was not universal, since building in support was a significant task.

In 8.5, full Unicode support was added to Mac OS through an API called ATSUI. However, WorldScript remained the dominant technology for international text until Mac OS X, because of limited application support for ATSUI.

Unicode Character encoding standard

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard is maintained by the Unicode Consortium, and as of March 2019 the most recent version, Unicode 12.0, contains a repertoire of 137,993 characters covering 150 modern and historic scripts, as well as multiple symbol sets and emoji. The character repertoire of the Unicode Standard is synchronized with ISO/IEC 10646, and both are code-for-code identical.

In computer programming, an application programming interface (API) is a set of subroutine definitions, communication protocols, and tools for building software. In general terms, it is a set of clearly defined methods of communication among various components. A good API makes it easier to develop a computer program by providing all the building blocks, which are then put together by the programmer.

Legacy

Good international support gave a marketing edge to word-processing programs such as Nisus Writer and programs using the WASTE text engine, because Microsoft Word prior to version 2001 was not WorldScript aware.[ citation needed ]

Nisus Writer, originally Nisus, is a word processing program for the Apple Macintosh. The program is available in two varieties: Nisus Writer Express, and Nisus Writer Pro.

The WASTE is an Apple Macintosh text editing software library. WASTE helps Macintosh programmers include advanced text display and editing in their applications.

Microsoft Word Word processor developed by Microsoft

Microsoft Word is a word processor developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS (1983), Apple Macintosh running the Classic Mac OS (1985), AT&T Unix PC (1985), Atari ST (1988), OS/2 (1989), Microsoft Windows (1989), SCO Unix (1994), and macOS.

Mark Davis had co-founded the Unicode Consortium, co-authored his first major internationalization framework in the form of WorldScript at Apple, became the internationalization architect at Taligent where he designed what became all the internationalization support for the Java Development Kit 1.1, became IBM's Chief Software Globalization Architect, moved to Google to work on internationalization and Unicode, [1] and now helps to choose the emojis for the world's smartphones. [2]

Mark E. Davis is a specialist in software text processing and internationalization and the co-founder and president of the Unicode Consortium.

The Unicode Consortium is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Mountain View, California. Its primary purpose is to maintain and publish the Unicode Standard which was developed with the intention of replacing existing character encoding schemes which are limited in size and scope, and are incompatible with multilingual environments. Unicode's success at unifying character sets has led to its widespread adoption in the internationalization and localization of software. The standard has been implemented in many recent technologies, including XML, the Java programming language, Swift, and modern operating systems.

Taligent was an American software company. Based on the Pink object-oriented operating system conceived by Apple in 1988, Taligent Inc. was incorporated as an Apple/IBM partnership in 1992, and was dissolved into IBM in 1998.

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TrueType is an outline font standard developed by Apple and Microsoft in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. It has become the most common format for fonts on the classic Mac OS, macOS, and Microsoft Windows operating systems.

NeXTSTEP object-oriented, multitasking operating system

NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on UNIX. It was developed by NeXT Computer in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its range of proprietary workstation computers such as the NeXTcube. It was later ported to several other computer architectures.

TextEdit text editor

TextEdit is a simple, open-source word processor and text editor, first featured in NeXT's NeXTSTEP and OpenStep. It is now distributed with macOS since Apple Inc.'s acquisition of NeXT, and available as a GNUstep application for other Unix-like operating systems such as Linux. It is powered by Apple Advanced Typography and has many advanced typographic features.

Cocoa is Apple's native object-oriented application programming interface (API) for its desktop operating system macOS.

AppleScript scripting language created by Apple Inc

AppleScript is a scripting language created by Apple Inc. that facilitates automated control over scriptable Mac applications. First introduced in System 7, it is currently included in all versions of macOS as part of a package of system automation tools. The term "AppleScript" may refer to the language itself, to an individual script written in the language, or, informally, to the macOS Open Scripting Architecture that underlies the language.

Safari (web browser) Web browser developed by Apple Inc.

Safari is a graphical web browser developed by Apple, based on the WebKit engine. First released on desktop in 2003 with Mac OS X Panther, a mobile version has been bundled with iOS devices since the iPhone's introduction in 2007. Safari is the default browser on Apple devices. A Windows version was available from 2007 to 2012.

OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

A text file is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists stored as data within a computer file system. In operating systems such as CP/M and MS-DOS, where the operating system does not keep track of the file size in bytes, the end of a text file is denoted by placing one or more special characters, known as an end-of-file marker, as padding after the last line in a text file. On modern operating systems such as Windows and Unix-like systems, text files do not contain any special EOF character, because file systems on those operating systems keep track of the file size in bytes. There are for most text files a need to have end-of-line markers, which are done in a few different ways depending on operating system.

Emoji ideograms or smileys used in electronic messages and webpages

Emoji are ideograms and smileys used in electronic messages and web pages. Emoji exist in various genres, including facial expressions, common objects, places and types of weather, and animals. They are much like emoticons, but emoji are actual pictures instead of typographics. Originally meaning pictograph, the word emoji comes from Japanese e + moji; the resemblance to the English words emotion and emoticon is purely coincidental. The ISO 15924 script code for emoji is Zsye.

BBEdit

BBEdit is a proprietary text editor made by Bare Bones Software, originally developed for Macintosh System Software 6, and currently supporting macOS.

The Apple Type Services for Unicode Imaging (ATSUI) is the set of services for rendering Unicode-encoded text introduced in Mac OS 8.5 and carried forward into Mac OS X.

International Components for Unicode (ICU) is an open-source project of mature C/C++ and Java libraries for Unicode support, software internationalization, and software globalization. ICU is widely portable to many operating systems and environments. It gives applications the same results on all platforms and between C, C++, and Java software. The ICU project is sponsored, supported, and used by IBM and many other companies.

Apple's Macintosh computer supports a wide variety of fonts. This support was one of the features that initially distinguished it from other systems.

Unicode input

Unicode input is the insertion of a specific Unicode character on a computer by a user; it is a common way to input characters not directly supported by a physical keyboard. Unicode characters can be produced either by selecting them from a display or by typing a certain sequence of keys on a physical keyboard. In addition, a character produced by one of these methods in one web page or document can be copied into another. Unicode is similar to ASCII but provides many more options and encodes many more signs.

The Universal Coded Character Set (UCS) is a standard set of characters defined by the International Standard ISO/IEC 10646, Information technology — Universal Coded Character Set (UCS), which is the basis of many character encodings. The latest version contains over 136,000 abstract characters, each identified by an unambiguous name and an integer number called its code point. This ISO/IEC 10646 standard is maintained in conjunction with The Unicode Standard ("Unicode"), and they are code-for-code identical.

References

  1. ↑ Swaine, Michael (September 1, 1997). "Phoenix in Cupertino". Dr. Dobb's. Retrieved February 9, 2019.
  2. ↑ NPR Staff (October 25, 2015). "Who Decides Which Emojis Get The Thumbs Up?". NPR. Retrieved February 10, 2019.
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