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Greek Language porting to Canon G9

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Offline alk_is

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Greek Language porting to Canon G9
« on: 14 / January / 2009, 07:00:50 »
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I am new here. I am a Canon G9 (D version) user. As a thanks to all developers that produced this marvelous Camera Operating System i thought of translating the whole to Greek. In this way i translated the .lng file into Greek, but it doesn't seem to work.
I have used the Windows(1253) Greek codepage, along with all similar, and none seems to work. The characters that appear are usually Cyrillic. Of course the 1253 codepage is not supported by the system, but... the camera already has the Greek language inside.
Any ideas about overcoming this?
« Last Edit: 14 / January / 2009, 07:02:26 by alk_is »
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Offline zeno

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Re: Greek Language porting to Canon G9
« Reply #1 on: 14 / January / 2009, 08:33:11 »
There are entries in the CHDK.CFG file that identify which code page is to be used for things like displaying text files and menus - it may be worth checking that they have been set to point at 1253. Try using my CFG Editor - see http://www.zenonic.demon.co.uk/kapstuff/zcfgedit.html
« Last Edit: 14 / January / 2009, 08:35:31 by zeno »
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Offline alk_is

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Re: Greek Language porting to Canon G9
« Reply #2 on: 15 / January / 2009, 06:02:52 »
Thank you for your answer.
I got the editor and used it. Unfortunately it allows only the values already allowed by the software, that is 1250, 1251, 1252, 1254, 1257. Since it is your work maybe in another version would allow 1253 also? (supposing that this would solve the issue, because fonts maybe the next one).
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Offline zeno

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Re: Greek Language porting to Canon G9
« Reply #3 on: 15 / January / 2009, 06:33:07 »
I looked at the CHDK source (which I should have done yesterday I guess) and unfortunately those code pages are hard-wired, so changing my editor to allow 1253 will not help - CHDK itself will only accept those five values.

To make things work, someone will have to construct the 1253 table in lib/font/codepages.h (where there is a comment about it, but no data). Then 1253 could be added to the list of acceptable code pages in core/conf.c and things would (I think) be OK.

The trouble is, I have no idea how to construct the 1253 table and until somone who does volunteers to do the work, Greek will remain unsupported.

[edit] Actually, it does not look too hard. There's a Greek codepage table here http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/sbcs/1253.mspx

Although I can't promise anything, if you let me know your email address and camera type, I could try to produce a special build for you to test.
« Last Edit: 15 / January / 2009, 07:47:56 by zeno »
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Offline alk_is

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Re: Greek Language porting to Canon G9
« Reply #4 on: 15 / January / 2009, 09:13:52 »
My camera is Canon G9 - firmware vers. D
I already wrote to u in the address in your profile, so if there is anything...
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Offline alk_is

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Re: Greek Language porting to Canon G9
« Reply #5 on: 16 / January / 2009, 08:59:13 »
Thank you very much for your time and the code you send me! It seems to work quite fine and now i can use the 1253 codepage.

But, it seems there is one more step to take: the fonts
As long as i understand the existing fonts do not support Greek characters. The "Reb font editor" which the community suggests for designing new fonts cannot be used for codepage 1253. Also there is no definition of the RBF font  format anywhere. To my lookup it is a format created for an RCA-ebook reader back in 2001...
Using a Hex editor i found an 16x24-1bit scheme of characters, plus a header of some kind and an ending. The header describes the font name at pos. 8h-19h and the length of each character at pos. 74h starting at char 21. Of course it is very difficult using a Hex editor to convert an existing other-codepage font to Greek visuals and using it on that other codepage as an undercover Greek. Quite unconventional also for future use.

If somewhere exists a description of the RBF format it would help the whole situation.

Another (and easier for me but not for the community i suppose) exit would be a converter from one commonly found format to the RBF, such as the existing for the other codepages. I found none on the web.

Once again - thank you for your work!
« Last Edit: 16 / January / 2009, 12:32:07 by alk_is »
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Offline zeno

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Re: Greek Language porting to Canon G9
« Reply #6 on: 16 / January / 2009, 10:11:29 »
You're welcome alk_is. I had assumed that the codepage table I produced would make CHDK select the appropriate unicode characters from a font file. Obviously it doesn't work that simply.

I'm not sure how to proceed. Although the REB editor does indeed not let you use codepage 1253, there must be a way round this because the CHDK codepages.h file already has a Turkish codepage (1254) defined. If CHDK properly supports Turkish fonts (and I'm assuming it does) then whoever did that work must know how to define RBF fonts without using REB.
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Offline alk_is

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Re: Greek Language porting to Canon G9
« Reply #7 on: 16 / January / 2009, 13:19:30 »
Reverse engineering the font file as above and using the REB editor for the typefaces and my Hexeditor for the widths i edited the font file for arial.
I was able to make a font file with characters that displayed Greek text. (Yes!!) The work is not done fully yet, but with one fourth of the whole character set i can say that the menu text displays Greek.
Well.. when all is finished i will come back to tell ya! :)))

« Last Edit: 22 / January / 2009, 11:02:52 by alk_is »
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Offline alk_is

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Re: Greek Language porting to Canon G9
« Reply #8 on: 22 / January / 2009, 11:00:42 »
Everything is ready and working!
I have two files that one will need: one font file ArilGR14 and one menus file Greek.lng, plus your version of the DISKBOOT.INI
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Offline fe50

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Re: Greek Language porting to Canon G9
« Reply #9 on: 20 / February / 2010, 12:57:13 »
Warming up this ancient thread  ::)

I plan to add greek (codepage 1253) language support to the trunk...

Here's a test build for the G9 with firmware 1.00D,
based on CHDK trunk rev. 874, full download package including greek lang file & AriaGR14 font file:

(link removed)

(thx zeno for the code & alk_is for the font file !)

--> If somebody want to test with another camera/firmware version: post your camera + fw version here, i'll upload a test build...

(Edit 22-Feb-2010: new link)
(Edit 23-Feb-2010: link removed, in trunk now...)
« Last Edit: 23 / February / 2010, 16:01:47 by fe50 »
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