History: How it all began—a need arises…

In June 2008, Puppy celebrated its 5th Birthday. It was born as an (Australian) English speaker. For the first 2 years, it remained that way. Then it slowly learned to speak a few more languages. For Puppy, learning new languages was not that easy, initially.

First, it had to allow the Locale of a new language to get integrated into itself. Then, it had to allow specific key input methods to work properly with the many applications it had. The many keyboard layouts available out there had to be
integrated also. Its Window Manager and the File Manager had to be translated. It had to become Unicode compatible. And, finally, its own Genetic Code - namely its Scripts - needed translation.

Language Timeline

Contributions by Non-English Puppy to the main English based Puppy

1. Desktop Environment - Windows Managers and Filer Systems

The need to create a German language Puppy pushed Mark Ulrich to
explore and work on topics like 1) Windows Managers and Filer Systems,
2) Language Locales.. The original Puppy remained contented with Joe's
Windows Manager and ROX Filer System. Mark's exploration resulted in
introducing first KDE Desktop Environment to Puppy. ICE Windows Manager
was introduced simultaneously and was adopted by many Puplet develepors.

This initiative induced many to search for newer Windows Managers other
than the default JWM of Puppy Linux. Xfce, Enlightenment, Fluxbox,
Gnome Desktop were worked upon and adopted by these Pioneers for use in
Puppy subsequently. Developers and Users of other Linux distros have
translated many of these WM and Filer Systems into most other
languages. However, to use these translated WM and Filer Systems
readily, Puppy had to have working Locale Files for all these languages.

2. Language Locales

Making Non-English Locales (especially UTF based ones) work in Puppy
remained a difficult problem till Puppy Version 3. When that Puppy
Version was released, and was found to work easily with Slackware
packages, a great rush to bring in Slack packages into Puppy ensued.
The most notable package that was grabbed from Slack for Puppy was the
"Locale" files that Slack was using. While the locale files from other
Linux Distros refused to synchronise and work in Puppy, Mark Ulrich had
found the Slack Locale files working perfectly in Puppy. Since then,
one of the main impediments to have User Interface of Puppy in
non-English languages- namely having working Locale files of these
Languages - remains removed once and for all.

Apart from these practical achievements, the most important achievement
of these two works was that they had highlighted the need to support
Unicode Encoding System by Puppy.

3. Language Input Methods

Creation of Vietnamese Hacao Puppy highlighted this issue for the first
time. After much work by Hacao, Mark Ulrich and others Vietnamese Input
was made possible in Puppy. However, other language users had to
struggle to adopt their language specific Input Methods for Puppy once
again. (Eg: Russian, Greek)

When the work on Chinese and Japanese Puppies began, this lack was felt
acutely. Nyu was the first Puppian who set out to explore Smart Common
Input Method (SCIM) for its adoption into Puppy. His work and the work
by YoN of Japanese Puppy brought SCIM into Puppy for the first time.
However, their work was Chinese and Japanese specific, even though SCIM
had the capacity to support 41 language inputs.

4.Applications become Multi-Language Friendly

Appearance of non-English Puppies created a necessity where it was felt
that any new application developed exclusively for Puppy Linux should
contain scripts written in a way so that they could be translated into
languages other than English without much pain. The leader of this
thought process was Zigbert (Sigmund Berglund) of Norway. As an avid
Puppy lover, he began to write in early 2007, the now popular 'P'
series of softwares (like PFind and PBurn) exclusively for Puppy. These
applications were translated immediately into French, German, Russian
and Japanese. These applications supported Unicode.

5. Altering Puppy's single language Genetic Code...

Clarion call for rewriting the mono-lingual Scripts of Puppy Linux to
accept Multi-Language translation was sounded by Nathan F, Mark Ulrich
and the Russian Puppy team in 2007. Nathan F has given an open call to
all Puppians for taking up this task. Mark has proposed more than once,
how this could be done. The Russian Puppy team had succeeded in
translating the Puppy's Boot English Scripts into Russian. However,
much remains to be done in this front.

6. Birth of the Multi-lingual Puppy

Works on Localisation and non-English Input Methods from 2006 to early
2008 has brought in much into Puppy. However, on the Input Methods side
still much needed to be done. For example, there was no easy way to
input say Indic, Amharic, Arabic and many other languages in Puppy even
as late as March 2008.

Besides this, no concerted effort had been taken till March 2008 to
check whether all the applications used in Puppy would be able to
receive non-Latin inputs.

a) Smart Common Input Method and the GTK/QT Tool Kits

Work on finding an input method that could be used by most Language
users started in April 2008. Smart Common Input Method (SCIM) was found
to fit this requirement. Compiling it for Puppy began. GTK version of
SCIM was compiled for Puppy 2, 3 and 4 easily. However, compiling it
with qt-3 and qt-4 toolkits was immensely difficult. Irihapeti and
David Muggins worked relentlessly over a month and solved this issue
forthright. Compiling qt-3 input module for Puppy 3 remained an
unsolved issue, which Irihapeti has solved in early July 2008.

b) Choosing and Testing Applications with SCIM Compatibility

Listing the applications that are basically necessary for Puppy began
in May 2008. Swarup had proposed that a Full Text Search application, a
Text Editor with continuous spell checking function and a light weight
Database application must be included in the ML Puppy. Irihapeti had
wanted Unicode friendly Scribus to be included. RR Koothady had wanted
poedit, touch typing tutor and font encoding converters to be an
integral part of the ML Puppy. Apart from this, it was felt, that all
the applications used in Puppy (that is, in Puppy 2, 3 and 4) should be
tested with the SCIM compiled with GTK and QT toolkits.

Google Desktop Search tool was compiled and tested successfully but was
not accepted by the ML Puppy team members because of its "closed"
source nature. After a long search, the team settled for RECOLL text
search application and it was successfully compiled and packaged for
Puppy by David muggins. poedit was compiled and packaged successfully
for the first time for Puppy by Irihapeti.

Extensive testing brought out some of the previously unknown and much
valuable/interesting information.

c)Test Results

Abiword 2.6.2 was found initially to render Indic fonts
correctly (earlier versions had lacked this). However, on further
testing it was soon found out that Abiword is unusable with SCIM for
Indic languages.

Open Office was successfully tested with SCIM.

Owing to Oo's size it and the non-usability of Abiword, it was decided
to give priority to "text editor + Desktop Publishing" application
combination rather than to the Word Processors. This decision prompted
the team to search for a Text Editor with dynamic spell check
functionality. It was however found that not many text editors in Linux
have this functionality. TEA and Geany were shortlisted finally.

TEA was packaged for Puppy by David muggins immediately. However its
spell check tool was found to be cumbersome, so it was decided to
approach the Geany Developers to include a spell checker in their
editor. Enrico Trogger, the chief developer of Geany readily agreed,
and started working on the spell checker. Nathan F and David muggins
had packaged the test versions for Puppy. Nathan F has made an easily
installable pet package out of the every available aspell language
dictionary. Aspell and Geany put together has been found promising and
fine tuning of Geany's spell checker codes is being pursued currently.
Nathan F has evinced interest to compile Hunspell and MySpell
Dictionaries for Puppy. These Dictionaries are used by Open Office
applications.

Compiling Scribus with qt-3 and qt-4 toolkits was taken up by
David muggins and Irihapeti.The work is in progress.

Work on testing Portabase's compatibility with SCIM is in progress.
Work to know whether klavaro Touch Typing tutor (compiled by David
muggins) can be used for non-Latin languages is also being pursued.
Work on Font encoding converters is yet to begin.

Nathan F has evinced his interest to compile SKIM for those Puppies
that may prefer to use the KDE Desktop Environment. He has also
promised to compile Fontforge - the only decent Font Making Tool in
Linux - for Puppy.

d)The Future

i) Mark Ulrich's Multiple Desktop Environment Tool

Mark Ulrich has recently come out with a method by which the Windows
Manager of Puppy can be switched from one to the other on the fly. This
will be a great boon to ML Puppy.

For example,it was found that some Windows Managers work comfortably
with the Unicode Encoding Standard and that they tend to render
non-Latin fonts correctly. Also, Windows Managers and Desktop
Environments like KDE, Gnome and Xfce have been translated fully or at
least partially into most non-English languages. Having Mark's multiple
WM solution means having these Desktp Environments as Squash File
System (SFS) files on the hard disk drive and choosing the required DE
from Mark's Multiple WM Console. So, as and when new Puppy Versions are
released with their default Windows Managers (mostly JWM, ICEWM),
multi-language Puppians need not worry. They can use Mark's solution
and have their own preferred Desktop Environment.

ii)Enabling Puppy Versions 2, 3 and 4 with ML Capability

ML Puppy team has decided unanimously to provide ML compatibility to
the presently being used Puppy Versions namely 2, 3 and 4. So, no
Puppian will be left excluded from going multi-lingual.