index.html

id="x1-2r1"> ByStar
E-mail: http://www.by-star.net
http://www.by-star.net/PLPC/180010 February 10, 2011
Varbatim Copying Permitted

• This text only apears in the presentation form

Part I

• Convivial: Not in the American/English sense of the word. In its Globish sense as introduced by Ivan Illich in “Tools For Conviviality”. Expressing the correct relationship between “Tool User”, “Tool” and “Tool Maker”. In this context, in Geek lingo: emacs and TeX.
• Perso-Arabic Script: Text processing in:
  • The Persian family of languages: (Farsi, Dari, Urdu, Pashto/Afghanic, Sindhi, Kashmiri, Uighuric)
  • The Arabic family of languages: (Arabic, Maghribi, Jawi/Old-Malay)
• Debian GNU/Linux: A paricular rev./generation (Squeeze/6.0) providing a stable and consistent libre platform.

• What is the ByStar Federation of Autonomous Libre Services?
• What is the ByStar User Environment?

• To create a healthy, strong and complete environment for producing documents in Arabic/Persian script
• Totally open and CopyLeft
• An asset for humanity
• In harmony with Debian GNU/Linux
• Multi-Lingual Editing Capabilities – Persian/Farsi, Arabic, Chinese, Hendi, Latin
• Given Debian and a local repository (persian.bybinary.org), provide everything.
• A pedagogical tool for language learning

• Ease of Use
• Purity of Persian or Arabic input system

• Platform (Debian)
• User Environment (Emacs24 with bidi, ByStar EOE)
• Desktop Publishing (XeLaTeX, XePersian, tex4ht)
• Autonomous Self Publication Facilities (ByStar)
• Federated Syndication – Re-Publishing

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1

Microsoft Word, ... – Proprietary and Industrial.

2

Open Office Writer, ... – Libre but Industrial.

3

Emacs and XeTeX – Convivial.

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• Part of ByStar User Environment. Recommended.
• A La Carte. Here is the information. You are on your own.

Part II

• Debian Squeeze (6.0)
• Ubuntu 11.04

Nothing less will do beacuse bidi was missing in emacs and XePersian was not quite ready until 2010.

• ByStar User Environment

Part III

• emacs-snapshot is not part of Squeeze, get it from ...
• Persian fonts
• Persian input methods
• Arabic input methods
• Persian spell checkers

• Point to relevant docs.

• Persian: XB Zar, ...
• Arabic: Lateef, ...

• Native Keybaords: Arabic M-: (set-input-method ’arabic) (set-input-method ’farsi)
• Transliteration: Persian M-: (set-input-method ’farsi-translit)
• Predictive Phonetic Input (PPI): e.g., pinglish

Generated with M-: (describe-input-method ’farsi-translit) ispell/aspect used with multiple dictionaries.

• Persian/Farsi aspell dictionaries
• Arabic aspell dictionaries

dict protocol used with multiple thesaruses.

• Persian/Farsi thesaruses
• Arabic thesaruses

dict protocol used with multiple dictionaries.

• Persian/Farsi dictionaries
• Arabic dictionaries
• eng-arabic + arabic-eng
• eng-farsi + farsi-eng

• Gnus – Bugs: Summary buffer messed up
• Supercite:
• When bidi is on, arithmetic segments should remain left to right.
• m17n library: lengthened characters at the end of a word.

Part IV

• XB Zar Fonts

• htxelatex is missing. Needs work.

Part V

• Point to relevant PLPC.

Part VI

• ByTopic.org.

Part VII

• Gharbzadegi
• This articleFa.tex and presentationFa.tex

• This articleEn.tex and presentationEn.tex

• TBD

Part VIII

• Get a ByName.net acct
• Install Debian Squeeze on your computer
• Install ByStar User Environment with matching ByName.net on your computer.
• Use the ByStar Perso-Arabic Script
• Report Bugs and suggest improvements
• Assist in completing this manual – particularly the Arabic parts

• XeLaTeX for tex4ht
• Persian Dictionaries – None found at this time
• Persian Thesaurus – None found at this time
• Pinglish for emacs
• eng-persian dictionary
• persian-eng dictionary

• Produced with Halaal Software and Halaal Internet Services.
• It uses LaTeX, beamer, ByStar, Blee, Emacs, ...