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Internationalization

IBus 1.5.21 release improves compose typing

Previously,  IBus accepted the compose key sequences less than 7 characters due to the internal fixed buffer size. That is, Multi_key-O-R are three characters and the sequence could output "®", but Multi_key-Multi_key-o-i-i-i-n-t is eight characters and the sequence was not enabled in IBus. With this enhancement, IBus buffer size is increased to 255 characters.

Additionally, the output of IBus was previously only one compose character and the size was limited to 16 bits. That is, "®" is one character and it could be output, but the character "🗼" with a size larger than 16 bits. Consequently, the output was not enabled in IBus. With this enhancement, the IBus 1.5.21 release deletes the limitation of the character lengths and the size is extended to 32 bits.

Noto fonts are now variable by default

The Noto font family is designed to cover all languages defined in the Unicode standard. It is currently the default font family for the Sinhala language in Fedora.

With this release, the Noto fonts switch to using the variable version by default. Variable fonts encode multiple font variations in a single OpenType font (OTF) file. As a result, the variable fonts have the following advantages:

  • They significantly save disk space.

  • They enable applications that support OTF to provide font variation options in the user interface.

You can now install minimal language support

This release introduces new packages that provide basic support for a given language. The packages are named langpacks-core-language_code, where language_code is the short ISO code for the language, such as es for Spanish. The basic support includes:

  • The glibc locale

  • The default font

  • The default input method if the language requires it

The basic localization set does not include:

  • Translations

  • Additional fonts

  • Spell checker dictionaries

The basic language support packages are useful for creating custom installations, for Spins, or for installing Fedora from a minimal image. You can add basic internationalization support for specific languages without pulling in additional translations and fonts that might not be required for each added language.

Full language support, including translations and additional fonts, continues to be available from the langpacks-language_code packages.