SVARDOS HELP SYSTEM [20241125][nls]

Internationalization and NLS overview

SvarDOS is a multi-language system, meaning that it can be set to operate in a variety of languages. This process comes in several distinct steps, all of which are preset inside AUTOEXEC.BAT by the SvarDOS installer during the installation of your system. This article aims at explaining the basics to provide the user with enough knowledge to configure his system in the most common situations. For detailed information about advanced settings please consult the documentation of each of the mentioned programs.

Outputting message in your language

The majority of CORE SvarDOS programs are able to output their messages in different languages. To know which language should be used, they look for two environment variables: LANG - the language to output messages in NLSPATH - provides the path where all language files are stored Example: SET LANG=FR SET NLSPATH=OSDIRNLS

Setting up your video adapter to a suitable codepage

Many languages come with glyphs specific to their alphabet. That is why codepages have been designed - a codepage is a set of glyphs that are adapted to display one or more languages. The default codepage hardcoded into most video adapters is the 437 codepage, known as "US ASCII". Using this codepage requires no configuration, but outputting messages in a non-English language might require using a different codepage. Loading a user codepage requires an EGA or VGA card. Older cards (MDA, CGA, Hercules...) had a single codepage hardwired in their memory. Setting up a custom (non-437) codepage on your system requires the DISPLAY driver to be loaded. This driver is a TSR that makes sure to refresh the custom codepage whenever the video adapter reverts to its default one (typically after every video mode change). To load the DISPLAY driver, use this command: DISPLAY CON=(EGA,,1) Once DISPLAY is loaded, you may configure your video adapter with the codepage of your choice using the two commands below: MODE CON CP PREP=((CODEPAGE) PATH-TO-THE-CPI-DEFINITION) MODE CON CP SEL=CODEPAGE ...where "CODEPAGE" is the identifier of your codepage, like 850, 991, etc and "PATH-TO-CPI-DEFINITION" is the full path to the CPI or CPX file that contains the definition of glyphs for the given codepage. Working example for the Polish language: MODE CON CP PREP=((991) C:\SVARDOS\CPI\EGA10.CPX) MODE CON CP SEL=991 You may see the full list of available CPX files and the exact codepages that each of them contain here: List of CPX files and their codepages.

Keyboard layout

Displaying country-specific glyphs is one thing, but typing them is another. To set up the keyboard layout suitable to your country, use the "KEYB" TSR. Example: KEYB PL

NLS settings

A language is not only different words and glyphs, it is also different conventions for things like paper sizes, currency, units of measurement, battery sizes, time format, and many other. DOS NLS support addresses a few of these variations through a standard, system-wide NLS API. In SvarDOS, this API can be configured through the LOCALCFG tool that generates a SYS file suitable for being loaded via a COUNTRY directive in CONFIG.SYS.