THL Toolbox > Fonts & Related Issues > Nepali Fonts > Devanagari for Mac OS X
Devanagari Unicode Input for Mac OS X
While in the Classic Mac OS (version 9 and earlier) Apple included options for changing the default system font, this has not been an option in OS X. However, if you want, you can, with a little tweaking, change the default font to any TrueType font of your choice. HFS Explorer is a pretty good software that can help you read your Mac-formatted drives on Windows. As its name suggests, the software only works with the drives that are. 7 is installed on all Sites Macintosh computers. Due to networking issues with this version and the Mac operating system, you may be prompted for administrative passwords (click 'cancel') or may not be able to use some features. There is also a version of Read & Write for Windows on Sites Windows computers. HFSExplorer is completely free; it's a basic application designed to help users read. In June of 2004, during the WWDC keynote address, Steve Jobs revealed Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger to developers and the public for the first time. When the finished product arrived in April of 2005, Tiger.
In June 2009, Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya in Kathmandu, Nepal, has updated their 2004 Nepali Devanagari keyboard layout for Apple Mac OS X. To install the keyboard layout and icon, please follow these instructions, available from Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya:
- Download the file Romanized_Keyboard_Layout_For_Mac.zip and extract the two files 'NepaliRomanized.1.keylayout' and 'NepaliRomanized.1.icns' from the zip file.
- Quit all running applications.
- Go to the Macintosh HD (or whatever your system hard drive is named) and find the following folder path: System / Library / Keyboard Layouts.
- Drag the two files you extracted from the zip file into the Keyboard Layouts folder.
- You will see a dialogue box which reads: 'the item…could not be moved because 'Keyboard Layouts' cannot be modified', click Authenticate.
- You will need to be logged in as the administrator to have the permission to Authenticate.
- Restart the computer.
- Open TextEdit and change the keyboard layout to NepaliRomanized (either by using the Apple menu bar on the top right of the desktop or by opening System Preferences / International / Input Menu and selecting NepaliRomanized.
- You should be able to type in Nepali using a Romanized keyboard layout which can be viewed by clicking here.
You will need at least Mac OS X.2 (Jaguar) but preferably OS X.3 (Panther) to be able to view and input Devanagari Unicode on your computer.
You will also need to have the Asian language kit and fonts installed which came on the install discs for the operating system. We strongly recommend using the free OS X browser Safari rather than Internet Explorer. The former requires no special adjustment to view Unicode pages, while Internet Explorer is not smooth for Mac OSX.
To prepare your browser for Unicode, we strongly suggest that you read Alan Wood's excellent and helpful pages on this topic. Microsoft Office for Mac is still not fully Unicode compliant. Office for Mac 2004, which was released in May 2004, offers limited Unicode support but Devanagari half-characters do not render. Mellel, a cheap word processor for OS X, is pretty good on Unicode input, but Devanagari half-characters are not rendered correctly. The best bet is TextEdit 1.3, the free Unicode-compliant editor which comes embedded within Mac OS X.
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Apple is known for their attention to detail and producing stunning user interfaces. Recently I found a nice typography touch in the Mac OS X interface that got me really excited.
Letters To Reid Mac Os X
I think any designer is familiar with term 'ligatures'. For those who are not, here is the definition from Wikipedia:
In writing and typography a ligature occurs where two or more letter-forms are joined as a single glyph. Ligatures usually replace two sequential characters sharing common components, and are part of a more general class of glyphs called 'contextual forms' where the specific shape of a letter depends on context such as surrounding letters or proximity to the end of a line.
Most popular ligatures are 'ff', 'fi', 'fl', 'ffi', 'ffl' and 'fft'. Here are some examples:
Now, take a look at some elements of Mac OS X UI:
Letters To Reid Mac Os Download
Yes, they use ligatures system-wide! For me it's an amazing discovery. I think 99.99% of Mac OS X users don't care about such details, but they definitely care about the whole experience. And such small design and typography touches make the whole user experience much better. I want to share with you my favorite quote from Scott Forstall, Apple's vice-president of Platform Experience:
I actually have a photographer's loupe that I use to look to make sure every pixel is right. We will argue over literally a single pixel.
(Apple's New Calling: The iPhone at Time)
