Add omega character to Symbols drop-down list

After doing some more experiments, it seems that using simple hex codes in the .cfg files can be dodgy, too. Many of the characters (entered as hex codes) which are over 80 hex (128 decimal) in the .cfg files actually get remapped to other characters - even if you are only trying to enter characters in the Symbol or Dingbats font.

So if you thought you could go mad and stuff the entire Symbol character set into a menu using the Symbol font's native mapping (okay, I confess, I tried it), then many characters come out incorrectly.
I think this behaviour (the remapping, that is - not the going mad part) is another relic from the pre-unicode FM days. I wish that Adobe would finish the job of migrating all of FM to unicode (including the configuration files that we like/need to tweak), instead of leaving messy bits like this lying around.

The <Definition /uHHHH> syntax doesnt seem to work in cmds.cfg. <br />Using character \u0414 (which is a capital Cyrillic D) as a guinea pig, I tried various syntaxes: <br /><Definition /u0414> produces nothing<br /><Definition \u0414> produces u<br /><Definition \x0414> highlights current then previous paragraph - same as \x414 <br /><Definition U> where U is the literal unicode Cyrillic D character, produces an endash <br /><br />The original FM8 cmds.cfg file has no unicode entries. Even the definitions for some of the higher unicode characters such as bullet (\u2022) still use the old \xa5 code in the cmds.cfg file, which Frame then converts on-the-fly so that the character that ends up in the document is unicode character \u2022. As far as I can tell, the only unicode characters that the cmds.cfg file can insert into a document are those which were in the old Frame 7 (and before) character sets, and it does this by invoking the old (FM7 and before) hex code. <br /><br />Some more info on the .cfg files: <br /><br />I noticed that you can use < Label U > where U is the literal unicode character, and the unicode character will actually appear in the menu, which is pretty nifty. (I had to quote the Label syntax slightly differently here because the forum interpreter butchered it.)<br />However, <Definition U> does not insert the character into the document. <br /><br />I am reading and saving the .cfg files as UTF-8 text. <br /><br />I cant edit the menus.cfg file in place. For some reason when I read it into Frame directly from its location in $FMHOME\fminit\maker then only one page appears in an odd window with no FM menus or icons. I have to copy it to a different directory, edit it there, and then copy it back. This isnt a real problem; it just reminds me of previous versions when you couldnt unlock and edit the help system or palettes unless you first moved them out of the help directories. <br /><br />If someone knows the syntax for specifying unicode characters in the Definitions in the .cfg files then Id sure like to hear it.

How do you specify unicode characters in the cmds.cfg file?

> "Is this because they are Unicode characters ? "

They are just characters, and they can be encoded in various ways!

To see what their encoding number is under the unicode system, you can look them up at www.unicode.org (click the "where's my character?" link). If you know the unicode encoding number for a character, you can then enter it in Windows using an ALT+keypad keysequence.
If Windows then has an OpenType font installed which has that character present under that unicode encoding, you're in business.

the old PostScript or TrueType versions of fonts such as Wingdings didn't store their characters using the unicode encodings, they just remapped them to the first 127 or 256 encoding positions.
So if you are using an old Wingdings font, it may get confused.

Hello everyone

I have just tried adding the WindowsTM flag, a Tick and a cross (Wingdings Font) to the symbols menu, but the instructions haven't worked. I don't get the correct symbol when I select the symbol from the drop-down list.

Is this because they are Unicode characters ?

Is there any way to specify a unicode character for this?

Arnis,
Thank you for your instructions. I got very busy and just now got a chance to try them out. The omega symbol is now listed in menu just as I wanted.

Where is this "Symbols drop-down list in FrameMaker version 8" in the interface?
I've never seen such a thing.

Jay,<br /><br />This is a two-step procedure.<br /><br />First you have to define the Omega character as a command, e.g.<br /><br /> <Command CharOmega <br /> <Label Omega> <br /> <Definition \x57><br /> > In Symbol Font Only<br /><br /><br />Then you have to define the menu entry for it, e.g.<br /><br /> <Add CharOmega <br /> <Menu SpecialSymbols><br /> ><br /><br />You could modify the cmds.cfg for adding the definition and then the<br />menus.cfg for adding the entry. But it would be better to simply<br />create a custom .cfg file that contains the definition and menu<br />addition. Then you would use the View > Menus > Modify... option to<br />select your custom configuration when you want to activate it.<br /><br />Note: you still need to manually switch to an appropriate symbol font<br />for the correct character to appear when inserted with this method<br />(otherwise you'll only see a "W").