Infocenter

General information about the DBCS languages

General information
Troubleshooting

General information

For Linux and Windows platforms, IBM WorldType fonts for DBCS languages

IBM WorldType font packages for the DBCS languages for the Linux and Windows platforms are available for download from the IBM Software Internet Service Delivery site at http://www6.software.ibm.com/aim/home.html.

WorldType fonts are shipped with the AIX system. AIX users will not have to download WorldType fonts from HOD service key site.

The table below shows additional information. Note: These fonts do not replace the system fonts.

Monotype Sans Duospace WorldType fonts
Font
File name
Country/region
Monotype Sans Duospace WT J mtsansdj.ttf Japan and other countries
Monotype Sans Duospace WT K mtsansdk.ttf Korea
Monotype Sans Duospace WT SC mtsansds.ttf China (Simplified Chinese)
Monotype Sans Duospace WT TC mtsansdt.ttf Taiwan (Traditional Chinese)

Restrictions on using DBCS code pages with the CICS-gateway emulator

Host On-Demand does not support DBCS code-pages with the CICS-gateway emulator.

Restriction on cursor width

Host On-Demand does not support changing the cursor width automatically when the cursor is positioned under DBCS characters. The cursor width always stays the same.

Generating SO/SI automatically

When you input DBCS characters in a 3270 or 5250 session, a Shift Out (SO) character must be inserted where the DBCS characters begin and a Shift In (SI) character must be inserted where the DBCS characters end.

Host On-Demand automatically generates SO/SI characters where they are required. When your cursor is at the first position of the 5250 DBCS Either field and you type a DBCS character, the field automatically becomes a DBCS character-enabled field, and will accept only DBCS characters. If you type an SBCS character in the first position of a field, the field automatically becomes an SBCS character-enabled field and will accept only SBCS (alphanumeric) characters.

Displaying a split DBCS character

When a DBCS character is split between two lines, half the character displays at the right end of the line and a special symbol displays at the left end of the next line.

Problems

The following problems have been encountered while running Host On-Demand with the DBCS languages:

DBCS GB18030 support

Host On-Demand supports GB18030-2000 code page (GB18030 phase 1 only / CCSID 1388) character display and 3270/5250 Unicode/PC code (GB18030) file transfer. The 3270 host print is also supported, but 5250 host print depends on OS/400 supported.

SAA characters with Internet Explorer 4 and Netscape 4

SAA characters (characters that exist in host code-pages but not in PC code-pages) are not defined in DBCS fonts (for example, Gothic, gulimche, simiti), and cannot be displayed correctly with Microsoft Internet Explorer. Some Japanese examples are (X'xx' is in EBCDIC):

   X'4A':Cent
   X'5F':Logical Not
   X'A0':Over-bar
   X'B1':UK Pound
   X'E0':Backslash
The SAA characters Cent, LogicalNot, and Pound sign do not copy and paste correctly using Netscape 4.x on the DBCS version of Microsoft Windows 95/98/ME and OS/2. These SAA characters will become DBCS and appear incorrectly if they are copied and pasted.

SAA characters are displayed incorrectly on some Java 1 browsers

Some SAA characters (characters that exist in host code-pages but not in PC code-pages) are not displayed correctly on certain Java 1 browser/platform combinations. See the list below.

To display these characters properly, use a Java 2-enabled browser.

  1. Chinese (Simplified), Windows NT, Internet Explorer (Microsoft JVM versions 3802 and 3805)

    The following characters are not displayed correctly:

       Pound
       Broken bar
       Logical Not
       Yen
       Upper Bar
    
  2. Chinese (Traditional), Windows NT, Internet Explorer (Microsoft JVM versions 3802 and 3805)

    The following characters are not displayed correctly:

       Cent
       Broken bar
       Logical Not
    
  3. Chinese (Traditional), AIX, Netscape 4.x

    The following characters are not displayed correctly:

       Cent
       Broken bar
       Logical Not
    

DBCS input is not supported in AIX Auto IME mode

DBCS input on AIX is not supported in Auto IME mode due to AIX JVM restrictions. To avoid problems, turn off the Auto IME mode. On the Language tab in session properties, select Off for IME Auto Start.

TSO: Some half-width characters cannot be displayed in a TSO environment

In a TSO environment, some half-width characters from the 1364, 1371, 1309 and 1399 code pages cannot be displayed. This is a TSO problem that awaits a fix of the TSO codepages.

Print Screen when the marked area trim-rectangle contains split DBCS characters

When the marked area trim-rectangle contains split DBCS characters, Print Screen prints only the parts of DBCS characters that are contained inside the marked area trim rectangle.

Print Screen on Windows 2000 in a session using monospaced fonts

If your monospaced Host On-Demand session font, such as MS Gothic or MS Mincho, is mapped to one of PAGES' fonts, you must set your Windows 2000 printer driver to Don't Substitute fonts in order to Print Screen. MS Gothic and MS Mincho fonts are mapped to PAGES' Gothic and PAGES' Mincho fonts by default, which results in incorrect print screen output.

Restrictions on file transfer

The following DBCS code-pages are supported by Host On-Demand file transfer. Note that some characters extended by the respective operating system cannot be shown or converted correctly.

Korea - IBM KS code (code page IBM-949)
Does not support Hangeul characters extended by Microsoft (code page MS-949)

S-Chinese - IBM GB code (code page IBM-1381)
Does not support characters extended by GBK (code page MS-936)

T-Chinese - IBM Big5 code (code page IBM-950)
Does not support some vendor-defined and user-defined characters

On-the-Spot conversion

On DBCS Linux/AIX, the candidate window might be located just below the Host On-Demand session window instead of below the current cursor location. This is because Linux/AIX IM (Input Method)does not have the interface to locate the candidate window to the desired position. The actual location is determined by Linux/AIX IM.

Restriction using On-the-Spot Conversion function with Sun Java 2 Plug-in 1.3

You must use Sun Java 2 Plug-in 1.3 with the On-the-Spot Conversion function. If you do not use Sun Java 2 Plug-in 1.3, a NullPointerException will be displayed on the Java Console.

Auto IME function does not work on any DBCS version of Linux

The Auto IME function does not work on any DBCS version of Linux because Linux IM (Input Method) does not have such an interface. As before, users need to turn IME on manually when DBCS is inputted.

Keys that do not work on the IME keypad for DBCS languages

The Backspace, Tab and Enter keys on the IME keypad do not work.

Restrictions on automatic shift change with DBCS languages

Host On-Demand does not support the following functions because of Java 1.1.x restrictions on controlling the shift status or IME status:

You must therefore change the shift or IME status manually to input characters in a particular shift status.

Selection box appears to truncate top lines on AIX with Netscape DBCS

If you are using Host On-Demand on AIX with Netscape and you attempt to select several lines of DBCS text, your browser will move the top edge of the selection box down half a line so that it runs through the middle of the line of characters. If you then attempt to cut this selected text, all of the text will disappear except the half of the line of characters that was above the top edge of the selection box. In other words, it will appear that you have not cut all of the text that you wanted to.

However, this is not so. If you refresh the screen, the line of half-characters will disappear, and if you paste the text that you previously cut, all of the text that you had originally selected, including the truncated text, will appear.

This is a limitation of Netscape.

DBCS filenames and paths are not displayed for Netscape on AIX

Filenames and paths that contain Double Byte Character Set (DBCS) characters cannot be displayed properly when using Netscape on AIX. This problem appears mostly in functions that use the File Browse feature such as the File Transfer GUI and the Import/Export facility. This is a limitation in the File Browse feature in the browser on the AIX platform.

This is a problem with Netscape running on the OS/2 platform.

DBCS input field's character cannot output to other fields on Netscape for AIX

When Host On-Demand clients are running on Netscape for AIX, the Double Byte Character Set (DBCS) input field's characters cannot output to other fields after users type characters in DBCS input field and then hit the Enter key. This is a constraint of Netscape running on AIX.

Scroll bar does not work normally on Netscape 4.61 with JDK1.1.8 for OS/2 platform

If you click any one of the session icons on the first row on the Configured Session window and then attempt to scroll down, the display will not stop at the bottom. Instead the display will cycle back to the first row. However, if you click icons on the other rows, scrolling will behave normally.

This is a limitation of Netscape 4.61 with JDK1.1.8 for OS/2 platform.

Some DBCS characters appear with '{?}' on T,P,J,K-OS/2 4.0 Merlin

When a Host On-Demand client runs on Netscape 4.61 for the OS/2 platform, the following Double Byte Character Set (DBCS) PC codes are displayed with {?} :

Traditional Chinese:
a148, a153, a1b8, a1f3, a1b9, a1e3, c6e6
Simplified Chinese:
a1a4, a1ee, a1ef, a3bf
Japanese:
815c, 8160, 81f1, 8199, 817c, 81f2, 81f3
Korean:
a1a4, a1a9, a1d9, a1da, a2bb, a2a6, a2c1, a2d0, a2da, a2bd, a2d1, a2db, a2cd, a3bf, a2bf, a2ce, a2dd, a2bb, a2cf

Display screen is narrower when using Java 2-enabled browsers with DBCS languages

Java 2-enabled browsers return values different from other JVMs when Host On-Demand calculates the display screen layout. This causes the session screen to be narrower than with Java 1 browsers. To work around this, you may comment out the following line in the font.properties file, which is used by the Java 2 JVM on your locale. For example, if your locale is Japanese, you may change \JavaSoft\JRE\1.3.0_01\lib\font.properties.ja file by adding:

#monospaced.plain.1=Courier New,ANSI_CHARSET

Some characters are not displayed correctly on Adobe Reader 5.0 with Asian font pack

If you are using the Host On-Demand Print-to-file option Use Adobe PDF, and some of the characters are not displayed correctly on Adobe Reader 5.0 with the Asian font pack, there are two possible causes for the problem:

To resolve the problem follow these steps:

  1. Download the appropriate Adobe character collection book from the Adobe web site. Here is the URL for each book:

  2. Start the Adobe character collection book.

  3. Use the Search function to find the character that you are interested in.

  4. If you cannot find the character in the Adobe character collection book, then the Adobe CID font does not support this character.

  5. If you can find the character in the Adobe character collection book, then you need to add the character to the CMap file for your language.

  6. Find the Adobe Reader 5.0 CMAP files. The CMap files are in the Adobe Reader 5.0 directory Resource\CMap. For example, if you have the Adobe Reader 5.0 installed in: c:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat5.0 then the CMap files are in:
    c:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat5.0\Resource\CMap

  7. With an ASCII editor, open the CMap file for your DBCS language. The CMap files are shown in the table below.

    Language: CMap file name:
    Japanese UniJIS-UCS2-HW-H
    Korean UniKS-UCS2-H
    Traditional Chinese UniCNS-UCS2-H
    Simplified Chinese UniGB-UCS2-H

  8. Find the the following line, which consists of one word:
    endcmap

  9. Above this line, add the following lines of text, using the Unicode code and the CID code that you wrote down:
    1 begincidrange
    <Unicode code> <Unicode code> CID code
    endcidrange

    For example, if you wrote down 007e for the Unicode code and 100 for the CID code, then add the following lines of text:
    1 begincidrange
    <007e> <007e> 100
    endcidrange

  10. Save the file and close it.

  11. Restart Adobe Reader 5.0.

For the Alternate Terminal user interface, DBCS characters in Valid-Value and Field-Help windows

The following DBCS characters cannot be displayed in Valid Value and Field Help windows. This is caused by a limitation of the JVMs.

  Duplicated characters, non-Kanji
    IBM Selected: 0xFA4A to 0xFA53, 0xFA58 to 0xFAFA5A
    NEC Selected: 0x8754 to 0x875D, 0x8782, 0x8784, 0x878A

  Duplicated characters, Kanji
    IBM Selected: 0xFA5C, 0xFBFC
    NEC Selected: 0xED40, 0xEEE0

  Three duplicated characters
    Logical Not: 0x81CA, 0xFA54, 0xEEF9

  IBM Extended DBCS
    0xFA40 to 0xFC4B

  Shift JIS (MS Kanji)
    0x8740 to 0x8775, 0x877E, 0x8780 to 0x878F, 0x8793, 0x8794, 0x8798, 0x8799

For the Alternate Terminal user interface, only one DBCS font available with Internet Explorer

If you use DBCS languages and Internet Explorer, you can use only one font for Alternate Terminal objects, even though several are listed on the Font tab of the properties window. This is because of a problem in the JVM.