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The directory can be an alias def<strong>in</strong>ed <strong>in</strong> the WWW server. Inside each sub-directory, there are font<br />

image files us<strong>in</strong>g the <strong>in</strong>ternal code of the character as file names. However, the file name convention is<br />

considered to be proprietary to the on-demand font server; as <strong>in</strong> later versions, the arrangement of font image<br />

file names may be changed.<br />

WWW Client Set Up<br />

On WWW clients, a WWW browser is <strong>in</strong>voked by the end user to view multi-l<strong>in</strong>gual documents. As stated <strong>in</strong><br />

the above sections, the only requirement of a suitable WWW browser is that the browser should be Javacapable.<br />

Netscape Navigator Version 2.0 and Hotjava are examples of Java-capable WWW browser.<br />

Font Service Applet<br />

A Java-capable WWW browser, when encounters the applet tag, will request the Ondemand<br />

Font Service applet from the WWW server. After receiv<strong>in</strong>g the applet, it will<br />

be started by the WWW browser. After the applet takes over the control, it will<br />

exam<strong>in</strong>e the parameter, and the retrieval of the multi-l<strong>in</strong>gual document will be started.<br />

When the applet receives the multi-l<strong>in</strong>gual document, it will analyze the character/font<br />

requirement of the document and check if the local site has the character/font <strong>in</strong>stalled.<br />

If local site has the character/font set <strong>in</strong>stalled, the applet will use it. Otherwise, the<br />

applet will further request the character/font files from the WWW server. Note that<br />

only the characters used <strong>in</strong> the multi-l<strong>in</strong>gual document will be transferred.<br />

Future Developments<br />

The on-demand font server is just the first stepp<strong>in</strong>g stone to a complete versatile multi-l<strong>in</strong>gual WWW<br />

environment, we have plans to enhance the system <strong>in</strong> the follow<strong>in</strong>g areas.<br />

Input method support is an important part <strong>in</strong> a truly multi-l<strong>in</strong>gual environment. Our on-demand font server<br />

solves the display problem <strong>in</strong> non-English based <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion documents. From time to time, users may want<br />

to type feedbacks to the WWW server, or to search for a particular word <strong>in</strong> the retrieved document. The way to<br />

support <strong>in</strong>put methods for non-alphabetic languages is considerable more complex than simply read the codes<br />

generated from the keyboard. We will study the possible mechanisms for On-demand Input Methods <strong>in</strong> future<br />

papers.<br />

There is <strong>in</strong>herited redundancy <strong>in</strong> almost all human languages, if we can exploit that property, then we can<br />

devise a good font load order <strong>in</strong> order to let users to understand a document page even before all the character<br />

fonts are loaded. We already have a few ideas which show promis<strong>in</strong>g results. We will implement an<br />

<strong>in</strong>telligent font load order <strong>in</strong> future version on our on-demand font server.<br />

We believe that by compress<strong>in</strong>g the raw font images, we can achieve a faster load time for on-demand font<br />

retrieval. Another team <strong>in</strong> our lab which is specialized on compression technique will explore possible ways to<br />

compress font files to a great extent.<br />

In the first version, the multi-l<strong>in</strong>gual file is a pla<strong>in</strong> text file, we aim at a better support of HTML syntax <strong>in</strong> later<br />

versions. We would like to see the multi-l<strong>in</strong>gual file can support more than one page of text, on-the-fly

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