ML_MUA_1

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Testing multilingual support in Mail User
AgentsTERENA Pilot Project

• Yuri Demchenko, TERENA TNC98
  Dresden October 5-8, 1998

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TERENA Pilot Project on Testing Multilingual MUAs

• Officially started in April 1998 till September
  1998
• The project objectives can be described as
• Develop benchmarking methodology for Multilingual
  MUAs, and specify templates for collecting the
  results in a coherent way.
• Design a set of composite multilingual test
  messages
• Configure each MUA for all supported national
  character sets and send the test messages to
  other MUAs and to themselves.
• Compile the results, analyzing how the MUA
  composes, sends, receives and displays the test
  messages.
• Prepare recommendations for users - correct setup
  and operation of popular multilingual MUAs

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The list of mail clients to be tested

• Derived from TERENA MUAs usage statistics based
  on analysis of more than 3000 messages from
  TERENA Mail archives collected during the period
  August 1997 - March 1998

• Microsoft Windows (NT, 3.11, 95)
• Microsoft Outlook Express
• Netscape Mail 3.x and 4.x
• Netscape Messenger
• Qualcomm Eudora 3.0 and 4.0 beta
• Pegasus Mail
• The Bat!
• ESYS Simeon
• Alis Tango Mailer

• UNIX Terminal
• Elm
• MH
• Pine
• UNIX GUI (with X11R6)
• Netscape Mail
• EXMH
• Z-Mail

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Activity and Projects in i18n and Multilingual
Support

• i18n activity (ISO, IETF, ECMA, TERENA, Unicode
  Consortium)
• CEN/TC304 works on European character sets and
  keyboard
• MAITS project
• Internet Mail Consortium - Report on using
  International Characters in Internet Mail
• Terena Pilot Project on Testing Multilingual
  support in MUAs

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Internet Mail Consortium - i18n Report

• Summary of recommendations
• 1. Explicit charset parameter
• 2. Sending UTF-8
• 3. Displaying UTF-8
• 4. Choosing charsets on creation
• 5. Specifying languages
• 6. Multi-language text
• 7. Non-ASCII headers
• 8. Handling all common charset
• 9. MTAs and 8-bit content

Report strongly recommends that all mail-creating
and mail-displaying programs created or revised
after January 1, 1999, must be able to create and
display mail using UTF-8 and have ability to
handle all common charsets in addition to UTF-8
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Standard on i18n and Character Sets Technologies

• ISO standards
• ISO 2022 Character Set Concept and Terminology
• ISO 8859-x Character Sets
• ISO Standards on APIs i18n and FDCC
• Unicode standards
• RFC 2277 IETF Policy on Character Sets and
  Languages
• Recommendation of IAB Workshop on character sets
  technology (RFC 2130)
• MIME format of messages (Using MIME in Internet
  Mail) RFC 2045-RFC 2049
• RFC 822 - Syntax of electronic messages format
  according

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Standards in i18n and Multilingual Support in
Internet Mail

• RFC 2045 - RFC 2049, RFC 2231 - MIME
• Coded Character Set
• Character Encoding Scheme specified by the
  Charset parameter to the Content-Type header
  field
• Transfer Encoding Syntax like Base64, QP
  specified by the Content-Transfer-Encoding header
  field
• RFC 2277 - IETF Policy on Character Sets and
  Languages
• main definitions and requirement for language
  tagging
• RFC 2130 - Recommendation of IAB Workshop on
  character sets technology
• framework for interoperability between the many
  characters in use
• an architecture model for on-the-wire
  transmission of text
• recommendations for tagging transmitted (and
  stored) text

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RFC 2130 Architecture model

• User interface issues (OS, GUI, API)
• Layout
• Culture
• Locale
• Language
• On-the-wire
• The Coded Character
• The Character Encoding Scheme
• The Transfer Encoding Syntax

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The testing and the evaluation scheme
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Testing of Multilingual support in MUAs

• Includes the following phases
• Evaluation of Multilingual features/settings of
  MUAs
• Testing Message Reading procedure
• Testing Message Composing procedure
• Testing Message Sending and Receiving procedure

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Evaluation of Multilingual features/settings of
MUAs

• READ operation mode
• choose Language/Encoding
• choose Fonts (Optional for Address, Subject,
  Message Body, Quoted Text)
• Optional - Font mapping
• COMPOSE operation mode
• choose Language/Encoding Settings
• Optional - Possibility to switch
  Language/Encoding during composition/typing
• choose Fonts (Optional for Address, Subject,
  Message Body, Quoted Text)
• Optional - choose Spelling/Language/Dictionary
• SEND operation mode
• set MIME encoding (Quoted Printable, Base64)
• Optional - select/disable Uuencode mode (non
  standard)
• Allow/disallow 8-bit in Header Fields
• select/disable HTML in body parts

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Message Reading procedure

• Multilingual MUAs should support the following
  features
• Reading/Displaying non-ASCII characters in
  Message Body
• Reading/Displaying non-ASCII characters in
  Message Header (Address, Subject Lines)
• Reading Forwarded Message with non-ASCII
  characters in Address, Subject, Message Body,
  using the same or different MIME character set
  attributes
• Reading Attached non-ASCII Text File (Document)
• Possible problems are detected comparing the
  original and the delivered test messages
  appearance
• This includes the evaluation of the MUAs
  correct/incorrect processing of the MIME
  attributes of the test message.

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Message Composing procedure

• Message composition operations to be tested
• Typing message from keyboard
• Copy and Paste operations
• Text/File attachments
• Quoted text/message
• Edit different parts of message
• Charset/Encoding processing by Message
  Composer/Editor
• Real Message composition also includes operations
  like
• Typing non-ASCII text in Message Body and Message
  Header
• Pasting non-ASCII-Text into Body and Header
  fields
• Reply to message with non-ASCII Text
• Forward message with non-ASCII content
• Attach text documents containing non-ASCII
  characters

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Test messages set

• Each test is performed in at least 2 character
  sets, one of which is US ASCII (or ISO 8859-1),
  and the other with characters that are not part
  of US-ASCII or ISO 8859-1.
• Mandatory
• tmsg1 - Message with non-ASCII characters/text in
  the Subject line
• tmsg2 - Message with non-ASCII characters/text in
  Mail Address free-form name
• tmsg3 - Message with non-ASCII characters/text in
  the Message Body text (single part)
• tmsg4 - Message with non-ASCII characters/text in
  text/plain attachment
• Optionally
• tmsg6 - Message with UTF-7/UTF-8 Character set
  in Message Body and Header (optional)

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Testing program map
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Testing Methodology - The tests to be performed

• test-1 - Receive all 4 test messages tmsg1-tmsg4
  and display them correctly (Change
  Language/Alphabet/Encoding Options if needed)
• test-2 - Print all 4 messages tmsg1-tmsg4 to the
  standard printer
• test-3 - Reply to messages tmsg1 and tmsg2, and
  check that information is returned in the same
  character set as it arrived in
• test-4 - Reply to message tmsg3 using "reply
  including quote of body"
• test-5 - Reply to message tmsg3 using the
  environment's "cut and paste" function to insert
  the non-ASCII characters into the outgoing
  message
• test-6 - Forward all 4 messages to the originator
  address
• test-7 - Generate, as completely as possible, the
  same messages from the keyboard of the IUT
• test-8 - Check possible text distortion when
  exchanging by tmsg1-2-3 with non-ASCII Default
  Language/Alphabet/Encoding
• test-9 - Provide tests 1-5 for message tmsg6
  with UTF-7/UTF-8

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Testing Results Presentation
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ML MUAs Testing Results and Data Analysis

• Testing results are documented and presented at
• http//park.kiev.ua/multiling/ml-mua/prjdocs/mlmua
  -repv1.html
• Standards overview on Internationalisation and
  Multilinguality
• http//park.kiev.ua/multiling/ml-mua/mldoc-review.
  html
• Test messages constructor pilot version
• http//park.kiev.ua/multiling/ml-mua/testcon.html

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Evaluation of ML MUAs

• First group - includes MUAs that support multiple
  languages/alphabets by means of multiple charsets
  support and use internal language/charset
  transformation
• Microsoft Outlook Express
• Netscape Messenger 4.04 and previous product
  Netscape Mail 3
• exmh for X Windows
• Second group - provides ML support by selecting
  proper font for creating and displaying messages

• Eudora Pro 3.0
• Pegasus
• Forte Agent
• The Bat!
• Simeon

• UNIX Terminal Products
• pine
• elm

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First group - Full Multilingual Support
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• Microsoft Outlook Express
• has the best and richest multilingual support
• use effective internal conversion scheme that is
  good controlled by users via setup and
  Alphabet/Charset selection menu
• Netscape Messenger 4.04 and Netscape Mail 3.04
• provide rich multilingual support for many
  charsets/encodings
• but are very inflexible for Languages that have
  many charsets in use (F.E., Cyrillic Windows
  CP-1251 and KOI8-R/U for Russian/Ukrainian, or
  ISO 8859-2 and Windows CP-1250 for Central
  European Languages
• Netscape products for X Windows - the same
  features.
• exmh for X Windows
• provides good support for main groups of
  European languages using Latin 1, Latin 2
  Cyrillic charsets

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Second group Simplified Multilingual Support
òâåðäî

• Popular in Latin1 (ISO 8859-1) and English
  speaking community
• Languages and charsets/encodings support is
  provided by selecting proper font for creating
  and displaying messages.
• Eudora Pro 3.0
• Pegasus
• Forte Agent
• The Bat! provide simple conversion between
  Cyrillic encodings (ISO 8859-5, Windows CP-1251,
  KOI8-R)
• Simeon
• pine and elm for UNIX

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Common problems of multilingual support in MUAs
óê

• Conversion between different Encodings/Charsets
  for the same language
• Correct processing of MIME tags in message Header
  fields (Subject and Address lines) during
  displaying when charset name in header is
  different from Message Body
• The same problems occur when user tries to change
  Charset/Encoding when displaying or composing
  message, or use CopyPaste operations for
  different Charsets
• View message source code and/or message info
  (charset/encoding for the Header and Body,
  Multipart MIME structure, so on)
• Using common and correct terminology for
  language/charset settings in MUAs

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Projects Main Results
ôåðòü

• The international environment of the project
  allowed to discover the main problems in
  multilingual MUAs support
• Multilingual test messages set
• Evaluation scheme for the forthcoming ML MUAs
• Project activity was conducted in coordination
  with other multilingual related projects
• IMC MAIL-I18N report on Internationalization and
  Character Set technologies
• Mozilla i18n project (Netscape 5.0)
• PT members have contributed to the new Ukrainian
  Language enabled Mozilla
• proposed model of multilingual support in MUAs
  was discussed
• ESYS Simeon IMAP Mail multilingual features
  testing

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Follow-on Projects and activity
õåð

• Testing new products using proposed methodology
• New releases of OutLook Express 98, Netscape
  Messenger 4.5 and 5.0
• New products of 1999 that is expected will
  implement recommendations of IETF/IMC
• Another areas of further activity
• Establishing ML/i18n supporting Charsets
  repository for online support of Multilingual
  mail (mapping reference tables download,
  translation, configuration, etc.)
• Creating Web based ML test messages Constructor
  which pilot version is demonstrated at projects
  page
• http//park.kiev.ua/multiling/ml-mua/testcon.html

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Test Messages Constructor http//park.kiev.ua/mul
tiling/ml-mua/testcon.html
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Test Messages Constructor - Creating test message
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Project Team

• Yuri Demchenko, TERENA
• Konstantin Chuguev, Ural Technical University,
  Russia
• Janja Faganel, Jozef Stefan Institute, Slovenia
• Vadim Shevchenko, Kiev Polytechnic Institute
• Alexey Medvedev, Kiev Polytechnic Institute

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Acknowledgments
øòà

• Borka Jerman-Blazic, Jozef Stefan Institute,
  Slovenia
• Claudio Allocchio, Sincrotrone Trieste INFN
  Trieste, Italy
• Peter Heijmens Visser from TERENA for provided
  MUAs usage statistics
• Harald T. Alvestrand, Maxware Norway

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IMPORTANT NOTE
åð

• Multilingual page will be moved and supported at
  TERENA webserver http//www.terena.nl/multiling/

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Russian/Ukrainian LanguagesHistorical overview
ôèòà

• VI-XI cent. - Ancient Rus written language
• X-XIV cent. - Cyrillic written language
• Invented by Cyrill and Methody (Saloniki) in IX
  cent
• First introduced in Moravia with advent of
  Christianity
• Introduced in Kiev Rus with advent of
  Christianity in X cent.
• XIV-XVII - Forming Russian literature language
• With Forming Moscow State after Mongol higo
• XVII - Developing modern Russian literature
  language
• Lomonosov, Puskin

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Ukrainian Literature Language
èæèöà

• Common ancient roots with Russian and all Slavic
  languages
• Was influenced by centuries of conquerors
  languages
• features of analytical language (as English)
• 1818 - Published Gramatics of Ukrainian
  (malorussian) dialect
• introduced ukr. i, (for kg sounds),
  spelling of äç, äæ
• Forming modern Ukrainian literature language
  (Taras Shevchenko)
• 1921 - Published Main rules of Ukrainian
  orthography
• 1984 - introduction of new/lost ukr. letter

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