WCE7 : Add chinese characters support

This article explains how chinese characters can be added to WinCE7 OSDesign. Without this feature, the views would display empty square shapes instead of chinese text, meaning that the decoding of input strings failed.

Project properties

Right-click on your OSDesign project and select Locale in the left panel.

On the right side, fill all parameters with languages that you want to include in the image and save.

The NLS Table

The NLS table is a list of locale identifiers that is necessary to .NET Compact framework. The local identifiers of the languages that you want to include in your image must be listed in this table.

To do this, copy the file named nlscfg.inf from %_WINCEROOT%\public\COMMON\oak\files and paste it to %_WINCEROOT%\PLATFORM\<yourBSP>\FILES. Edit this file and overwrite its content with the following:

007f 0403 0406 0407 0807 0c07 1007 1407 0409 0809 0c09 1009 1409 1809 1c09 2009
082C 042C 0423 0402 0845 0445 0405 0465 0408 540A 0425 0429 0464 0447 040D 0439
101A 041A 040E 042B 0411 0437 043F 044B 0412 0457 0440 0427 0426 042F 0450 044E 
0446 0415 0418 0419 044F 041B 0424 041C 1C1A 0C1A 281A 181A 081A 045A 0449 044A 
041E 041F 0444 0422 0420 0843 0443 042A 0804 0C04 1404 1004 0404 2409 2809 2c09 
3009 3409 040a 080a 0c0a 100a 140a 180a 1c0a 200a 240a 280a 2c0a 300a 340a 380a 
3c0a 400a 440a 480a 4c0a 500a 040b 040c 080c 0c0c 100c 140c 180c 040f 0410 0810 
0413 0813 0414 0814 0416 0816 041d 081d 0421 042d 0436 0438 043e 083e 0441 0456
045e 3801 3C01 1401 0C01 0801 2C01 3401 3001 1001 1801 2001 4001 0401 2801 1C01
2401
LOC_INCLUDELOCALES

This table lists all identifiers supported by WCE7. As Erwin pointed out in his blog, some locale identifiers are not supported and will generate exceptions if used in your application.

Pick the right items from Catalog

Look for the following sysgen variables and ensure that they are checked :

SYSGEN_DOTNETV35_SR_CHS
SYSGEN_DOTNETV35_SR_CHT
SYSGEN_UNISCRIBE
SYSGEN_ FONTS_MSYH
SYSGEN_ FONTS_MSYHBD
SYSGEN_ FONTS_MSJH
SYSGEN_ FONTS_MSJHBD
SYSGEN_NLS_ZH
SYSGEN_NLS_ZH_* (all chinese locales)

Now, ensure that the following variables are NOT checked:

SYSGEN_GB18030
SYSGEN_AGFA_FONT

Finally rebuild the entire image. You should see a big difference in the image size (mine went from 37M to 111M).

Cem SOYDING

Author & Editor

Senior software engineer with 12 years of experience in both embedded systems and C# .NET