[mkgmap-dev] unicode

Wed Feb 27 22:35:49 GMT 2013

On 13-02-27 12:14:31 CET, Steve Ratcliffe wrote:
> Hi
> 
> > While reading the code, I stumbled upon code such as
> >    if ("unicode".equals(charset))
> > in src/uk/me/parabola/imgfmt/app/labelenc/CodeFunctions.java.
> 
> That was all just experimenting, right at the beginning before we had 
> any proper i18n support at all.

So, no unicode map support so far?

> > I guess what I actually want to ask: since we’ve seen that newer
> > devices have a rich character repertoire containing latin based, greek,
> > cyrillic and arabic, I wonder whether it is only possible to access them
> > via code pages, limiting us to a subset every time.
> > Do you know whether there’s unicode support in recent devices?
> 
> A google search confirms that they can eg: 
> https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?19806-Is-Mapsource-compatible-with-unicode-maps

How embarrassing, I should have done that myself before.
On the other hand, I Googled for the Garmin character repertoires before
starting to test and ask and came up empty handed, so I have a lame
excuse. ;-)

The term “Unicode maps” is also to be found in some Garmin Mapinstall
release notes (addition of support for it).

GPSMapEdit release notes also mention unicode, but unfortunately: “Note:
UTF-8 is not supported by cgpsmapper and Garmin IMG format”

What I haven’t been able to find out after over an hour of searching:
Is it publicly known how such “unicode maps” are encoded, or is this a
mystery hidden in encrypted maps?

rj