Maltese IRC

• garam_se.zip
• script.txt
• aliases.txt

1. Downlaod all three files, above
2. Unzip garam_se.zip and install the font (open Font control panel and drag garam_se.ttf into it)
3. go in MIRC, and set the channel font for #filfla to Garamond-SudEuro.
4. Go to Tools->Remote in mIRC and add the line from script.txt:

   on ^1:TEXT:**:#filfla:/echo $chan < $nick > $replacecs($1-,c,å,C,Å,g,õ,G,Õ,h,±,H,¡,z,¿,Z,¯) | halt

5. Go to tools->Aliases in mIRC and add the line fro aliases.txt:

   /mt /msg #filfla $replacecs($1-,,,å,c,Å,C,õ,g,Õ,G,±,h,¡,H,¿,z,¯,Z) | /echo #filfla >> $replacecs($1-,c,å,C,Å,g,õ,G,Õ,h,±,H,¡,z,¿,Z,¯)

6. That's it!! To type in Maltese: use the form /mt .. so instead of just typing 'hello', type '/mt hello'.
   To get the Maltese letters: Control-B + H = maltese H, same for z,c,g,h. Sorry, bolds won't work properly. Try control-B plus a space before you start in with the Maltese letters.
   Also, use /mt before any maltese text that you copy and paste! Try saying in channel: gremxula, x'hin sar? ....
   For example, to write 'hobz biz-zejt' you would type it this way (see below) except that each B is where you type control B.

   /mt GBhandi BhobBz biBz-Bzejt.

What's going on here?

IRC is actually how I found out about Malta and (the) Maltese in the first place, in 1996! But that's another story.. However, one of the things that I found out was that now, it's hard for me to remember if something is an H with or without the bar (H or Akka). It becomes more and more frustrating to not be able to type and read proper Maltese on IRC! But -whatever method is used to represent 'H' (with a bar), won't that make the letter unreadable to people who don't have the software/fonts installed? if so, I might as well be trying to start a new IRC network! Problem...

What we are doing here, is to use a special sequence, that of having two 'bold' characters next to each other (control-B). The two in sequence cancel each other out, producing no visible effect. So what I do is look for two bolds followed by one of c,g,h,z.. and then replace them with the character in the font (in this case, an ISO-8859-3 font) when they are drawn. When you paste in text that was copied, a similar conversion converts back from iso-8859-3 to escaped format. As well, it would be annoying to type two control-b's, so a converter converts one control b into two for outgoing text sent with /mt.