by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2005/10/03 03:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2005/10/03/476317.aspx
Jonathan Wilson asked via the suggestion box:
What features are in the ELKs and ELK building kit?
You have mentioned on this blog a few times how more languages are being added to windows via the ELKs and how an ELK kit is being worked on to enable people to build their own ELKs.
Can you post some more about what goes into an ELK, what the "ELK kit" will contain/will do and what makes releasing said "ELK kit" now so hard? (I am guessing that various parts of ELKs currently require changes to windows system libraries that only microsoft can make)
If you look at what goes into a new locale, you may find that you can build such a list yourself:
Of course, fonts have been something that can be created for quite some time (though looking to Vista there are fewer times that you may actually need a font!). If you do then you can look to the Microsoft Typography web site, for both information and tools for creating fonts and links to foundries....
Keyboards have also been available for the masses for a few years now with the shipping of MSKLC. :-)
The locale data is the one piece that has always required the updating of system files, but as of Whidbey the feature of custom cultures is available, and as of Vista they can act as custom locales. So no system file update is needed to get a new locale that you create yourself on a machine or lots of machines. Now obviously this is an answer for developers who write code, so to be a complete answer there is going to have to be some effort to making it more generally accessible as a feature. I can't talk too much about those efforts yet, but the people who are interested may want to send some contact info to me via that Contacting Michael... link, and I will forward it on to the appropriate people.
In looking back at Jonathan's question, I honestly don't remember such a thing as an "ELK kit" specifically. But if you imagine some effort to try to bundle the information about these many different technologies, it may qualify. I am not sure whether that would in fact make sense or not, but it is the sort of thing that a lot of people are thinking about right now.
This is definitely an issue you will be hearing more about, in any case....
# Jonathan Wilson on 3 Oct 2005 9:32 AM:
# Michael S. Kaplan on 3 Oct 2005 9:40 AM: