Macintosh system software likewise provides your application with the capability of simultaneously supporting multiple writing systems. Even if you do not plan to localize your application, it should still support multiple writing systems. Users in your own target region may have capability for more than one writing system on their computers, and may want your application to support that capability. In this book, a writing system denotes a method used to depict words visually. It consists of a character set and a set of rules for displaying, ordering, and formatting those characters.
Writing systems have specific requirements for text display, text editing, character set, and fonts.
A writing system, of which one example is Roman, can serve more than one language, of which two examples are French and Spanish. A single language such as French can have regional variations with slightly different requirements, such as Swiss French and Canadian French. A script's keyboard resources define the character codes and keyboard layout for the writing system, and its international resources provide a host of formatting and ordering rules for the writing system. A script system requires one or more fonts designed specifically for the writing system. The script system is accessed through the Script Manager, the Text Utilities, the script extensions WorldScript I and WorldScript II, and the other text-related software managers described in this book.