Getting started: Browsing Unicode

When you start Unicode Viewer for the first time you will see a window with these components:

The application does not display any content by default and this guide will help you to load a Unicode Table and a Block table.

Required Files

At first we need a Unicode table in the form of a plain text file. There should be one delivered to you with this application called "allkeys.txt". If that is not the case download it here: http://www.unicode.org/Public/UCA/latest/allkeys.txt .
 
The file contains the definitions of the Unicode letters. Every letter is defined by a code, a weight and a comment.
E.g.: "0000 ; [.0000.0000.0000.0000] # [0000] NULL (in 6429)"
In this case 0000 is the code, the part in the square brackets the weight and everything following the # is the comment.
 
The letters are usually divided into blocks of languages. The blocks are not defined in the "allkeys" tables, but in a separate file usually called "Blocks.txt". Again this file should be included in the package of this application, but can be downloaded from the Unicode page: http://www.unicode.org/Public/5.2.0/ucd/Blocks.txt
Please store it for now in the same directory as the "allkeys.txt".
 
The Blocks.txt contains block definitions. They consist of block names and the boundaries of the blocks.
E.g.: "0000..007F; Basic Latin"
This line defines the block "Basic Latin" to include all letters with a code that is greater or equal 0000 and smaller or equal 007F.

Loading Unicode Tables

Once we have the two files "allkeys.txt" and "Blocks.txt" we can go ahead and load them into the application. The Load Unicode Table function is available in the "File" menu and in the Toolbar (). Click on the icon in the toolbar and choose the "allkeys.txt" file in the appearing file dialog. When this function is used, the application checks if the directory of the "allkeys.txt" contains a "Blocks.txt" and loads this, too.
When the load operations finished, the Blocklist should be populated with blocks and the Tableview should display all letters from the "allkeys.txt" file.

Loading Block Tables

You may want to load only a block table, e.g. when it is not in the same directory as the "allkeys.txt", or to replace the current blocks. Use the Load Block Table function for this. It will clear the currently loaded blocks and load the blocks from the file you choose. It is available in the File menu and in the toolbar ().

Browsing through the Tables

We can now browse the loaded tables.

Selecting Blocks

In the Blocklist you can select single or multiple blocks. The letters of the selected blocks will be displayed in the Tableview. To select a block just left click on it. To select additional blocks, hold Ctrl and click the blocks you want to add to your selection. To select a range of blocks, you can select one block, hold down Shift and then select another block. Notice that a tooltip for a block occures, when you position your mousecursor over the name of a block, displaying the range of codepoints of the block. You can change the order of the blocks in the Blocklist over the menu:
"View →SortBlocks".

Getting Details about Letters

The letters in the Tableview can be selected, too. When you select a single letter, the Detailsbar below the Tableview will display the line of the Unicode table, that defines the letter. You can check the checkbox "UTF-8" to get another Detailsbar with the code of the letter in UTF-8. When you select multiple letters in the Tableview ( using Shift and Ctrl like in the Blocklist ), the Detailbars will display the range of codepoints of the selected letters.
Another way to get some information about a letter, is to hold down the right mousebutton when the cursor is over a letter. A small information window will show up, containing a bigger version of the letter, the version of the table, and the block the letter belongs to.

Changing the Appearance of the Tableview

The toolbar provides some options for changing the appearance of the Tableview.
 
You can change the font, the fontsize and if the font letters are displayed italic or bold:

 
It is also possible to change just the size of the cells in the Tableview:

The left icon enlarges the cells, the right one makes them smaller again.
 
In the top right corner of the table you find three input elements for sorting the table according to one of the three attributes of each glyph:

With the drop down combo box you can select the attribute that is used for sorting. The little button with the arrow defines the sort order (ascending or descending). The button "sort" triggers the actual sorting of the current table. If you change the contents of the table, e.g. by selecting another block, the new table is not sorted automatically. You can use this behavior, to restore the original sorting order.

Different Backgroundcolors

If one of the follow conditions is given, the background color of a letter is changed.
   The collation of the letter is missing.
   No comment is set for the letter.
   The letter has more than one codepoints.