Chatting in pIqaD

You will need three programs to be able to chat on IRC using pIqaD. The first two will work in all versions of Windows, but the last one will only work under Windows 2000/XP/2003

If you want pIqaD on Windows Vista/Windows 7 head over to qurgh's blog post to download a simple installer.

1) ChatZilla, included with MoZilla at http://www.mozilla.org/
2a) Code2000 font from http://code2000.net/CODE2000.ZIP
2b) or a unicode pIqaD font from http://mughom.wizage.net/pIqaD.zip
3) pIqaD Keyboard layout from http://qurgh.wizage.net/tlhIngan.zip

NOTE: This process also allows you to write pIqaD in any windows application that supports Unicode (Notepad, Word, Windows Explorer, etc)

Installation Instructions

First, download and install the latest build of MoZilla. This will also install ChatZilla, which we will use to actually chat. If you have a version older than 1.6 on your computer I suggest upgrading to at least 1.6. I can't guarentee this will work on older versions. In ChatZilla you may need to go to Edit|Preferences and change the Encoding to UTF-8.

Once you have done that, download either the Code2000 font or the Unicode pIqaD font. (Code2000 is shareware. It's 5 bucks and it has every font you'll ever need in it.) Once you have downloaded the zip file uncompress it using either the built in zip compression tools or with something like Winzip. The font can be installed by either copying the .ttf file to windows/fonts or by clicking on Start|Settings|Control Panel|Fonts|File|Install New Font and then browse to the directory you uncompressed the zip file to. This will install the font. You also need to turn on font smoothing. In windows 2000 this is under display settings, under effects. If someone knows how to do it under Windows XP, please add it.

You can now see pIqaD fonts as used on this page or at Qo'noS QonoS. Unfortunately the Qo'noS QonoS page is hard coded to use the Code2000 font, hopefully this will change. If you can't, something is not working right, try contacting qurgh at his blog

If you want to be able to write pIqaD you need one more file. The keyboard mapping. This mapping will only work on Windows 2000/XP and uses the normal input local system that Windows has built in. Download and install the pIqaDKLI.msi file listed above. This will install the keyboard layout.

To use the keyboard layout do the following, based on your OS:

Windows 2000: Start|Settings|Control Panel|Keyboard|Input Locales
Windows XP: Start|Control Panel|Regional and Language Options|Languages|Details

The following is the process under Windows2000, but XP is very similar as well.

Click add and a window will appear. Under Input Locale pick a random location, anything not English. Under Keyboard Layout choose tlhIngan Hol pIqaD layout with Code2000 Font. Click Ok. Make sure that enable indicator on taskbar is checked and then click apply. In your taskbar you should see a little EN in a blue box appear. Press Left Alt + Shift and it should change to the local you picked when you added a new one. This is the locale used to input pIqaD.

Now to chat in pIqaD start MoZilla and click on Window|IRC Chat. The IRC Client will start. In the text box at the bottom type /server irc.kdfs.net and once the click has connected to the network type /j #kdf. You'll join a channel with a bunch of people in it. Look for me, qurgh, and we can chat using pIqaD.

You should also be able to use pIqaD in a mail program that supports HTML mail, such as Outlook and MoZilla Mail.

If you have any problems installing pIqaD please fell free to email me at qurgh at wizage dot net or go onto IRC and look me up. I'm willing to help everyone.

Here are two graphics for the keyboard layouts:

Regular

Shifted