Opencow: Open Layer for Unicode

Introduction

Opencow is an open-source friendly replacement library for the Microsoft Layer for Unicode. This library allows a Unicode Windows application to run on all versions of Windows including 95, 98 and ME.

Download

The latest version of opencow is version 0.6. It can be downloaded from the sourceforge release site.

Licence

Opencow is tri-licenced with MPL 1.1/GPL 2.0/LGPL 2.1 in the same manner as the Mozilla project is. See the file LICENCE.txt for the text of the licence. The short version of this means that Opencow may be used in both open-source and closed-source commercial projects. Modifications to the code do not need to be made public, although it would be highly appreciated if any bug fixes or alternative implementations were passed on for integration with the main opencow release.

Implementation

Opencow does not currently support the complete API that MSLU supports. See the MSDN documentation for details of which API calls are supported by MSLU. See the file src/opencow.def for the list of which API calls are currently supported by Opencow. The intention is to eventually support the same API set that MSLU supports so that opencow.dll is a complete MSLU replacement.

Usage

Modify your application to build in Unicode mode Modify your application to build in Unicode mode
VC6: remove the definition of _MBCS, and define _UNICODE and UNICODE
VC7+: change the 'Character Set' to 'Use Unicode Character Set' in the 'General' project properties
Download the binary release of opencow.dll
Download the latest release of libunicows, see links (a).
Build your project, ensuring that the first library on the link line is libunicows. See the documentation of libunicows for details.
Distribute your application with opencow.dll in the same directory as the application.

Building

If compiling with Visual Studio 6 you will need to install the Microsoft Platform SDK. See links (c). Visual Studio .NET doesn't require the Platform SDK to compile the project.
Open opencow.dsw and build all projects.

Debugging

It is possible to have message boxes displayed by opencow for debugging purposes in both debug and release builds. The message boxes are enabled by setting an environment variable "OPENCOW_DEBUG" to one of the following values:

"0" Disable all debug message boxes. (release build default)
"1" Display a message box only on DLL load and unload.
"2" Display a message box for DLL load, unload, and for every call to GetProcAddress for a function which should be implemented by opencow. (debug build default)

It is possible to disable the debug message boxes in a running application by choosing the 'Cancel' button when a message box is displayed.

Notes:

There is a feature(?) in VS.NET 2003 which prevents libunicows from overriding the unicode API when linking with debug information. You must build using VC6, or use the release version of the application in order to test libunicow/opencow.

Technical Description

The Microsoft Layer for Unicode (MSLU or Unicows) is a DLL (unicows.dll) and import library (unicows.lib) distributed by Microsoft which allows a single 32-bit unicode application to run on versions of Microsoft Windows which do not natively support unicode applications (95, 98 and ME). The Microsft library is unsurprisingly distributed under a licence which is not compatible with open source software (b).

The support for Unicode on Windows 95/98/ME is provided by implementing the Unicode Win32 API in the DLL. This DLL is not used by Windows platforms which natively support unicode, but only by Windows 95/98/ME. Internally the unicode Win32 API translates strings between the unicode encoding used for input and output parameters and the multi-byte codepage strings supported by the OS, calling the ANSI Win32 API with the translated strings.

This project, the Open Layer for Unicode (opencow) is designed to be a drop-in replacement for the MSLU, providing the exact same functionality with an open source compatible licence. The final deliverable of this project is a single compiled DLL (opencow.dll) which implements the same external interface as the Microsoft DLL. This DLL is used by software projects along with libunicows (A).

This project came about due to the Mozilla project's need to have an open-source compatible library for MSLU and is expected to be used to provide Win32 unicode functionality for Mozilla (b).

Links

(a) libunicows

(b) Mozilla bug 239279, Need Mozilla binary that supports Windows unicode API

Contact

You may contact the author, Brodie Thiesfield, at brofield <at> jellycan <dot> com