*use-unicode-winapi-for-cg*

This variable has an effect only on the Windows platform.

When the value of this variable is true, any Common Graphics window or widget that is created will be created using the Unicode (16-bit character) version of the Windows API rather than the ANSI (8-bit character) version, and the Unicode version will be used for those windows and widgets thereafter. Otherwise the ANSI version is used.

The initial value of this variable is true, meaning that all Common Graphics applications and the IDE will use the Unicode version of the Windows API at all times. Prior to release 9.0, Common Graphics and the IDE always used the ANSI version. That had been done in order to support the Windows 95 line, which required it, whereas we no longer support the Windows 95 line.

The Unicode version of the Windows API is needed for proper internationalization support, including the ability to use a variety of international character sets in the same application, and the ability to use Asian and other multibyte character sets without booting Windows with a particular default locale to support a particular character set.

We expect that there will be no reason for anyone to set this variable to nil, but the capability is provided in case an application needs to revert to ANSI mode for backward compatibility reasons. The variable is in the excl package so that its value could be set to nil in a clinit.cl file so that it's value is initialized before the IDE starts up, in case there is any need to run the IDE using the ANSI version as in earlier releases.

An alternative to this variable is to pass a use-unicode-winapi initarg to make-window, or to make-instance when creating a widget, to make a particular window or widget use a different mode than Common Graphics is generally using. (It is not known whether that actually works in all cases.)

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This page was not revised from the 10.0 page.
Created 2019.8.20.