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Pim_12 Hi,
You have to know that on Mac OS X, user-installed fonts should _never_ be put in the directory ("folder") called "System"! On "Classic" MacOS we used to drag font files over the System Folder and then fonts would be installed automatically.
On Mac OS X, users should *never* touch the directory /System ! This can be positively harmful.
Installing fonts on Mac OS X is just as easy as it used to be, fortunately. The following information is suitable and safe for all Mac OS X users (gurus know this stuff already and know when the rules given below may be broken--I am not a guru, BTW!).
On Mac OS X, as a rule, fonts may be installed in either of two locations (NOT in more than one!):
1) ~/Library/Fonts
2) /Library/Fonts
The ~ notation means your own User directory, so 1) could also be expressed as:
1) /Users/
/Library/Fonts
in which represents your login name.
The first "/" in 2) stands for the root level.
(Explanation of these two options:
1) installs the font for the current user only, while 2) makes the font available to all users local on that particular computer.)
If all this seems daunting to you, please consult the Help function. My system is not currently set to English, but searching for "installing fonts" should provide you with all the information you need.
A Restart (or Logout-and-Login) is not necessary for you to use the font, but all applications that were active _before and while_ you installed the font need to be restarted.
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Now, about using the font once it is installed.
You need to get acquainted with the way Mellel handles a "Main font" and "Secondary Font". Read the Mellel Guide (a separate download on www.redlers.com): there is a section on using Hebrew. A short introduction to using Hebrew in Mellel may also be found here:
http://www.redlers.com/download/tips/WritingInHebrew.pdf.zip
In order to _input_ Hebrew at all, you need to activate one of the Hebrew Input Methods (formerly called "keyboards") in System Preferences: International: the Input Method tab. Currently, Apple gives you two useful choices "out of the box": "Hebrew" and "Hebrew-QWERTY"; the former follows the Israeli physical keyboard layout, the latter many "western" keyboards including the US version. Both will let you input consonants, dagesh, niqud, modern numerals and punctuation directly. Not "accents" ("teamim"), but this limitation of these two IMs will not bother many users.
But if you _need_ the "accents", how do you input them? Until some generous Mac OS X soul makes a dedicated "Hebrew-SBL" IM (Input Method), you need to get some more information about the Unicode values of the characters you seek. And you still need to adhere to the rules outlined in the table "Recommended mark ordering" (and notes) in the SBL Hebrew font documentation "SBLHebrew-Manual.pdf"!
Fortunately, any Mac OS X user from OS X v10.1.x may input a Unicode hexadecimal value to access any Unicode code point directly (OK, gurus, at least the BMP code points!) using the Unicode Hex Input Method. You can activate this IM in the same way as the Hebrew IMs--se above.
In order to know which hexadecimal value you have to use to access a particular character, you have to know the Unicode "code point" (expressed as a hex value). You can find all Unicode hexadecimal values in the keyboard charts found in the SBL "BiblicalHebrew(SIL)Manual.pdf" and "BiblicalHebrew(Tiro)Manual.pdf" files, as sets of four digits and/or letters found in grey at the bottom of the keys displaying the characters involved. PLEASE NOTE that both the "SIL" and the "Tiro" Manuals refer to the Windows keyboards, and that as a Mac user you are only concerned with the _hexadecimal values_ included in these docs!
An alternative is to consult the Hebrew Unicode code chart at:
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0590.pdf
for specifically-Hebrew Unicode values.
HTH,
With kind regards,
Pim
P.S.:
John, if the above information is deemed by you and the SBL to be suitable to include in future releases of the SBL Hebrew distribution, please use it! I cannot now write a more formal manual for Mac users: so please extend my apologies to them for the patchy info, and tell them that the information is valid for all Macs as sold from 2004 (but probably 2003 as well), with the usual caveats: AFAIK and YMMV, and from Mellel v.1.8.1 and up.
P.
