[PyQt] Display of Japanese Characters on Mac

[Ullrich Martini]

Hello,

I cannot enter or view japanese characters on a Mac Running Snow Leopard with PyQt 4.8.1.

Steps to reproduce the problem:
0) I Installed python 2.7 from python.org and other prerequisites, like sip
1) Download PyQt 4.8.1
2) Run python configure.py install
3) Switch the Mac to hiragana input using the MacOS system widget
4) cd to PyQt-mac-gpl-4.8.1/examples/widgets
5) Run python lineedits.py
6) Try to write japanese text. 

Vowels do not appear at all. Consonants appear initially underlined, but disappear again when the following vowel is entered and the japanese input system tries to display the resulting japanese syllable.

The context is that I am trying to port a vocabulary trainer based on python and PyQt to the Mac. This program allows to enter words in non-latin fonts, like japanese. This doesn't work. The symptomes are exactly the same as with lineedit.py.

I assume this is a display issue, because japanese cards that have been entered before (using an earlier version of the program) are not displayed also, but if I look at the database directly the japanese words are displayed correctly.

I described the issue with japanese hiragana. Displaying japanese kanjii does not work either, but the steps neccessary for reproducing this variant of the issue are much more complicated because entering kanjii characters directly is next to impossible because of the hiragana issue.

Is this a known limitation? What would I have to do to allow japanese (and non-latin in general, I assume) input and display?

thanks in advance,
Ullrich