Re: Charset type (Test messages)

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Andrew Cunningham <andj_c@...> wrote:

>
> --- Richard Wordingham
> <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Nicholas Bodley"
> > <nbodley@...> wrote:
> > > On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 11:02:56 -0500, Richard
> > Wordingham
> > > <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I've been doing some experiments (results at
> > > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JRW_test/messages
> > ). The conclusion
> > is
> > > > that for general character sets, the only
> > general purpose workable
> > way
> > > > from a browser window is for both sender and
> > receiver to manually
> > select
> > > > UTF-7. Unfortunately, this is not available
> > from Internet
> > Explorer 6.0,
> > > > at least not on Windows XP. (It is from
> > Firefox, but not everyone
> > may
> > > > use the browser they prefer.)
>
> My first and main point, is that UTF-8 is just as
> suitable as UTF-7.

*NO*.

UTF-7 works fine for a Firefox browser sender, and probabably most
e-mail senders, and a Firefox browser reader, but is a total disaster
for an IE 6.0 browser reader. He has no option to switch to it as an
encoding. Or am I missing a trick with 'user-defined' encoding?

UTF-8 fails for a browser sender; it seems to work for an e-mail
sender. I have not heard of it failing for a browser reader, but he
does have to select the encoding.

The only workable solution seems to be post by e-mail, which is not an
option I like. I much prefer working from the browser. Working from
the browser also gives me more confidence that threads will be
properly linked, which is particularly relevant when a topic fragments.

I would like to be wrong, so if there is a way to post mixed script
messages from a browser, please tell me what it is.

> > Thus UTF-8 collides with C1 control codes.
> > > 2. Probably identical with 1.; I didn't check
> > carefully, char. by char.
>
> collides with C1 control characters? the codepoints
> corresponding to c1 in Unicode like the ISO-8859
> series are empty.

It collides if you send UTF-8 down a channel expecting ISO-8859 bytes.
I believe UTF-7 is designed to pass down such channels.

> If you look at the source of the first test message
> (Test Posting of Latin-A Via Firefox 1.0 ) you'll find
> the following lines in the mail header:
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

>...

> So in essence, you're utf-8 test was flawed. You'll
> need to redo it, sending the email as actual utf-8
> email message.

How do I hack into the Yahoo system to change the way they convert
postings in the web page to e-mails? Isn't that illegal?

I was not testing posting by e-mail; I was testing posting via the web
page. I submitted the post via Firefox (the browser), not Thunderbird
(the related e-mail program). The conclusion is that globally if will
fail for about 17% of characters, though for some scripts only 6% are
affected.

Richard.