Comments on: Frank and the sons of Ishmael http://oreneta.com/kalebeul/2003/12/18/frank-and-the-sons-of-ishmael/ anythingarian bubbles and troubles from the land of the fretting nun Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:00:43 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Trevor http://oreneta.com/kalebeul/2003/12/18/frank-and-the-sons-of-ishmael/#comment-256 Trevor Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://oreneta.com/kalebeul/2003/12/18/frank-and-the-sons-of-ishmael/#comment-256 Thanks very much for that. I'm into the season of heavy drinking at the mo, so won't begin to digest until the weekend, but I'll get back to you on your query. Thanks very much for that. I’m into the season of heavy drinking at the mo, so won’t begin to digest until the weekend, but I’ll get back to you on your query.

]]> By: Aidan Kehoe http://oreneta.com/kalebeul/2003/12/18/frank-and-the-sons-of-ishmael/#comment-257 Aidan Kehoe Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://oreneta.com/kalebeul/2003/12/18/frank-and-the-sons-of-ishmael/#comment-257 Long term, the font family shouldn't have much bearing on anything, as browsers get intelligent enough about searching the available characters in each of them. Mozilla and MSIE, for example, do this pretty intelligently now. (Because what you're doing is working at the moment, I assume it's the long term you're worrying about.) Moving to UTF-8 is The Right Thing, because when you tell Windows machines to use ISO-8859-1 they actually use Code Page 1252, which is subtly incompatible with ISO-8859-1. (Cf; you can input the Euro sign, which isn't in ISO-8859-1. Ditto directed quotation marks, em-dashes, en-dashes et al--in short, it's a much better character set for the Roman script languages. Except that, in practical terms, it's not, because when you do translate from it to Unicode, most programs are buggy and don't check whether any of the input is in those 32 characters marked "control" in ISO-8859-1 and actually used in Windows-1252. Bad programmers.) Your issue seems to be the program you're using to input stuff. If it's Internet Explorer, _perhaps_ checking the "Always send URLs as UTF-8 (requires restart)" preference will work--that is, you'll be able to input e-acute, Euro sign etc. normally and they'll get to the server encoded as %A9%C3, %82%E2%0A%AC etc. as is correct for UTF-8. If you're using the HTML escape codes at http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-unicode.htm, be aware that you're using something separate from UTF-8. Browsers, notably Netscape 4, supported the HTML escape codes before they properly supported UTF-8, but today which to use is much of a muchness. Give me a shout if the "Always send URLs as UTF-8" thing works; I use Windows machines rarely enough that it'll be a while before I get to check. Long term, the font family shouldn’t have much bearing on anything, as browsers get intelligent enough about searching the available characters in each of them. Mozilla and MSIE, for example, do this pretty intelligently now. (Because what you’re doing is working at the moment, I assume it’s the long term you’re worrying about.)

Moving to UTF-8 is The Right Thing, because when you tell Windows machines to use ISO-8859-1 they actually use Code Page 1252, which is subtly incompatible with ISO-8859-1. (Cf; you can input the Euro sign, which isn’t in ISO-8859-1. Ditto directed quotation marks, em-dashes, en-dashes et al–in short, it’s a much better character set for the Roman script languages. Except that, in practical terms, it’s not, because when you do translate from it to Unicode, most programs are buggy and don’t check whether any of the input is in those 32 characters marked “control” in ISO-8859-1 and actually used in Windows-1252. Bad programmers.)

Your issue seems to be the program you’re using to input stuff. If it’s Internet Explorer, _perhaps_ checking the “Always send URLs as UTF-8 (requires restart)” preference will work–that is, you’ll be able to input e-acute, Euro sign etc. normally and they’ll get to the server encoded as %A9%C3, %82%E2%0A%AC etc. as is correct for UTF-8. If you’re using the HTML escape codes at http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-unicode.htm, be aware that you’re using something separate from UTF-8. Browsers, notably Netscape 4, supported the HTML escape codes before they properly supported UTF-8, but today which to use is much of a muchness.

Give me a shout if the “Always send URLs as UTF-8″ thing works; I use Windows machines rarely enough that it’ll be a while before I get to check.

]]> By: James Fennell http://oreneta.com/kalebeul/2003/12/18/frank-and-the-sons-of-ishmael/#comment-258 James Fennell Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://oreneta.com/kalebeul/2003/12/18/frank-and-the-sons-of-ishmael/#comment-258 Read Robert Bartlett, The Making of Modern Europe: Conquest Colonisation and Cultural Change 950-1350 to understand the adoption of the term Frank first, as you say, by those attacked by the west, but eventually by the 'westerners' themselves (through the medium of the crusades). Incidentially the latin francum = freedom (the western notion of freedom to share one law, one religoin and title to ones land). So western notions of freedom are perhaps more about being free to be a westerner, than universal freedom. Read Robert Bartlett, The Making of Modern Europe: Conquest Colonisation and Cultural Change 950-1350 to understand the adoption of the term Frank first, as you say, by those attacked by the west, but eventually by the ‘westerners’ themselves (through the medium of the crusades). Incidentially the latin francum = freedom (the western notion of freedom to share one law, one religoin and title to ones land). So western notions of freedom are perhaps more about being free to be a westerner, than universal freedom.

]]>