Subj : Re: Need volonteers to test another patch
To   : Nicholas Boel
From : Vitaliy Aksyonov
Date : Tue Feb 27 2024 11:53 pm

Hello Nicholas.

27 Feb 24 17:23, you wrote to me:

 NB> On Tue, 27 Feb 2024 12:59:54 -0700, Vitaliy Aksyonov -> Nicholas Boel
 NB> wrote:

 NB>>> This is why I wonder if he has a cp437 terminal setup, and this
 NB>>> is why these messages look fine to him. Whereas, I'm using a
 NB>>> utf-8 terminal so I have to translate everything to look ok.

 VA>> Yes. You need to use translation in this case. The problem is
 VA>> that GoldEd may translate from one byte charset to UTF-8, but not
 VA>> in reverse direction yet. That mean that you'll be able to read
 VA>> messages, but not write them. Actually, you'll be able to write
 VA>> them if no symbols with codes > 127 are used. But CHRS kludge in
 VA>> message will look like UTF-8 2.

 NB> Yes, I've known this for quite some time. And my current issue has to
 NB> do with reading messages (the one we've been using as an example)
 NB> specifically translated from cp437 to utf-8.

 NB> Otherwise, if I absolutely have to reply to a message containing cp437
 NB> characters, I just don't quote those - as I know they won't be
 NB> translated properly.

I played with your configuration and have a good and bad news for you.

Good:
- I reproduced your issue.
- GoldEd correctly converts pseudo-graphics from cp437 to utf-8.

Bad:
- GoldEd does not support unicode. Even if you compile it with ncursesw, it still uses non unicode versions of functions to print text. That's why you see those escape sequences instead of pseudo-graphics symbols.

I still suggest you to use one-byte locale for GoldEd. And remember, you don't need to switch whole system to that locale, because in Linux locale is a property of a process. So you may have UTF-8 everywhere and cp437 for GoldEd. Most of terminals (including Putty) support different charsets.

Another option - is to use external editor, but that won't help you with message reader.

Vitaliy

--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20240223
 * Origin: Aurora, Colorado (1:104/117)

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