Text Encoding

I'm just curious–is there any reason in particular that the text encoding for these forums is set to ISO-8859-1? This strikes me as pretty odd for a community that focuses on the localization of Japanese games, since ISO-8859-1 is limited to single-byte characters. Some web browsers (i.e. Firefox) generate HTML escape sequences for multi-byte characters when posting, but neither of the two browsers on the Mac that I prefer do this; they just convert the characters to question marks since they're not in the encoding that the form says it expects.

It's just annoying to have to launch Firefox and log in with it whenever I want to make a post that includes Japanese characters. It seems like it would make a lot more sense for these forums to be UTF-8 like the rest of the site, so I'm just wondering why it's not.

[Haeleth]

Good question. The only reasons I can think of are (a) that's the default for phpBB, and (b) I use Firefox so I've never realised there's a problem.

I'll have a look at changing it. Shouldn't be difficult, I wouldn't have thought...

[GreatSaintLouis]

I've honestly never had a problem, and I'm (stubbornly) running Internet Explorer 6 SP2. If you're using IE, there's an option to set your browser encoding to Auto-Select; that is, it just works with whatever the page is supposed to be displayed in, provided you have the proper encoding languages installed.

Of course, I also have my default codepage set to Japanese and just use Microsoft's IME to toggle back and forth between Japanese and English input, so that might be part of the reason, too.

[Haeleth]

Originally Posted by GreatSaintLouis

I'm (stubbornly) running Internet Explorer 6 SP2.

You really shouldn't be, you know. There are some very compelling reasons to switch. ^_^

[GreatSaintLouis]

That Rikaichan plugin is pretty awesome - I installed it the last time I tried to like Firefox, but it still couldn't sway me away from my IE6/AvantBrowser combination.
Borked cookie handling, a half-implemented tabbed browsing system, and the need to download third-party plugins just to customize aspects of the program that should be tweakable right out of the box - well, those aren't really features that draw me to a browser. Plus, no matter what the revision, it STILL leaves that rotting aftertaste of slow and clunky Netscape every time I use it.

Originally Posted by GreatSaintLouis

I've honestly never had a problem, and I'm (stubbornly) running Internet Explorer 6 SP2. If you're using IE, there's an option to set your browser encoding to Auto-Select; that is, it just works with whatever the page is supposed to be displayed in, provided you have the proper encoding languages installed.

The problem isn't really that the pages don't display correctly; they actually display just fine.

The problem appears when I want to post. Properly-behaved browsers submit the form data in the same character encoding as the page that contains the form. The default for most of the web pages in Roman characters, this site included, is ISO-8859-1. That's a reasonable standard, as long as one is using Roman characters.

The problem, when I try to post something with my browser, is that Japanese characters cannot be represented in ISO-8859-1. It's a single-byte encoding scheme, where each character gets one byte. That limits the total number of possible characters to 256. That's barely enough for the set of Roman characters when you add in control characters and accents. There's obviously no way you're going to fit thousands of kanji in such an encoding scheme.

When I try to use such characters, my browser essentially says "hey, that's not in the character set I'm supposed to use!" and converts it to a question mark. Firefox and (apparently) Internet Explorer find ways to post the characters anyway by converting them to HTML escape sequences. Browsers will display these even if the page's encoding doesn't include them. It's a hack, and it works reasonably well on sites where more extensive character sets aren't utilized.

If this were any other site, I'd be happy just to use Firefox on the occasions that I needed to post such characters. However, as the subject of discussion here, strangely enough, seems to frequently include the Japanese language, it just seemed silly to me to be relying on a hack that's not implemented in all browsers rather than using a suitable encoding to begin with.

It's really nothing critical, so there's no hurry to change it, but if there's no reason not to, it would make sense to use a proper encoding and save the non-Firefox/IE users a little bit of hassle ;)

[Haeleth]

Originally Posted by Roto

It's really nothing critical, so there's no hurry to change it, but if there's no reason not to, it would make sense to use a proper encoding and save the non-Firefox/IE users a little bit of hassle ;)

I actually think of this issue as a bug in WebKit-based browsers. It's reasonable not to submit Japanese text to sites that claim only to support European text, but in that case, why does it let you enter Japanese text at all? It's very bad design to accept user input and then silently discard it. I expect better from Apple.

That said, yeah, I'm still looking into fixing this. It can be done, but it'll probably require converting the database to UTF-8 too, which will be a bit of a drag, so it may not get done immediately. Curse my hosts and their refusal to give me shell access... :(

Originally Posted by GreatSaintLouis

Borked cookie handling, a half-implemented tabbed browsing system, and the need to download third-party plugins just to customize aspects of the program that should be tweakable right out of the box - well, those aren't really features that draw me to a browser.

There's no pleasing some people. 十人十エロ, as they say.

(Have you tried Opera since it became free? I don't like it myself, but it doesn't have any of the deficiencies you mention, and like Firefox - but unlike IE - it has a layout engine that works...)

I gave Opera a shot as well, and uninstalled it much faster than Firefox. While I could fight with Firefox's settings to get an approximation of my familiar AvantBrowser interface, Opera was pretty hard to bend to my will. The problems were mainly small issues - using different mouse buttons to manipulate tabs, etc. Fairly insignificant, to be sure, but they were those little quirks that just add up to an unsatisfactory user experience.

I wouldn't have a problem with Firefox if they sped up the page rendering, fixed their tabbed browsing support to force new pages to spawn as extra tabs and not new Firefox windows, and made cookie control more like IE's. I mean, Firefox has some dandy features - I love being able to search Google, Amazon, and eBay right from the search bar, and the rikaichan plugin is amazing. But right now there are too many little quirks with it. I'm anal-retentive enough about security updates and keeping my computer locked down from intrusions, so Internet Explorer and its supposed security flaws are really of no consequence to me right now.

But yeah, rikaichan for IE would be nice.

[Haeleth]

Originally Posted by GreatSaintLouis.

I wouldn't have a problem with Firefox if they sped up the page rendering, fixed their tabbed browsing support to force new pages to spawn as extra tabs and not new Firefox windows, and made cookie control more like IE's.

The tab thing is fixed in FF 1.5. I can't comment on page rendering because they both seem equally fast to me, and I honestly don't know what you're talking about where cookies are concerned (again, the interface in IE looks just like the interface in Firefox to me...)

Hey, this is fun. Shall we do <strike>vi vs. emacs</strike> edlin vs. Notepad next?

[07ChanF]

There is a way to force new windows to spawn in new tabs:
Goto Tools->Opitions->Tabs and select "Force New windows to open in:" and select the "new tab" function. I guess the devs didn't set this as defult because they're tyring to mimic IE for the convenience of the new users from IE.

Also the way the plugins are made is to make the core a lot more reliable so if one plugin screws up you can get rid of it without screwing the rest of the browser like IE.

Originally Posted by 07ChanF

There is a way to force new windows to spawn in new tabs:
Goto Tools->Opitions->Tabs and select "Force New windows to open in:" and select the "new tab" function. I guess the devs didn't set this as defult because they're tyring to mimic IE for the convenience of the new users from IE.

That's what I did, but somehow I'd still have the occasional new window as opposed to a new tab. I'd say it happened maybe 1 out of every 10 times.

Originally Posted by Haeleth

I honestly don't know what you're talking about where cookies are concerned (again, the interface in IE looks just like the interface in Firefox to me...)

Every time a new site wants to send a cookie to my machine, I have IE set to pop up a small window that informs me which site was sending the cookie, and gave me the option of allowing or blocking the cookie, as well as applying that setting to all future cookies sent from that particular site. I couldn't find any functionality exactly like this with Firefox. I could get it to warn me when a site was sending a cookie... which worked maybe half of the time, and never seemed to save cookie settings after I closed the browser.

Originally Posted by Haeleth

Hey, this is fun. Shall we do vi vs. emacs edlin vs. Notepad next?

I'm not sure what you're getting at...

[Haeleth]

Originally Posted by GSL

Every time a new site wants to send a cookie to my machine, I have IE set to pop up a small window that informs me which site was sending the cookie, and gave me the option of allowing or blocking the cookie, as well as applying that setting to all future cookies sent from that particular site. I couldn't find any functionality exactly like this with Firefox.

Ah, I'm with you. I'd forgotten IE could do that, and I too know nothing that provides quite the same feature for Firefox.

Kind of ironic, really, that the missing feature keeping you on IE is privacy-related. ;)

Originally Posted by GSL

I'm not sure what you're getting at...

Just joking about the inherent flamewar potential of browser comparisons. I'm taking the fact that this discussion has managed to remain useful and informative as conclusive proof that this board hasn't attracted any trolls yet. ^_^

Originally Posted by Haeleth

Just joking about the inherent flamewar potential of browser comparisons. I'm taking the fact that this discussion has managed to remain useful and informative as conclusive proof that this board hasn't attracted any trolls yet. ^_^

Oh, good. I was hoping I wasn't coming off as "OMG IE 4 EVR LOLZ!". As I said, Firefox certainly does have a lot going for it, but there are just a few minor details that, when added together, don't make for as smooth a browsing experience as I expect. And you're right - this is an often touchy subject in the less civilized regions of the Internet...

Originally Posted by Haeleth

Ah, I'm with you. I'd forgotten IE could do that (I always turned it off in my IE-using days), and I think you're right in saying that there's nothing that does quite the same thing for Firefox.

I like to keep track of the cookies that get stored on my system, and I really like the ability to deal with cookies as they are sent to my machine. Message boards, webmail, and shopping/auction sites I like to accept cookies from, as it saves me the (albeit small) hassle of having to log in every time I visit. 90% of the cookies sent from the internet are useless garbage that I really don't want or need on my machine, so it's really nice to be able to eternally block a cookie sent by a Google ad, or to permanently allow one from a new message board I sign up for. I guess I'm just a bit of a control freak that way.

[zalas]

Originally Posted by Haeleth

I actually think of this issue as a bug in WebKit-based browsers. It's reasonable not to submit Japanese text to sites that claim only to support European text, but in that case, why does it let you enter Japanese text at all? It's very bad design to accept user input and then silently discard it. I expect better from Apple.

I forget what the exact bug was, since I haven't tried posting in Japanese on OSX for a while. Was it that it would show up fine in the text box, but then show up as ??? after you post? Or was it that it would show up as ??? in the textbox before posting? If it's the latter, I'm not sure what you can do about it, but if it's the former, Apple should've added something where it'll ask you if you really want to post in a different language and if so whether to use the escape codes. I think that would be the most sensible way to handle it.

[Haeleth]

Ah, good point. I assumed it was the former; obviously my comments don't apply if it's the latter case.

(Not but that it's a useful feature that they really ought to add anyway, particularly since one of the OS X selling points has always been the way it's supposed to "just work" with multiple languages...)

Originally Posted by Someone who forgot to log in

Message boards, webmail, and shopping/auction sites I like to accept cookies from, as it saves me the (albeit small) hassle of having to log in every time I visit.

Yeah, about that... :P