Subj : Re: Need volonteers to test another patch
To   : Nicholas Boel
From : Vitaliy Aksyonov
Date : Sun Mar 03 2024 04:28 pm

Hello Nicholas.

03 Mar 24 10:33, you wrote to Michiel van der Vlist:

 MvdV>> Yes, they are translated to multi (usually two for most
 MvdV>> characters used in Fidonet) byte characters. Only the ASCII
 MvdV>> characters (0-127) are not translated and so remain one byte.

 NB> Thanks for the explanation. While reading this, I did check the ASCII
 NB> table and the characters I'm referring to are all above 127. This also
 NB> is kind of reflected while using Golded, if I widen my screen more
 NB> than 160 characters, less of those lines are wrapped to the next line.

 NB> However, it doesn't seem like I can widen my window enough to keep
 NB> them all on one line, so I'm guessing when they are translated to
 NB> utf-8 they are more than 2 bytes, since I'm well over double the width
 NB> of an 80 character screen - which the original stat message was made
 NB> for.

Pseudo-graphics symbols encoded to three bytes in UTF-8. That's why it's not enough.
So you either ignore it or make windows at least 3 times wider than that message. It might sound stupid and overkill, but it shall do the trick. :)

 NB> So, at this point it's basically working and displaying properly, but
 NB> then comes in the 'characters' vs 'bytes' thing that Golded isn't
 NB> supporting, so it is wrapping what it thinks is double, triple, or
 NB> even quadruple the amount of 'characters' that are there.

 MvdV>> To put it simple: if you want to encode CP437 and CP866, you
 MvdV>> could put CP437 OR CP866 in the first byte, but you need at
 MvdV>> least one bit more information which one it is; CP437 or CP866.
 MvdV>> That is not exactly how UTF-8 works but it should give you an
 MvdV>> idea of why just one byte can not be enough.

 NB> Thank you for the explanation. This definitely helps me to understand
 NB> what is happening.

Unicode is very complex. It's event worse than you may think. For example, some displayed symbols take one char space on screen, but others two.
Also one letter is not necessarily one Unicode "symbol". Also it may have non-printable symbols and many more.

Vitaliy

.... C????o ?a ??epa??ee, ?o ?e ?o??? ?epe? ?e?...
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20240223
 * Origin: Aurora, Colorado (1:104/117)

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