preferred charset?

[Jane Withnolastname]

I have been using the charset windows-1252 for a while, but it was
pointed out to someone else in this group recently that it's a
Microsoft creation (I'm sure I'm getting my facts wrong or skewed) and
therefore not good for cross-platform browsing.
Anyway, I am beginning my road to recovery (ie, breaking my addiction
to authoring only for IE) and I would like to know what is the
preferred charset?
I have tried a search and only find immense lists that make me
cross-eyed without ever telling me which to use to utilize a full
range of characters and have them display the way I intend on
English-speaking machines.
I'm not sure of the proper term, but I always use the & character
substitutes for anything that doesn't show up on my keyboard so,
ideally, the charset should display those, right? (For instance, if I
want to display Montréal, I would input Montréal .)
Thanks!

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

Re: preferred charset?

Jane Withnolastname <JaneWithnolast nameNOSPAM@yaho o.com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> Anyway, I am beginning my road to recovery (ie, breaking my addiction
> to authoring only for IE) and I would like to know what is the
> preferred charset?[/color]

Probably UTF-8.

[color=blue]
>;K[/color]

[Jane Withnolastname]

Re: preferred charset?

On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 22:13:47 -0500, Mad Bad Rabbit
<madbadrabbit@y ahoo.com> wrote:
[color=blue]
>Jane Withnolastname <JaneWithnolast nameNOSPAM@yaho o.com> wrote:
>[color=green]
>> Anyway, I am beginning my road to recovery (ie, breaking my addiction
>> to authoring only for IE) and I would like to know what is the
>> preferred charset?[/color]
>
>Probably UTF-8.
>[/color]

I tried UTF-8 a while ago (thinking it was the right one) and went
back to the windows one because I got odd results from it. However,
now that you have suggested it, I have gone back to the file I had
problems with and see that I was using open and close quotes (instead
of the regular quotes on the keyboard). I don't know how they got in
there, because I really had to search to figure out how I got them, so
I must have copy&pasted it.
Anyway, here's a sorta related question: is it acceptable to write
ASCII codes into html? As in the above example, it would be “ for
the open quote, and ” for the close quote.
Is that acceptable, or is there another way, similar to the preferred
method of using &eacute; rather than &#233;?
Or would I be better advised to stick with regular quotes and never
mind special ASCII-only characters?
And while we're on quotes ... is it acceptable to use the quote key to
put them in a file, or is it better to use &quot;?
Thanks again. I'm feeling quite stupid right now :)

P.S. Is there a list somewhere of all the alternate characters? I'd
try a search, but I don't know the proper term for these.

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

Re: preferred charset?

Jane Withnolastname <JaneWithnolast nameNOSPAM@yaho o.com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> Anyway, here's a sorta related question: is it acceptable to write
> ASCII codes into html? As in the above example, it would be “ for
> the open quote, and ” for the close quote.[/color]

Not if you're declaring the codeset to be Unicode.
“ isn't a double-quote unless you use codeset 1252.

To find a given character in Unicode, go to:

http://www.unicode.org/charts/

and look at (for example) "General Punctuation" chart.
In Unicode, the double-quotes you want are assigned
codes &#x201C; and &#x201D;
[color=blue]
> Is that acceptable, or is there another way, similar
> to the preferred method of using &eacute; rather than &#233;?[/color]

Good question: yes there are. See

http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/html40/entities/special.html

You can use entities &ldquo; and &rdquo; for these characters.
(which is a lot easier to remember than the numeric codes).
[color=blue]
> P.S. Is there a list somewhere of all the alternate characters? I'd
> try a search, but I don't know the proper term for these.[/color]

They're called "HTML entities", and the above site has lists.


HTH
[color=blue]
>;K[/color]

[Headless]

Re: preferred charset?

Jane Withnolastname wrote:
[color=blue]
>I have been using the charset windows-1252 for a while, but it was
>pointed out to someone else in this group recently that it's a
>Microsoft creation (I'm sure I'm getting my facts wrong or skewed) and
>therefore not good for cross-platform browsing.
>Anyway, I am beginning my road to recovery (ie, breaking my addiction
>to authoring only for IE) and I would like to know what is the
>preferred charset?
>I have tried a search and only find immense lists that make me
>cross-eyed without ever telling me which to use to utilize a full
>range of characters and have them display the way I intend on
>English-speaking machines.
>I'm not sure of the proper term, but I always use the & character
>substitutes for anything that doesn't show up on my keyboard so,
>ideally, the charset should display those, right? (For instance, if I
>want to display Montréal, I would input Montr&eacute;al .)[/color]

I use ISO-8859-1 because it allows me to dispense with character
references like &eacute; the source readability is much better without
those codes.


Headless

--
Email and usenet filter list: http://www.headless.dna.ie/usenet.htm

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Re: preferred charset?

Mad Bad Rabbit <madbadrabbit@y ahoo.com> wrote:
[color=blue][color=green]
>> Anyway, here's a sorta related question: is it acceptable to write
>> ASCII codes into html? As in the above example, it would be “ for
>> the open quote, and ” for the close quote.[/color]
>
> Not if you're declaring the codeset to be Unicode.
> “ isn't a double-quote unless you use codeset 1252.[/color]

“ is undefined in HTML, no matter what you "declare" anywhere.
This has been discussed dozens of times.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: preferred charset?

On Thu, Aug 28, Mad Bad Rabbit inscribed on the eternal scroll:
[color=blue]
> Jane Withnolastname <JaneWithnolast nameNOSPAM@yaho o.com> wrote:
>[color=green]
> > Anyway, here's a sorta related question: is it acceptable to write
> > ASCII codes into html?[/color][/color]

ASCII is a 7-bit code, and has displayable characters in the range 32
(space) to 126 inclusive. (x20 to x7e).
[color=blue][color=green]
> > As in the above example, it would be “ for
> > the open quote, and ” for the close quote.[/color][/color]

No.
[color=blue]
> Not if you're declaring the codeset to be Unicode.[/color]

It would be helpful if you'd refrain from offering answers until you
understand them.
[color=blue]
> “ isn't a double-quote unless you use codeset 1252.[/color]

&#number; notations in the range 127 to 159 inclusive are undefined in
HTML, and illegal in XHTML. No matter what this or that browser might
happen to display when presented with them.

I don't believe your term "codeset" means anything in HTML, SGML, XML
or XHTML. It seems to be some confused conflation of the terms
"character code" (or maybe "code page") and "character set". These
are distinct concepts in HTML/XHTML, and any attempt to muddle them up
is sure to be unhelpful.

have fun.

[Stan Brown]

Re: preferred charset?

In article <in0rkvkoa880c1 t1qsvkmnvlarnoa j0eli@4ax.com> in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html, Jane Withnolastname
<JaneWithnolast nameNOSPAM@yaho o.com> wrote:[color=blue]
>On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 22:13:47 -0500, Mad Bad Rabbit
><madbadrabbit@ yahoo.com> wrote:[color=green]
>>Jane Withnolastname <JaneWithnolast nameNOSPAM@yaho o.com> wrote:[color=darkred]
>>> I would like to know what is the preferred charset?[/color]
>>
>>Probably UTF-8.[/color][/color]

Good advice. See
<http://ppewww.ph.gla.a c.uk/~flavell/charset/checklist.html> .
[color=blue]
>Anyway, here's a sorta related question: is it acceptable to write
>ASCII codes into html?[/color]

Yes, though it's unnecessary excel;t for > and &.
[color=blue]
>As in the above example, it would be “ for
>the open quote, and ” for the close quote.[/color]

No, those are not ASCII. They're not even Unicode; they are
Microsoft creations. Any reference between € and Ÿ
inclusive is wrong.

You can create an open quote in three legal ways:
" &ldquo; “
and a close quote in three legal ways:
" &rdquo; ”

The straight quote " works in all browsers without exception. If its
appearance is acceptable to you (and it should be, since a great
many Web sites use it), you need look no further.

If you really want curly quotes, use the "entities" or the numeric
references. Most browsers treat them exactly the same; a few (like
Netscape 4 if I recall correctly) will handle the numeric references
correctly but not the entitles.
[color=blue]
>Is that acceptable, or is there another way, similar to the preferred
>method of using &eacute; rather than &#233;?[/color]

How is that the "preferred method"? The two are the same. As far as
I know, browser support is the same.
[color=blue]
>Or would I be better advised to stick with regular quotes and never
>mind special ASCII-only characters?[/color]

Yes, I think so, if by "regular quotes" you mean the standard
double-quote character on the keyboard. I don't know what you mean
by "ASCII-only characters".
[color=blue]
>And while we're on quotes ... is it acceptable to use the quote key to
>put them in a file, or is it better to use &quot;?[/color]

There is no reason to use &quot; ever, that I am aware of.
[color=blue]
>P.S. Is there a list somewhere of all the alternate characters? I'd
>try a search, but I don't know the proper term for these.[/color]

"Numeric character references", but here's a terrific list:

http://www.alanwood.net/demos/ent4_frame.html

For numbers up to 255, it shouldn't matter whether you use the
number or the entity. For higher numbers, some browsers do a better
job with the number than with the entity.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA

http://OakRoadSystems.com/

HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Chris Morris]

Re: preferred charset?

Stan Brown <the_stan_brown @fastmail.fm> writes:[color=blue]
> There is no reason to use &quot; ever, that I am aware of.[/color]

<img src="quotechar. jpg" alt="&quot;">

--
Chris

[Stan Brown]

Re: preferred charset?

In article <87r835hmtg.fsf @dinopsis.dur.a c.uk> in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html, Chris Morris
<c.i.morris@dur ham.ac.uk> wrote:[color=blue]
>Stan Brown <the_stan_brown @fastmail.fm> writes:[color=green]
>> There is no reason to use &quot; ever, that I am aware of.[/color]
>
><img src="quotechar. jpg" alt="&quot;">[/color]

<img src="quotechar. jpg" alt='"'> -- even aside from the fact that
the example is extremely unlikely to occur in practice. :-)

"Single quote marks can be included within the attribute value when
the value is delimited by double quote marks, and vice versa."

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/intro/sgmltut.html#h-3.2.2

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA

http://OakRoadSystems.com/

HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Stan Brown]

Re: preferred charset?

In article <MPG.19b7db3ad7 6ea21c98b22f@ne ws.odyssey.net> in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html, Stan Brown
<the_stan_brown @fastmail.fm> wrote:[color=blue]
>In article <in0rkvkoa880c1 t1qsvkmnvlarnoa j0eli@4ax.com> in
>comp.infosyste ms.www.authoring.html, Jane Withnolastname[color=green]
>>Anyway, here's a sorta related question: is it acceptable to write
>>ASCII codes into html?[/color]
>
>Yes, though it's unnecessary excel;t for > and &.[/color]

Hmm -- I'm not sure how that got mangled. It should have read
"except for < > and &."

ASCII codes run 0 to 127; of them numbers 32 to 126 are displayable
(though 32 "displays" as a space).

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA

http://OakRoadSystems.com/

HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Chris Morris]

Re: preferred charset?

Stan Brown <the_stan_brown @fastmail.fm> writes:[color=blue]
> In article <87r835hmtg.fsf @dinopsis.dur.a c.uk> in
> comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html, Chris Morris
> <c.i.morris@dur ham.ac.uk> wrote:[color=green]
> >Stan Brown <the_stan_brown @fastmail.fm> writes:[color=darkred]
> >> There is no reason to use &quot; ever, that I am aware of.[/color]
> >
> ><img src="quotechar. jpg" alt="&quot;">[/color]
>
> <img src="quotechar. jpg" alt='"'> -- even aside from the fact that
> the example is extremely unlikely to occur in practice. :-)[/color]

<img src="quoteandap os.png" alt="&quot '">

Even more unlikely, yes, but user input could potentially contain
both. More realistically on the image:

<img src="quotation. png" alt="&quot;Quot ation&quot; - John O'Name">
[color=blue]
> "Single quote marks can be included within the attribute value when
> the value is delimited by double quote marks, and vice versa."
> http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/intro/sgmltut.html#h-3.2.2[/color]

Doing both at once remains a bit more difficult.

--
Chris

[Andreas Prilop]

Re: preferred charset?

On Thu, 28 Aug 2003, Stan Brown wrote:
[color=blue][color=green]
>> <img src="quotechar. jpg" alt="&quot;">[/color]
>
> <img src="quotechar. jpg" alt='"'> -- even aside from the fact that
> the example is extremely unlikely to occur in practice. :-)[/color]

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/quotes.html

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/apostrophe.html

[Andreas Prilop]

Re: preferred charset?

On Thu, 28 Aug 2003, Jane Withnolastname wrote:
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> Anyway, I am beginning my road to recovery (ie, breaking my addiction
>>> to authoring only for IE) and I would like to know what is the
>>> preferred charset?[/color][/color][/color]

There is none. It depends on *your* special situation.

http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~flavell/charset/checklist.html

[color=blue]
> Or would I be better advised to stick with regular quotes and never
> mind special ASCII-only characters?[/color]

It might be preferable to use only ASCII quotes (" '). See

http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~flavell/charset/checklist.html#s3

[color=blue]
> Thanks again. I'm feeling quite stupid right now :)[/color]

No, no. Perfectly valid questions.
[color=blue]
> Is there a list somewhere of all the alternate characters?[/color]

You probably don't need all. Take

http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/multilingual2.html#symbols

as a starting point.

[Jane Withnolastname]

Re: preferred charset?

On Thu, 28 Aug 2003 08:24:25 +0100, Headless <me@privacy.net > wrote:
[color=blue]
>Jane Withnolastname wrote:
>[color=green]
>>I have been using the charset windows-1252 for a while, but it was
>>pointed out to someone else in this group recently that it's a
>>Microsoft creation (I'm sure I'm getting my facts wrong or skewed) and
>>therefore not good for cross-platform browsing.
>>Anyway, I am beginning my road to recovery (ie, breaking my addiction
>>to authoring only for IE) and I would like to know what is the
>>preferred charset?
>>I have tried a search and only find immense lists that make me
>>cross-eyed without ever telling me which to use to utilize a full
>>range of characters and have them display the way I intend on
>>English-speaking machines.
>>I'm not sure of the proper term, but I always use the & character
>>substitutes for anything that doesn't show up on my keyboard so,
>>ideally, the charset should display those, right? (For instance, if I
>>want to display Montréal, I would input Montr&eacute;al .)[/color]
>
>I use ISO-8859-1 because it allows me to dispense with character
>references like &eacute; the source readability is much better without
>those codes.
>
>
>Headless[/color]

So I've got one vote for utf-8 and one vote for iso-8859-1 and
everybody else just wants to argue about quotes, which was so not the
point, to begin with.
Can I get a consensus?
It depends on what I'm using it for? OK, it's a general-use site aimed
at an English-speaking audience that may, at some time or another,
need to use non-English characters, such as é or ç. I need it to
display on all browsers and would be nice (but not necessary) if it
was printable on most printers.

If I understand correctly, this ISO charset will allow me to simply
input é and it will display correctly in all browsers?

Someone questioned my saying that entity rather than number was the
preferred method. Well, it's what I read on this newsgroup only a few
days ago, when someone was asking about the Euro character. The person
had said that it was written with the numerical identifier and was
advised to change it to the entity.

I apologize for apparently having no idea that ASCII stopped at 127. I
learned everything I know about ASCII in high school, something like
15 years ago. Some of it may have been wrong and some may have meshed
with what I *thought* was fact.... Anyway, thanks for straightening me
out on that.

Thanks!