Re: Encourage new browser or use ASCII?

On Sat, 31 Jul 2004 23:20:22 -0400, Ben Poplawski
<thebassplayer@...> wrote:
> On my site, http://benpop.cgweb.us/, the language menu
> http://benpop.cgweb.us/lang/, I make extensive use of Unicode. Someone
> requested an ASCII-friendly page, and I suggested he get a new browser.
>
> Is this asking too much, having persons get an up-to-date-browser? I tend
> toward David Peterson's idea on it: use only Unicode, hoping the user
> gets a hint and upgrades so s/he can see it.
>
> It's not that hard to get a good browser, either. Firefox
> (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/) is an excellent one,
> compatible with W3C (http://w3.org/) and Unicode, free, and availablefor
> many platforms--Win, Mac, Linux.
Not everyone has their own computer they can install modern programs on.
Some people are stuck with library access or whatnot.   (Ask me about the
joys of trying to log in with a non-ASCII username while on vacation
sometime.)

[And Firefox's stubborn continued lack of implementation for the CSS2
property 'inline-block', breaking my beautiful furigana templates, has
really soured it for me.] :p

> And then again, using Unicode extensively is a real pain in the ***,
> having to write &amp;#x00E7; or whatever a lot.
Maybe this is a hint that you should get an up-to-date text editor ;) and
code your pages in UTF-8. Even Windows Notepad can do that these days.

> So, ideas? Should I accommodate non-Unicode browsers or go with my
> present pure Unicode setup?
It can't hurt to be accommodating. On Wiktionary everything that people
are liable to be unable to read appears with transliterations, IPA being
transliterated to (X-)SAMPA.  On my own sites I prefer Unicode, but some
of my older stuff doesnt, from before I discovered the joys of IMEs and MS
Keyboard Layout Creator.

I would suggest also letting the user's browser choose fonts for Unicode
text, or at least making sure the stylesheet recommends fonts that contain
the characters you intend to use; browser font substitution can be an ugly
thing.

	*Muke!
--
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