I am not quite clear with character encoding and character sets yet. FINDINGS: a) a stream of bytes which is meant to transport characters necessarily implies a CHARACTER ENCODING (a table of values related to a set of characters)
b) a character encoding refers to but does not constitue or name a SET OF CHARACTERS, as one and the same set of characters might get encoded by different encoding tables, in principle. c) as different sets of characters get into consideration, something like a third comparative set, comprising all sets discussed, must be claimed. This is the universal set of characters, where all considered sets are subsets of. You may call this "God's own character set", though for the time being I assume that this set is defined by the latest edition of UNICODE. d) HTML clients (display) seem to be capable of displaying the entire scope of Unicode - or that subset of Unicode which is defined within HTML (which must be quite huge). QUESTIONS: Q1) What is the character potential of the mail client editor? That is: what subset of Unicode can be entered and/or depicted by the mail editor / mail displayer? Q2) Is the set of Q1 dependent on the platform and its default character set? If yes, how? Q3) What instance generates the character images (on screen) for HTML clients when local platforms' native character set is far narrower than the HTML charset? Q4) What defines the relation between the set of Q1 and the platform's input device, i.e. the keyboard? Well, answering might render a seminar's work, but if you find one or the other point, this could help greatly! Thanks. - Wolf
