Hello Rich & PLUG,I'm not sure if this topic was completed to Rich's satisfaction, so let me add something.
On Tuesday, 26 July 2016, Rich Shepard wrote:
My virtual terminals use urxvt and correctly display UTF-8 text encoding as demonstrated by viewing the UTF-8-demo.txt file. My MUA is alpine and invoked in a urxvt terminal. But, not all foreign languages are displayed; for example, Hebrew is seen as a series of question marks. This is one question I'd like to have answered, if possible.
I've been using PINE since the mid 90's and have run into this problem several times. In 2009, there was another discussion on the alpine-info list about it. The first attached message is from that discussion and includes a nice font test I have used many times since for testing. I'm not sure which UTF-8 demo you have. This one includes Hebrew and works for me in Alpine (in gnome-terminal, see below).
You should check out the alpine-info archives; I'm pretty sure the answers are there. But, here is what I have learned. The problem with UTF-8 characters is solved for almost all combinations. For example, I see the same characters in xterm using True-Type fonts with both Alpine and less. But the remaining problems are not related to UTF-8 encoding but 16-bit or "wide" characters commonly used in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK). Maybe Hebrew, too?
I don't receive any messages in Hebrew, but I receive a lot in Japanese. The trick is gnome-terminal. Alpine in gnome-terminal gives the best results. This is because Alpine passes the characters on to the terminal (mostly) unmolested and it's the terminal's job to finds the right glyph. Most chars even work in regular old xterm if you tell xterm to use nice, modern fonts ("liberation mono", for example). But, only gnome-terminal supports *variable width encoding.* (Not to be confused with variable with fonts, which regular old xterm supports using TTF.) So, try that.
A complete "true" solution is probably found by following the CJK users. I've investigated this myself once, but gave up since my current set-up is adequate. This, I assume, would work on the console, not just in terminal emulators (xterm,urxvt,gnome-terminal,etc.). I wonder what happens if you choose Chinese on a fresh install then use the input-chooser hot-keys to switch to English keyboard?
The second question probably relates to how alpine is configured. Or maybe not. When I compose an e-mail message the v.t. changes from urxvt to xterm. Might this have something to do with my specifying 'joe' as the text editor rather than 'nano'? This is another issue that's not critical but a matter of curiosity whether it can be explained.
I would use VIM or Emacs, for sure, but I don't think that is your problem.
What do you mean by v.t. "changes" from urxvt to xterm? For that matter, what do you mean by your v.t. "uses" urxvt? I think I'm missing something important here.
In the past, I tried many times so address font problems with urxvt as it seems pretty popular. But, in my testing, xterm is still superior now that it supports all the same fonts as, say, libreoffice or the desktop environment, itself.
Alpine is configured to display UTF-8 text and to use /usr/bin/joe as the editor. If there are options that address the above two questions then I missed them.
I've discussed this with Eduardo Chappa, myself, and there are some options that affect character passing/encoding between Alpine and the terminal. "Pass C1 control chars as is" for example, but I don't believe that affects this issue. You already have UTF-8 selected as the display char set, so that's the main thing.
-- Paul DeStefano
From alpine-(ta)-benizi(dot) com Mon Jan 12 18:55:59 2009 Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:50:12 -0500 (EST) From: Benjamin R. Haskell <alpine-(ta)-benizi (dot)com> To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Alpine-info] Foreign Characters? On Mon, 12 Jan 2009, Dan Mahoney, System Admin wrote: >>> c) screen/termcap > > I found that I had to do ctrl-a :utf8 on in the window running alpine. > Screen was still blocking it until I did this. I now find that the last > character of your last name looks (to me) like a regular z, with "rabbit > ears" (I don't know the character name). Is that right? Yes, Andraž's name ends with a z with a caron (ž): ž 017e LATIN SMALL LETTER Z WITH CARON (I've heard it more often called a háÄek (hacek) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacek ) > Could someone with another name/text (preferably asian) send something > to me to check this with as well? I've wanted for a very long time to be able to display more than just Eurocentric "foreign" characters inside a terminal that I could also use for my normal work (in English). My guess is that your sticking point is going to be the font. Something like Firefox will handle many scripts, because it will fall back to a different font depending on the character range. As far as I know (which, several years ago, was pretty far, but I haven't been studying any languages lately), there aren't any terminals that handle that gracefully. Mlterm was the only one I found that handled variable-width, right-to-left scripts (Arabic) in any decent manner, and was pretty good for both Chinese and Japanese. Konsole may have come close, in terms of the font-mixing I'm looking for. (But, it didn't work at all for Arabic.) If you can find a font and/or terminal and/or terminal setup that handles many scripts at once, I'd be very interested in hearing about it. Right now, in uxterm with Lucida Sans Unicode, I get nice Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic. But, no CJK characters. Best, Ben For reference, here is the first portion of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in a handful of languages that use different writing systems: Korean: (Hangul) 모ë ì¸ë¥ 구ì±ìì ì²ë¶ì ì¡´ìì±ê³¼ ëë±íê³ ìëí ì ìë ê¶ë¦¬ë¥¼ ì¸ì íë ê²ì´ ì¸ê³ì ìì , ì ì ë° ííì 기ì´ì´ë©° Modern Standard Arabic: ÙÙ Ùا Ùا٠اÙاعترا٠باÙÙرا٠ة اÙ٠تأصÙØ© Ù٠ج٠Ùع أعضاء اÙأسرة اÙبشرÙØ© ÙبØÙÙÙÙ٠اÙ٠تساÙÙØ© اÙثابتة Ù٠أساس اÙØرÙØ© ÙاÙعد٠ÙاÙسÙا٠Ù٠اÙعاÙÙ . Greek: ÎÏειδή η αναγνÏÏιÏη ÏÎ·Ï Î±Î¾Î¹Î¿ÏÏÎÏειαÏ, ÏÎ¿Ï ÎµÎ¯Î½Î±Î¹ ÏÏμÏÏ Ïη Ïε Ïλα Ïα μÎλη ÏÎ·Ï Î±Î½Î¸ÏÏÏÎ¹Î½Î·Ï Î¿Î¹ÎºÎ¿Î³ÎνειαÏ, καθÏÏ ÎºÎ±Î¹ ÏÏν ίÏÏν και αναÏαλλοÏÏίÏÏÏν δικαιÏμάÏÏν ÏÎ¿Ï Ï Î±ÏοÏελεί Ïο θεμÎλιο ÏÎ·Ï ÎµÎ»ÎµÏ Î¸ÎµÏίαÏ, ÏÎ·Ï Î´Î¹ÎºÎ±Î¹Î¿ÏÏÎ½Î·Ï ÎºÎ±Î¹ ÏÎ·Ï ÎµÎ¹ÏÎ®Î½Î·Ï ÏÏον κÏÏμο. Russian: (Cyrillic) ÐÑÐ¸Ð½Ð¸Ð¼Ð°Ñ Ð²Ð¾ внимание, ÑÑо пÑизнание доÑÑоинÑÑва, пÑиÑÑÑего вÑем Ñленам ÑеловеÑеÑкой ÑемÑи, и ÑавнÑÑ Ð¸ неоÑÑемлемÑÑ Ð¿Ñав Ð¸Ñ ÑвлÑеÑÑÑ Ð¾Ñновой ÑвободÑ, ÑпÑаведливоÑÑи и вÑеобÑего миÑа; и Mandarin: (Han) é´ äº å¯¹ 人 ç±» 家 åº æ æ æ å ç åº æ å° ä¸¥ å å ¶ å¹³ ç ç å ä¸ ç§» ç æ å© ç æ¿ è®¤, ä¹ æ¯ ä¸ ç èª ç±ã æ£ ä¹ ä¸ å å¹³ ç åº ç¡, Japanese: (mixed, hiragana and kanji) 人é¡ç¤¾ä¼ã®ãã¹ã¦ã®æ§æå¡ã®åºæã®å°å³ã¨å¹³çã§è²ããã¨ã®ã§ããªã権å©ã¨ãæ¿èªãããã¨ã¯ãä¸çã«ãããèªç±ãæ£ç¾©åã³å¹³åã®åºç¤ã§ããã®ã§ã Hebrew: ×× ×× × ×××× × ×××× ×× × ××ר×× ×ש×××× ×ער×× ××××××ת×××. ×××× ××× × × ×ת××× × ×××צפ××, ×פ××× ×××× ×¢×××× ×× ××× ××ש ×רע×× ×ר×× ×©× ×××××. [ Part 2: "Attached Text" ] _______________________________________________ Alpine-info mailing list [email protected] http://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/alpine-info
_______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
