Hello, everyone.
I have a question about default encoding to recipients who are native Russian speakers, and most of whom use Windows.
My evaluation copy of The Bat! 3.0.1.33 expired last night at midnight, so I have to make a decision. Today, I launched The Bat! and was surprised to find that it still ran, but I do not know how long this "grace period" from RITLabs will last.
I spent hours and hours trying to get The Bat! to work with a KOI8-R-encoded signature file, but I finally gave up and used a Windows-1251/Cyrillic-encoded signature file. (All of my research indicated that I should use KOI8-R for Russian e-mail.)
With the Cyrillic Starter Kit (http://www.cyrillic.com/), I successfully sent KOI8-R messages, although I kept wasting hours on a KOI8-R signature file -- but The Bat! will not accept such a signature.
<NUTSHELL> I sent a test message to a close associate in Odessa, Ukraine, whose firm uses Eudora, and he had to convert the message to Windows-1251 in order to read the Russian. (I have been writing to him for years, but I specifically as him to consider that message as a test and to let me know if he could read it.) </NUTSHELL>
I sent him another message today in Windows-1251/Cyrillic encoding, along with an apology. (Outlook XP automatically encodes messages, and for two years I have been sending him KOI8-R-encoded messages, so I have another reason to switch to The Bat!, although paying the registration fee is a major problem right now -- but not a matter of interest to TBUDL members.)
Most of my correspondents in Ukraine and Russia use the Russian version of Windows 98, as does my associate's firm in Odessa. (By the way, my sample text came from a great Web site of Russian literature, http://public-library.narod.ru/.)
<QUESTION> Is it safe for me to assume that I should leave my default encoding at Windows-1251, unless I receive complaints? (So far, no one has complained about the KOI8-R messages, but none of these friends would feel the need to complain, because they are incredibly kind, as the message from Odessa today proves.) Of course, I am referring to using this default encoding soley for messages that contain Russian text. </QUESTION>
Thank you very much, in advance!
Cordially,
David
P.S. -- I am using the Cyrillic Starter Kit because the Russian key-mapping in Windows XP Professional does not match the layout of any Russian/English keyboard I have found so far, and the CSK solves that problem. Perhaps I need to use 'Russian Typewriter' as my input locale; I know of one Russian/English keyboard that supposedly is in this layout. -- http://ddickerson.igc.org/
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________________________________________________ Current version is 3.0.1.33 | 'Using TBUDL' information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
