Re: Using unicode or MBCS characters in forms

> From erik@netscape.com  Thu Jun 20 21:18:51 1996
> 
> Gary Adams - Sun Microsystems Labs BOS wrote:
> > 
> > (Today, I installed GB fonts on my system for the first time and was pleased
> > with the results I saw on the screen, but I was appauled by the need to set
> > character encoding preferences in my browser's property sheets. )
> 
> Yes, it is a pity that servers still do not send out the charset
> parameter. Our servers do send it out if configured to do so. Maybe we
> need to make it easier for the server administrators to configure the
> charset, perhaps with more automation. However, many people are using
> other servers. These people need to be educated too.

The most popular http server (Apache) does provide a mechanism for site
administrators to wrap a document along with it's intended headers (*.asis).
This mechanism is not well suite for authors of documents in general. The
best opportunity for more labeling of documents will have to be the
responsibility of the authoring tools community. W3 for emacs will get the
job done for me, but my mother-in-law will need an easier to use editting
program :-)

I'm glad to hear that your server has the capability of sending the charset
parameter. Making the feature available is the second step in the process
(the first step was agreeing on the html/http/(almost uri :) changes needed
for i18n web support). Now is the time to promote the WORLD-WIDE features of
the web (third step).  Making the parameter easy to use will be a big plus in
that direction.   Now, we need to start applying more marketing resources and
fewer engineering resources to 'demand creation' and vendor interoperability
requirements to make i18n support ubiquitious.

My company will also have an interesting browser/server in the months ahead
and although I am not directly working on any aspect of those projects, I do
intend to lobby those groups to make 18n support a fundamental part of the
platform. I will definitely be passing along pointers to various existing
implementations and making recommendations about what is good or bad about
the way prior organizations have approached the administration/authoring
problems.

<soapbox>
I'm hopeful that this alias will rally together the people who passionately
want to make a change in the internationalization efforts on the web. This
will be a great forum to learn about the "hidden, but difficult to use
configuration parameters to enable i18n" support and help shake out the best
ways to make it transparent to producers and consumers of multilingual
materials. With the WWW'97 web conference aiming at the theme of
"Accessibility", I'd love to see a mini-connectathon in the exhibition area.
Imagine the booths presenting the "Certified I18N compliant browsers/servers"
seal of approval.
</soapbox>

---

http://www.apache.org/
http://www.apache.org/docs/content-negotiation.html
http://www.apache.org/docs/magic_types.html
http://www.netcraft.co.uk/Survey/Reports/
http://www6conf.slac.stanford.edu/
http://java.sun.com/java.sun.com/HotJava/index.html
http://java.sun.com/java.sun.com/products/jeeves/index.html

Received on Friday, 21 June 1996 10:00:16 UTC