Re: Locale/default encoding table

Andrew Cunningham On 09-10-14 06.46:

> 
> Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
> 
>> So where does Windows 1252 as default for Bengali, Tamil etc fit in here?
> 
> a rhetorical question?


A little bit.

But you *did* in fact say to Henri that it seemed logical if 
Firefox, for Indian languages, defaults to either *Windows 1252* 
or UTF-8. If there is a free choice between win 1252 and UTF-8, 
then Win-1252 would be illogical to select.

 
> maybe because the dominance of English in Indian web content? And before 
> the uptake of Unicode for Indian web content, most developers used hacks?

About the "English uptake": Basic English is covered for by the 
ASCII section of whichever encoding you choose, anyhow.

As for hacks: OK, I now tested the Bengali www.aajkaal.net in 
Windows. Even there, it only works in Internet Explorer, as much 
as I could tell. For all other browsers, then, defaulting to 
Windows 1251 seems irrelevant. Unless they also start to support 
EOT fonts (which I gather is what makes that page work in IE).

Are there hacks that works for Firefox? If not, then win 1251 
seems like a bad default for Firefox.

> Its always difficult to explain to end users why web pages in their 
> languages don't display correctly in web browsers, or why they can't use 
> their language in common web 2.0 or social networking environments. By 
> end users , i mean users with limited IT knowledge.

And that is why, when possible, the default encoding should be as 
"wide" as possible.
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Wednesday, 14 October 2009 19:20:04 UTC