RE: New FAQ for review: Setting charset information in .htaccess

Comments:

1. Maybe the question should read: "How do I configure my Apache server to serve files with a specific character encoding ("charset")?"

2. I would always quote "charset" when used in the text to make clear that it is a synonym for character encoding.

3. For this paragraph:

<quot>In both cases we will assume that files would be served using ISO-8859-1 by default, but that you want to serve your file or files using UTF-8 (a very sensible strategy!)</quot>

I would spell out what's going on a little better and note that option of administering the server as a whole somewhere more prominent than the background. Perhaps:

"Many Apache servers are configured to send files using the ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1) encoding. In the examples below, we'll assume that you want to serve your file or files using a different encoding (such as Unicode UTF-8: a very sensible strategy!). To do this you will either need to get the server administrator to modify the default encoding (which will affect all of the content served by the server) or modify the .htaccess file."

4. Several places you say: "although these declare both the character encoding and the MIME type at the same time." You need to explain somewhere why this might be a concern. For example, you might offer the example of the extension .utf8 and point out that one file could be 'foo.html.utf8' and another one 'boo.xml.utf8'

5. You should also note what happens when two extension rules apply to the same document? (i.e. note that extension order matters) So:

  AddCharset UTF-8 .utf8
  AddCharset windows-1252 .html

The file 'foo.utf8.html' will be served as "windows-1252" and 'foo.html.utf8' as UTF-8.

6. Section "by the way": You say that you may not want to serve the encoding information sometimes, but you don't spell out how to turn it off.

7. You might want to mention the "choosing an encoding" tutorial more prominently (in the body)??

Addison


Addison P. Phillips
Director, Globalization Architecture
webMethods | Delivering Global Business Visibility
http://www.webMethods.com
Chair, W3C Internationalization (I18N) Working Group
Chair, W3C-I18N-WG, Web Services Task Force
http://www.w3.org/International

Internationalization is an architecture. 
It is not a feature.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-international-request@w3.org
> [mailto:www-international-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Richard Ishida
> Sent: 2004年6月17日 13:17
> To: www-international@w3.org
> Subject: New FAQ for review: Setting charset information in .htaccess
> 
> 
> 
> Here is a first draft of a new FAQ, answering the question:
> 
> > How do I use .htaccess directives on an Apache server to serve 
> files with a specific encoding?
> http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-htaccess-charset.html
> 
> 
> Please send comments to help me produce a final draft.  Thanks.
> 
> 
> RI
> 
> 
> PS: Please note the very restricted focus of the question.
> 
> 
> ============
> Richard Ishida
> W3C
> 
> contact info:
> http://www.w3.org/People/Ishida/ 
> 
> W3C Internationalization:
> http://www.w3.org/International/ 
>  
>

Received on Thursday, 17 June 2004 18:17:39 UTC