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

Hi Addison,


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Addison Phillips [wM] [mailto:aphillips@webmethods.com] 
> Sent: 17 June 2004 23:15
> To: Richard Ishida; www-international@w3.org
> Subject: 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")?"


Actually the question intentionally specific because I am often asked exactly that.  Your suggestion is a good topic for another FAQ, but would require a much broader answer.


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

Perhaps I should make the link earlier.

> 
> 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."


I think this is opening up the question beyond what I intended. See above.

> 
> 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'

Mmm. Maybe I should do that.


> 
> 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.

Yes.  


> 
> 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.

Yes, I was thinking of adding just such a section, but to be honest I wasn't sure enough of how you do do that.  RemoveType in Apache 1.x just reinstates the default, from what I can tell.  I can't see a way to actually remove the encoding information.  In Apache 2.x there is the RemoveCharset directive that seems to do the job, but I didn't have a way to test its behaviour properly.  If anyone can give clear advice on this I'd appreciate it.


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

Choosing or declaring?


> 
> 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?6?17? 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 18:52:43 UTC