[JDEV] Non english messages problem (solution)

[Eugene Tyurkin]

Hello, everybody. Here's log of my conversation about subject in
jdev at conference.jabber.org I want to know what do YOU think about that.

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08 Apr 2001 14:39:53 Hackee Hmm... Maybe someone know who can help me
(actually not only me but everyone who doesn't use english as primary
language)
08 Apr 2001 14:40:09 uberjay what's the question?
08 Apr 2001 14:42:10 Hackee The question is: when you encode something to
unicode you must say what charset do you use for correct decoding, am I
right?
08 Apr 2001 14:43:24 uberjay I don't think so
08 Apr 2001 14:44:28 uberjay The nice thing about unicode is you can mix
languages in a single file
08 Apr 2001 14:45:16 Hackee Well, I use koi8-r charset, my friend using
cp1251. Jabber use unicode. What should I do?
08 Apr 2001 14:46:29 uberjay well, with jabber I would think it would
encode everything in unicode, and decode everything in unicode so it
wouldn't be as much of a problem...but maybe I'm missing something
08 Apr 2001 14:46:43 uberjay I guess you'd need some client support...
08 Apr 2001 14:47:18 uberjay are you running linux?
08 Apr 2001 14:47:39 Hackee The beauty of unicode is that when I correctly
encode message in cp1251 to unicode, I can easily decode it to koi8-r from
unicode and see what the message was about in my native charset
08 Apr 2001 14:47:46 Hackee Yes I'm using linux
08 Apr 2001 14:48:20 uberjay right...ok, I'm not familiar with
cp1251...what is it?
08 Apr 2001 14:48:46 Hackee It's a windows russian charset
08 Apr 2001 14:49:01 Hackee And koi8-r is a linux russian charset
08 Apr 2001 14:49:51 uberjay ok
08 Apr 2001 14:50:23 uberjay and you want to be able to use jabber linux
<-> windows while speaking in russian?
08 Apr 2001 14:50:32 Hackee I use gabber to communicate with my friends
who use ICQ
08 Apr 2001 14:50:50 Hackee Sure I want :)
08 Apr 2001 14:51:08 uberjay heh, ok. maybe I'm in over my head. :) Does
ICQ encode in Unicode?
08 Apr 2001 14:51:40 Hackee Nope. But icq agent from jabber project does
08 Apr 2001 14:51:59 uberjay ah, that's cool
08 Apr 2001 14:52:04 Hackee 8)
08 Apr 2001 14:52:31 Hackee But it doesn't care what charset is coming to
it
08 Apr 2001 14:52:57 Hackee It's just using latin1, which doesn't support
russian
08 Apr 2001 14:53:09 uberjay ick
08 Apr 2001 14:53:19 uberjay so there's a couple problems
08 Apr 2001 14:53:50 Hackee That's what I'm talking about
08 Apr 2001 14:54:19 uberjay one of them might be that It's hard to tell
what charset an ICQ message is coming in with, so the transport doesn't
know how to translate it to unicode
08 Apr 2001 14:54:57 Hackee Yes!
08 Apr 2001 14:55:08 uberjay the other is, when your outgoing message
(encoded in unicode) goes from gabber to the icq transport, how does it
know to translate it from unicode to cp1251?
08 Apr 2001 14:55:29 uberjay this sounds difficult...perhaps you should
get him to run jabber :)
08 Apr 2001 14:55:57 Hackee No how. Other side can't read anything from me
in russian
08 Apr 2001 14:56:09 Hackee Aha, and speak only english
08 Apr 2001 14:56:27 Hackee It's not a solution...
08 Apr 2001 14:56:31 uberjay hmm
08 Apr 2001 14:57:04 uberjay unless ICQ has some way to tell eachother
what character encoding the user is using, I don't see an easy way to fix
that...
08 Apr 2001 14:57:44 Hackee The easiest way is to tell an agent preferable
encoding, for example I know that messages coming to me from ICQ are
always be in cp1251
08 Apr 2001 14:57:56 uberjay ok, that works
08 Apr 2001 14:58:15 Hackee So messages can be coded and decoded correctly
08 Apr 2001 14:58:24 uberjay is that possible with gabber though?
(currently)
08 Apr 2001 14:58:50 Hackee Nope. Just because it's a server side problem
08 Apr 2001 14:59:07 uberjay right, so you'd have to run a modified
version of icq-t
08 Apr 2001 14:59:45 Hackee Sure, but I can't use my own server for
communicating with other
08 Apr 2001 15:00:25 uberjay you can run your own jabberd...
08 Apr 2001 15:01:21 Hackee no, I can't. I just can use client, not
server. Anyway it must be done for everybody not just for me, am I right?
;)
08 Apr 2001 15:01:41 uberjay right :)
08 Apr 2001 15:02:51 uberjay what would be nice is if you could
right-click on the ICQ agent in gabber and select a default coding system,
and have that preference control what the icq transport did server side
08 Apr 2001 15:03:21 Hackee Yes! But this must be done in protocol layer
so jabber will be used by everyone, not only by english speaking people
08 Apr 2001 15:03:58 uberjay I don't know enough (well, anything) about
the jabber protocol to say if this is supported, but it needs to be. of
course, if everyone just uses jabber, than everything can be unicode, then
we have no problems :)
08 Apr 2001 15:05:02 Hackee Sure, the only problem is to tell the same
what we speaking about to jabber server developers
08 Apr 2001 15:05:12 Hackee 8)
08 Apr 2001 15:05:23 uberjay heh, yeah
08 Apr 2001 15:05:33 uberjay btw, in case you haven't seen this:
ftp://ftp.ilog.fr/pub/Users/haible/utf8/Unicode-HOWTO.html
08 Apr 2001 15:05:38 uberjay linux unicode howto
08 Apr 2001 15:05:46 uberjay it has some useful information
08 Apr 2001 15:06:47 uberjay UTF-8 seems to be the most used right now
08 Apr 2001 15:07:02 Hackee I know a little about unicode, 8) I use it to
write crossplatform applications that supports russian interface in both
sides - linux and windows
08 Apr 2001 15:07:17 uberjay well then
08 Apr 2001 15:07:35 uberjay that's cool
08 Apr 2001 15:07:52 Hackee Thanks ;)
08 Apr 2001 15:08:20 uberjay I really need to sleep...good luck. maybe you
should send an email to the jabber development list?
08 Apr 2001 15:08:31 uberjay they might have some more insight into the
problem
08 Apr 2001 15:08:57 Hackee I'll try. Thanks for conversation. Good night
(here is 15:08 already ;)
08 Apr 2001 15:09:54 uberjay hehe, I'm at 03:08 right now
08 Apr 2001 15:10:09 Hackee You're late ;)
08 Apr 2001 15:10:15 uberjay yes :)
08 Apr 2001 15:11:02 uberjay has left
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That's it. Sorry for long letter but I guess it's easier to understand the
subject.