ASCII Characters

[Bob B.]

The really weird thing is that he reports these codes do work in MS Word.  I guess that software must have its own key-handling code that overrides the system.

It works in some cases.  It doesn't work on my home computer, which uses Office 2000.  However, it does work on my work computer, which uses Office 2003.  I also tried a computer at work using Office 2007 and it also worked.  I'm going to see if I can find anything different in the setup between my work computer and my home computer other than the software version.

[Not Myself]

ΩöΔ

This is with Firefox, on a Windows PC, after I used the registry edit hack linked to in my earlier post.

First character: ALT 234
Second character: ALT 916
Third character: ALT +394

The "+" was on the numeric keypad, and 394 is hex for 916 decimal.  I don't know a way to do it in decimal, at least not yet.  Also, the third character came out as something different before I implemented the registry hack.

So do the registry hack, and you can probably due the old-fashioned CP-437 codes by using ALT followed by the decimal number, and UTF-8 codes by using ALT followed by the "+" on the numeric keypad, followed by the hexadecimal code.

Uh oh, just discovered something   I can't do all the hexadecimal codes, because ALT followed by "b" is intercepted by my browser and interpreted as a command.  Maybe there is a way around this.

[Not Myself]

Wow, it just keeps getting better and better.

Found one report that the method I used does not work in IE.  Didn't test it myself.

This method might be helpful also.  A free component of Windows that allows you to type in the characters using a pop-up.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2005/05/18/419117.aspx

I suspect none of this will change the situation at the other board - as per LO's speculation, it might be an issue with the SQL database.

[ka9q]

My best guess is that a conversion is taking place, and it is on your computer.  The same non-ASCII codes entered by me produce êëìíî.  The "ALT" method doesn't work for me, as I'm on a different OS

Agreed. I have the same problem here, and I'm running Linux on a Sony Vaio laptop. Some way to enter the hex for an arbitrary Unicode character and have it turned into UTF-8 would be nice. (The Unicode tables I see only show the code points, not their UTF-8 encodings.)

[cjameshuff]

Agreed. I have the same problem here, and I'm running Linux on a Sony Vaio laptop. Some way to enter the hex for an arbitrary Unicode character and have it turned into UTF-8 would be nice. (The Unicode tables I see only show the code points, not their UTF-8 encodings.)

If you've got Ruby installed, run interactive Ruby (irb or pry) and use .chr():

Code: [Select]

pry(main)> 0x3A9.chr('UTF-8')
=> "Ω"

[grmcdorman]

There are two applications you can try that may help:

• AllChars - http://allchars.zwolnet.com/introduction.html (I have used this myself)
• FreeCompose - http://code.google.com/p/freecompose/ (Have not tried this one at all)

Both let you enter characters via mnemonic sequences instead of those blasted numeric values. For example, æ (ligature) would be <key>, A, E in AllChars; Δ is <key>, g, D (where <key> is the configured compose key, e.g. the Menu key).

AllChars seems to mess up upper case when the compose sequence contains upper case, but fiddling with Shift and/or Caps Lock afterwards fixes it.

Here are some characters entered by AllChars:

Ω - Menu, g, W
ö - Menu, ", o
Δ - Menu, g, D

Unfortunately, both look pretty quiescent; AllChars was last updated in 2009, and FreeCompose in 2011.

On Linux/Unix, the compose sequences are standard, although they may need to be enabled via configuration.

Bob B., can you try a different browser? IE, in particular, is notorious for doing its own thing with standards.

[Bob B.]

Bob B., can you try a different browser?

I fear change.

[grmcdorman]

I wouldn't suggest necessarily switching to a different browser; rather, to get an additional data point, see what Chrome or Firefox does. If they behave and IE doesn't, then I would blame IE.

[grmcdorman]

Let me try AllChars from IE 9: (9.0.8112)

AllChars:

ö
Ω
Δ

Alt+NumPad:
234: Û
235: Ù

[Bob B.]

I didn't realize it, but my work computer already has Chrome installed on it.

Using Chrome I get the exact same results as with Internet Explorer, that is, characters in the 1-255 range display properly, but those in the 900-series display different characters than the Greek letters I want.  For instance, 945, 946 & 947 should be lower case alpha, beta, gamma, but I get ▒ ▓ │

[Not Myself]

I didn't realize it, but my work computer already has Chrome installed on it.

Using Chrome I get the exact same results as with Internet Explorer, that is, characters in the 1-255 range display properly, but those in the 900-series display different characters than the Greek letters I want.  For instance, 945, 946 & 947 should be lower case alpha, beta, gamma, but I get ▒ ▓ │

If you take 945, 946, and 947 modulo 256, you get 177, 178, and 179.  And those three characters on Code Page-437 are what you got above, even though they have been translated to the corresponding encodings in UTF-8.

From the sources I've found, it looks like you either need some supplemental software, or the registry hack I linked to earlier, which will allow you to use both the CP-437 and the UTF-8 codes.

[Echnaton]

▒±▒▒▓│

I didn't realize it, but my work computer already has Chrome installed on it.

Using Chrome I get the exact same results as with Internet Explorer, that is, characters in the 1-255 range display properly, but those in the 900-series display different characters than the Greek letters I want.  For instance, 945, 946 & 947 should be lower case alpha, beta, gamma, but I get ▒ ▓ │

I get the same characters in Firefox and in MS Word.

[Echnaton]

For Firefox and Word I get

Alt 224 = α
Alt 225 = ß
Alt 228  = Σ
Alt 226 = Γ

ETA This is on Win XP.

[grmcdorman]

Windows 7, default settings, Firefox:

Alt 224 = Ó
Alt 225 = ß
Alt 228 = õ
Alt 226 = Ô
Alt 945 = ▒
Alt 946 = ▓
Alt 947 = │

I don't think that using the Alt-codes is a reliable (or easy-to-remember) way to enter these characters, especially as it depends on the system and browser character set.

I would suggest trying AllChars or FreeCompose.

To add: All of the above characters show up that way in the Quick Reply window.

I suspect that what may be happening for Bob B. is that something along the line is translating to Code Page 437, and then to UTF-8.

[grmcdorman]

Hmm. Wiki page on the Alt code has good information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt_code

It appears that, for three digits, the expected result is Code Page 437 if your system is using English, and Code Page 850 otherwise.

For four digits, with a leading 0 (e.g. 0161) the result is a character in the Windows-1252 character set.

The characters Bob B. wants do not exist in any of the above three character sets; all three are eight-bit character sets.

None of the references I can find mention anything about codes in the 900-range.