Correct Macintosh charset parameter?
Steve Webster
writes:
>If one was to send a text/* bodypart intended for display in
>the "Macintosh character set," what would they use as the value
>for the charset Content-Type parameter?
Ah, let me be more clear: the text being sent is encoded in the
Macintosh character set. What [nonstandard] charset tag is the
correct one to use to convey to the reader that this bodypart
contains text in the Macintosh charset?
(If I could convert it to ISO-x, I would; believe me.)
thanks,
-steve
Felix Ungman
writes:
>If one was to send a text/* bodypart intended for display in
>the "Macintosh character set," what would they use as the value
>for the charset Content-Type parameter?
As there's no such charset (to my knowledge), I suggest to use
charset=X-MacFoo, assuming your app is called MacFoo.
On the other hand, it's unfortunate that ISO-8859 <=> Apple ASCII
conversion will only be 90% correct. But if we use the charset
"apple-ascii" we're down to 50% (for non-mac recipients).
Suggestion (for you MIME gurus out there to think of):
Allow multiple charset text. One way is to extend text/enriched
to allow a charset command.
The text "<1/2-symbol> <apple-symbol> a day" could then be coded as:
"<charset=iso-8859-1>=BC <charset=apple-ascii>=F0<\charset> a day"
Comments?
Steve Webster
the "Macintosh character set," what would they use as the value
for the charset Content-Type parameter?
I'm scanned the FAQ for the answer; no joy.
thanks,
-steve
Roman Czyborra
> >the "Macintosh character set," what would they use as the value
> >for the charset Content-Type parameter?
Well, the official name for that charset in the internet community is
"macintosh" as listed in RFC 1345 and RFC 1340. However, most sites
currently do not have support for this in their mailcaps.
If you could find most of the special letters and symbols you are using
in the ISO-8859-1 charset, you should convert your messages to it
before sending them, try GNU recode -s mac:l1.
If you rely heavily on Apple's special symbols, the clean solution
will be to map to Unicode and use that for a charset as specified in
RFC 1642. But since there aren't any freely available tools to deal
with it yet this won't do you much good.
> (If I could convert it to ISO-x, I would; believe me.)
If I were in your shoes I'd label those texts with charset=macintosh
to produce some pressure on other sites to support it in their
mailcap. It would be relatively easy to add support for yet another
8bit-charset that is in such a wide use, I have IBM437 with its box
drawing symbols already in there, all I'd need now is a freely
available fixed-pitch macintosh font in bitmap distribution format.
Patrik Faltstrom
>As there's no such charset (to my knowledge), I suggest to use
>charset=X-MacFoo, assuming your app is called MacFoo.
Remember that on the Macintosh you will get different glyphs depending
on which font you use, so there is actually nothing called "Macintosh
Character set" exactly. BUT I have a vague memory that Apple lists their
character set when using the Helvetica font, and that is what is _the_
Macintosh characters. (Eric, do you have any comments on this?)
paf
Robert A. Rosenberg
There are two types of Mac Fonts (Text and Symbol). Text Fonts (which is
what we are talking about) all have the same character-set mapping (although
some of the characters may not exist in the font). The ""Macintosh Character
set" as we are talking about here is the ASCII Mapping Method from
ISO-Latin1 to the Mac characters. When you say Macintosh you are talking
about how the map the High-ASCII characters and thus you just need a Font
that contains the extra Latin1 characters in the correct location (The only
"missing" one would be the Apple Symbol [xF0] itself since the others are
just the accented characters or standard symbols).
John Delacour
Steve Webster <st...@z-code.com> wrote:
>Ah, let me be more clear: the text being sent is encoded in the
>Macintosh character set. What [nonstandard] charset tag is the
>correct one to use to convey to the reader that this bodypart
>contains text in the Macintosh charset?
>
>(If I could convert it to ISO-x, I would; believe me.)
Since you are using Macintosh, then you can presumably use Eudora and plug
in the EudoraTables to convert the macintosh characters to Latin-1 etc on
the fly. If you want to use Latin-2 or anthing else then it is easy to
create a customized converter in EudoraTables.
An alternative is to get the text-editor JoliWrite and create tables for
that.
John
Larry W. Virden
Recently metamail produced for me the msg:
This message contains non-ASCII text, but the iso-8859-1 font
has not yet been installed on this machine. What follows
may be partially unreadable, but the English (ASCII) parts
should still be readable.
while I was in trn reading news msgs. Can someone tell me what this is
all about? I am in an xterm - what specific font is it wanting that
it cannot find? How do I locate the font and get it installed?
Also, relating to the thread about Mac character sets. While reading
news one of the most annoying things that i encounter is that I often
find that folk have posted news using Mac specific characters that display
strangely outside of the Mac. Is there anything that can be done in a
newsreader such as trn so that one sees such characters as REAL ASCII
characters?
--
:s Great net resources sought...
:s Larry W. Virden INET: lvi...@cas.org
:s <URL:http://www.mps.ohio-state.edu/cgi-bin/hpp?lvirden_sig.html>
The task of an educator should be to irrigate the desert not clear the forest.
Steinar Bang
>> >If one was to send a text/* bodypart intended for display in
>> >the "Macintosh character set," what would they use as the value
>> >for the charset Content-Type parameter?
>> (If I could convert it to ISO-x, I would; believe me.)
RC> If I were in your shoes I'd label those texts with charset=macintosh
RC> to produce some pressure on other sites to support it in their
RC> mailcap.
It would never, *ever* get into my .mailcap. What I do in a situation
like that is flame the head of the poor person sending the mail to me.
Remember: always put the pressure where the pressure ought to be.
- Steinar
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