Subject: Re: your mail
From: Vlad Harchev (hvv@hippo.ru)
Date: Wed Nov 15 2000 - 12:38:53 CST
On Wed, 15 Nov 2000, Sam TH wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 15, 2000 at 08:57:27PM +0400, Vlad Harchev wrote:
>
> > As for smartquotes problem: analysis is very funny. (Following text applies
> > to ISO-8859-1 encoding, not any cyrillic one).
> > First, there are two sets of unicode symbols that are both "nice quotes":
> > (listed only left ones)
> >
> > 0xab:LEFT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK (aka "LEFT POINTING GUILLEMET")
> > 0x201c:LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK (aka "DOUBLE TURNED COMMA QUOTATION MARK")
> > Counterparts are 0xbb and 0x201d
> >
> > From the names, it's obvious that the symbol in fonts shipped with AW ('<<')
> > is better characterised as "LEFT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK"
> > rather than "DOUBLE TURNED COMMA QUOTATION MARK").
> >
> > While 0xab (0xbb) are present directly in charsets ISO8859-1 and cp1252
> > (windows encoding for latin1), 0x201c (0x201d) is not there, exactly:
> >
> > 1) libiconv's iconv maps 0x201c to '"'
> > 2) glibc's iconv can't map 0x201c to anything.
> >
> > State after that patch:
> > In first case (linking with libiconv) remapping to "nice" glyphs works
> > only when printing, the plain quotes are shown on the screen.
> > In second case, modifying remapGlyphsDefault (included in patch) makes "nice"
> > quotes to appear on screen and in printed version.
> >
> > I think that we should try to use 0xab and 0xbb instead of 0x201c/0x201d as
> > smartquotes. Does anyone knows why it wasn't chosen from first time? If there
> > was no reasonable reason for such choice, it may be wise idea to (try to)
> > switch to 0xab/0xbb as smartquotes.
> >
> > What do you think about all this?
>
> Using << and >> as quotation marks is not a solution. In the united
> states, where I believe a plurality of Abi users are from, such marks
> are practically unheard of.
When I started hacking AW, << and >> were used as smartquotes AFAIR. Also
I've just checked "bitstream charter" and "goth" - the fonts shipped with AW,
- they only contain "<<" and ">>", so you seem to be wrong.
> However, I believe the rest of the patch worked entirely as expected.
> All of the ? went away, and were replaced by the proper quotes.
> Therefore, the patch, with that one change, has been committed.
>
> However, didn't we used to display the curly quotes when smart quotes
> were enabled (prior to the current breakage)? This no longer occurs.
> I, however, may have been hallucinating when I remembered this.
I have a very strong impression that you have been hallucinating :)
> Bill, as the author, what should be happening here?
>
> Fix Smart Quotes bug. Does this actually restore the correct behvior? From Vlad, with changes by Sam.
What changes did you introduce?
PS: I'm going to sleep as usual, so I will be able to read and post in 12
hours.
Best regards,
-Vlad
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