#3292: Manual doesn't mention all the problems related to UTF-8
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Reporter: vinc17 | Owner: pdmef
Type: defect | Status: new
Priority: major | Milestone:
Component: doc | Version:
Keywords: |
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The manual currently says (r5974):
{{{
If you happen to work with several character sets on a regular basis,
it's highly advisable to use Unicode and an UTF-8 locale.
}}}
There are other problems if Unicode (e.g. UTF-8 encoding) is not used. I
recall them:
* When replying to a message whose subject and/or author name contains
characters not representable in the locale's charset, these characters are
lost (even though they do not come from the user).
* Similarly, such characters from quoted material are also lost.
* Similarly, if the user forwards a message containing such characters,
these characters are lost (unless mime-forward is used, but the user may
want to avoid mime-forward for various reasons).
Note that these non-representable characters do ''not'' come from the
user, but from what is received. So, ''all'' users are potentially
concerned.
Also, it's important to mention the encoding used by the terminal: using
something like LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8" in one's .profile will ''not''
change it.
So, instead of the above sentence, the manual should say something like:
{{{
It's highly advisable to use Unicode, an UTF-8 locale and configure the
terminal with the UTF-8 encoding.
}}}
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Ticket URL: <http://dev.mutt.org/trac/ticket/3292>
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