Convert those dastardly curly quotes to straight quotes on Windows?

He who is Anders D. Nygaard said on Sun, 15 Oct 2017 11:23:13 +0200:

I think very many people knew how to solve the problem. If only
the problem had been described, and not half an imagined solution.

This is a valid point that I didn't know what the problem was well enough
to ask for what turned out to be the *best* solution.

Bear in mind, I asked how to *convert* the digraphs to something visible
and we did solve that problem.

It just turned out that changing the font was even easier than converting
the digraphs.

So, you can fault me for asking for a solution and then finding the
solution and then testing other solutions and finding most of those others
failed but one of those other solutions was even easier than changing the
digraph, which was to change the font.

But you can't fault me for not knowing the answer before I asked the
question, since nobody knew the answer (it seems).

The good news is that we now know three things:
1. Changing the digraph works but isn't worth the effort because
2. Changing the font is even easier, yet
3. Changing the encoding never worked once (in all my tests).

I didn't know any of this when I asked the question originally.
Now we all know it so the Usenet tribal knowledge is working.

He who is Roger Blake said on Sat, 14 Oct 2017 22:29:41 -0000 (UTC):

... But life is probably too short
to learn all that Vi(m) can do, so by all means concentrate on getting
it to do just what you need or want.

That's for sure. I've been using vi, and then vim, for about 35 years and
have barely scratched the surface - I just use the parts that I need.
(Having used it for so long I don't even have to think about how the UI
works, it just comes naturally at this point.)

I'm glad people exist who realize the value of vi/vim/gvim where it pretty
much does whatever I need done on all platforms.

There's a learning curve to any text editor (e.g., Notepad++) but if the
text editor isn't on all the platforms, then the learning curve is three to
five times what it should be (given the three to five major consumer text
editing platforms).
1. Linux
2. Windows
3. MacOS
4. Android
5. iOS

The solution turned out to be as simple as changing the font.

In message , harry newton
writes:
[]
Me? I use "black" for the desktop because it uses the least
electricity.

(Why in quotes?) It uses the least for CRT monitors (and perhaps
plasmas, though I don't know of any of those being used for computer
monitor purposes); for most others, it doesn't make a _lot_ of
difference, unless they have adaptive backlighting, which is rare. (And
for a CRT monitor, the proportion of its total consumption due to beam
current isn't high; most of the power I think is in the heaters.
[]
What's wrong with black?

It's not that good for reading black text on.

[I don't insist on those precise values. I just tweak the colour
until it looks about right.]

I like black because the contrast is good and the electricity situation is,
I am told, the best for most types of displays (but not all, where white is
actually better electrically, for some display types).

I've never understood the fashion for using a picture as background.
That only guarantees that some parts of the screen will be readable
and others won't.

TV subtitlers have know for years the solution to that: use (e. g.)
light subtitles with a thin black border. (Though it's depressing how
often they don't use that solution!) Windows can have - from XP on, I
can't remember if earlier - "shadow" for the icon text on the desktop
icon text, which is legible against light or dark.

I think most people want to feel that they have *control* over their
environment,
yes ...
hence they go overboard on themes and screensavers and
backgrounds.

.... but not necessarily.

To each his/her own, but I don't consider changing the font or the color a
useful customization. Getting rid of Cortana? Now that's a useful
customization.
(-:

For other objects I use different colour settings to make it clearer
which window is which. For example, the window into which I'm now
typing is a bit yellower than the desktop, and beside it is my
programmer's editor that has white text on a blue background. But I
do try to ensure that there's not too much white on my screen,
because that's hard on the eyes.

Yes, I have cyan as the default window background.

Yep. I use red for any command window as admin, for example, so that it
stands out that it's admin.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/20/desktop.jpg

That sounds like a good idea. Have you figured out a way to make things
done with admin privilege come up in a different colour automatically,
or have you just changed the colour for one shortcut?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

This was before we knew that a laboratory rat, if experimented upon, will
develop cancer. [Quoted by] Anne ), 1997-1-29

In message , harry newton
writes:
He who is Anders D. Nygaard said on Sun, 15 Oct 2017 11:23:13 +0200:

I think very many people knew how to solve the problem. If only
the problem had been described, and not half an imagined solution.

This is a valid point that I didn't know what the problem was well enough
to ask for what turned out to be the *best* solution.

Bear in mind, I asked how to *convert* the digraphs to something visible
and we did solve that problem.

It just turned out that changing the font was even easier than converting
the digraphs.

So, you can fault me for asking for a solution and then finding the

He wasn't, he faulted you for presenting half an imagined solution.
Though indeed you did so with the best intentions (you thought you had a
solution).

solution and then testing other solutions and finding most of those others
failed but one of those other solutions was even easier than changing the
digraph, which was to change the font.

But you can't fault me for not knowing the answer before I asked the
question, since nobody knew the answer (it seems).
The good news is that we now know three things:
1. Changing the digraph works but isn't worth the effort because
2. Changing the font is even easier, yet

3. Changing the encoding never worked once (in all my tests).

That doesn't mean it wouldn't work if done properly.

I didn't know any of this when I asked the question originally.
Now we all know it so the Usenet tribal knowledge is working.

Yes, but it's a small subsection of the tribe - the one that uses vi
etcetera. I suspect more of us here use any one of the Notepad variants
- original, +, or ++ - even if it is (they are) only available on
Windows - than use vi etc. across all the platforms.

I'm glad you've got a solution that _does_ work for you (and presumably
across all the platforms you use it on - have you checked?).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

This was before we knew that a laboratory rat, if experimented upon, will
develop cancer. [Quoted by] Anne ), 1997-1-29

He who is J. P. Gilliver (John) said on Fri, 20 Oct 2017 20:48:06 +0100:

3. Changing the encoding never worked once (in all my tests).

That doesn't mean it wouldn't work if done properly.

The funny thing is that Mayayana is usually on the money as he doesn't
guess like some of the others do. So that's why I was surprised that none
of the encoding changes worked (remember, vi can change its encoding too,
as vi can do anything).

The net is that I'll just throw my hands up in the air and give up on the
encoding, as the technical discussion between Whiskers and Mayayana was too
deep for me to comprehend anyway.

So, I'll say two things that must be said together, which a
a. I don't understand (and will likely never understand) encoding, and,
b. My efforts to change the encoding were all for naught.

Luckily, the digraphs were easily changed within any given font, and the
font was even easier to change, so the solution didn't require
understanding of encoding.

He who is J. P. Gilliver (John) said on Fri, 20 Oct 2017 20:39:54 +0100:

What's wrong with black?

It's not that good for reading black text on.

Fair enough.

I'm sure someone has studied the best colors for screens and fonts, much
like they've studied highway fonts (e.g., Highway Gothic or Clearview).

For me, black on white, white on black, and white on red do the trick.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/20/desktop.jpg

If someone can show research showing better colors (sort of like how they
figured out that lime-yellow worked better than orange in low-visibility
high-speed conditions), then I'd be all ears and willing to change.

On 10/20/2017 2:58 PM, harry newton wrote:
He who is J. P. Gilliver (John) said on Fri, 20 Oct 2017 20:39:54 +0100:

What's wrong with black?

It's not that good for reading black text on.

Fair enough.

I'm sure someone has studied the best colors for screens and fonts, much
like they've studied highway fonts (e.g., Highway Gothic or Clearview).

For me, black on white, white on black, and white on red do the trick.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/20/desktop.jpg

If someone can show research showing better colors (sort of like how they
figured out that lime-yellow worked better than orange in low-visibility
high-speed conditions), then I'd be all ears and willing to change.

My programmer buddy stares at a screen all day every day, he finds white
or light colored text on a black screen much less straining for his eyes
than black on white.

On 10/20/2017 2:58 PM, harry newton wrote:
He who is J. P. Gilliver (John) said on Fri, 20 Oct 2017 20:39:54 +0100:

What's wrong with black?

It's not that good for reading black text on.

Fair enough.

I'm sure someone has studied the best colors for screens and fonts, much
like they've studied highway fonts (e.g., Highway Gothic or Clearview).

For me, black on white, white on black, and white on red do the trick.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/20/desktop.jpg

If someone can show research showing better colors (sort of like how they
figured out that lime-yellow worked better than orange in low-visibility
high-speed conditions), then I'd be all ears and willing to change.

I've seen summaries of actual studies showing that people with learning
disabilities are better able to read text when a light-blue transparency
is placed over the page...reasoning that something helpful to those with
a pathological condition might also improve legibility for those without
it, I have my computer set to display text as navy-on-cyan rather than
black-on-white....r

"harry newton" wrote

| The net is that I'll just throw my hands up in the air and give up on the
| encoding, as the technical discussion between Whiskers and Mayayana was
too
| deep for me to comprehend anyway.
|

Hopefully things will be fine. If you have any more trouble,
come back and reread the thread. It may be that the notable
issue you had was with fonts, but that only deals with the
rectangles. This screenshot you posted was due to GVim
rendering UTF-8 as ANSI:

http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/09/fix4.jpg

See the i, double arrows and upside down question
mark at the beginning? Now open Notepad. (Just for
a moment. You can go back to Vi, I promise.
Type some text. Save it and select UTF-8 format in
the SaveAs window. Now open the TXT file you saved.
Looks fine, right? Now open it in a hex editor. You'll
see those 3 characters at the beginning. EF BB BF.
Those are the unicode markers that tell an editor
it's a UTF-8-encoded file.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte-Order_Mark

They don't appear in Notepad because Notepad
recognizes those bytes as markers. They showed
in GVim because you were viewing a UTF-8-encoded
file as ANSI. (The byte markers are optional but
notepad writes them if you save as UTF-8.)
The funky characters were the UTF-8-specific
bytes. (Like the A with a caret and the euro
symbol.) The rectangles were connected with the
font.
The 3rd problem was that you happened to pick
perhaps the worst webpage online for screwed
up text. Much of the corruption showing in that
image is due to the author using "shy hyphen"
characters, which are rare and may be treated in
a number of ways, depending on the editor.

The further complication was that Whiskers doesn't
understand all this, but he uses Linux. If you look
up the issue for Linux you'll quickly find that the Linux
groupies have developed a popular "meme" that
goes like this: Windows codepages are outdated.
UTF-8 is modern and international. Linux is modern
and does things the right way. Windows doesn't.
Because Windows is bad and Linux is good.
The Linux fans are very proud of their modern,
politically correct approach. What they don't
understand is that since they speak English it means
nothing that Linux uses UTF-8. Their files don't have
the UTF-8 file marker. They're identical to ASCII or
ANSI files. If you download software for Linux in English
and open the text files you'll see that they're perfectly
compatible as Windows ASCII or ANSI files. It only
matters if you use a language that needs non-ASCII
characters.

Anyway, I won't get into another long explanation.
All the info is in this thread if anyone needs it. But
I mention it again because I suspect one of these
days you're going to open a file and say, "Darn it!
Wrong font again!" And the font solution is not going
to work next time.

In message , RH Draney
writes:
[]
I've seen summaries of actual studies showing that people with learning
disabilities are better able to read text when a light-blue
transparency is placed over the page...reasoning that something helpful
to those with a pathological condition might also improve legibility
for those without it, I have my computer set to display text as
navy-on-cyan rather than black-on-white....r

I seem to remember reading (a _long_ time ago) that cyan is more restful
than white, too. Anyway, I changed my default Windows background to cyan
then, and have kept it so since. I have left the foreground default as
black, though. (If you think about it, your light-blue transparency may
change the background to light blue [cyan], bit _won't_ _lighten_
anything that's black. [A subtractive filter can't add light.])
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I'm the oldest woman on primetime not baking cakes.
- Anne Robinson, RT 2015/8/15-21

In article ,
RH Draney wrote:

I've seen summaries of actual studies showing that people with learning
disabilities are better able to read text when a light-blue transparency
is placed over the page...reasoning that something helpful to those with
a pathological condition might also improve legibility for those without
it, I have my computer set to display text as navy-on-cyan rather than
black-on-white....r

However, another study showed that people retain more when the text is
hard to read.

-- Richard

harry newton (in lowercase):

I use "black" for the desktop because it uses the
least electricity. White for the command windows
because it's the most like paper.

LCDs amd CRTs differ from paper in three important
ways:

1. The former emit light whereas the latter re-
flects it.

2. Light from the former is harsh and (relative-
ly) coherent whereas than that from latter is
soft, highly diffuse, and linearly randomised
(in terms of phrase, just as a hall with good
acoustics randomises sound).

3. The former have much higher contrast.

If you care about your vision, use a light-on-dark
color scheme whenever possible (white on black may
be too contrasty) and make sure the average per-
ceived birghtless of your display is comparable to
that of its background. Never watch TV or work at
the computer in complete darkness (even in Midnight
Commander). There is little harm, however, in
watching movies via a projector, because its screen
is a source of diffuse reflected light and, when set
up correctly, occupies the larger portion of your
field of view.

Whereas the contrast of computer displays must be
tamed, that of paper must be enhanced. Shun poorly
printed books like the plague and prefer crisp black
print on immaculate white paper. Remember William
Morris:

When that excellent journal, the Westminster
Gazette, first came out, there was a discussion
on the advantages of its green paper, in which a
good deal of nonsense was talked. My friend, Mr.
Jacobi, being a practical printer, set these wise
men right, if they noticed his letter, as I fear
they did not, by pointing out that what they had
done was to lower the tone (not the moral tone)
of the paper, and that, therefore, in order to
make it as legible as ordinary black and white,
they should make their black blacker [Anton: and
the reader the lighting brighter] -- which of
course they do not do. You may depend upon it
that a gray page is very trying to the eyes.

I think most people want to feel that they have
*control* over their environment, hence they go
overboard on themes and screensavers and back-
grounds.

No, that is how the environment controls them by
wasting their time. Major Microsoft products lack
means of true customisation, of which the basic is
the ablitity to turn the heck off all the annoying
features that the designers have thought it wise and
kind to throw in the users's faces. If they hadn't
activated them by default, nobody would become aware
of them in the first place, proving the utter use-
lessness of those features. Examples:

1. Inclusion of an RTF editor into an e-mail
client.

2. inclusion of an HTML editor and viewer into an
e-mail client, and setting of HTML as the de-
fault format for ougoing mail. It wastes
traffic, produces ugly messages (because most
users are naturally clueless about both web
design and good style, and if they are not,
let them attach a beautifully typeset
PostScript file or an HTML page), introduces
vulnerabilities, and defeats the very cause of
e-mail as a universal and crossplatform way of
communication, because all good e-mail clients
operate on plain text.

3. sedning, by default, attachments in "RTF for-
mat" even if the body of the message is stan-
dard-abiding plain text. Even those defective
e-mail clients that (were forced to) support
HTML, cannot read those. Instead of removing
this function, or at least disabling it by de-
fault, MS keep publishing "knowledge base ar-
ticles" for every new version of Outlook with
instructions how to force it to do what it
ought to out of the box. The instructions are
complicated, offer three or so alternative
"solutions", that do not always work because
of some per-address internac cache that must
be reset in order for the changes to take ef-
fect.

4. the malevolently misnamed option to "remove
extra line breaks":

http://preview.tinyurl.com/nkvaqa4
(Give me back my Plain Text Line Breaks!)

5. Lack of proper quoting funcitonality, which in
the absence of threading (which is present in
Outlook somewhere, but I have neven seen any-
body use it and suppose it is deliverately
hidden or broken and the only feature off by
default) which leads to top-posting and the
creationg of such Outlook plugins as QuoteFix:

http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/outlook-quotefix/

6. Use of proportional font for plain-text mes-
sages do break the traditional means for con-
veying formatting, tables, and graphics by ar-
ramgement of characters on a rectangular grid.

Why do they all this? It think it is to contaminate
the ecosystem of free electronic communications
based on simple open protocols, and unlimately to
destroy it completely through incompatibility.

Another fine example is the deactivation of the
"Aero" interface in the later versions of Windows
Server (which blurs the windows of frozen programs,
(I think) draws ugly wide margins around windows,
and flashes windows at me while ALT-TABbing). To do
it you must download and install some extension
package from Microsoft. Whose sick mind might have
devised it? The correct approach is to install an
extension to enable that feature.

--
() ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
/\ http://preview.tinyurl.com/qcy6mjc [archived]

harry newton (in lowercase):

If someone can show research showing better colors
(sort of like how they figured out that lime-yel-
low worked better than orange in low-visibility
high-speed conditions), then I'd be all ears and
willing to change.

Try to pick some pleasant combination hence:

https://studiostyl.es/schemes

or generate one he

color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel/
(look for complimentary mode)

--
() ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
/\ http://preview.tinyurl.com/qcy6mjc [archived]

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| I seem to remember reading (a _long_ time ago) that cyan is more restful
| than white, too. Anyway, I changed my default Windows background to cyan
| then, and have kept it so since.

I've used a photo of a Summer sky, with cumulous
clouds, for many years. I'm not sure why. I think I
find the blue uplifting, the image cheery and spacious,
while at the same time it's not distracting. The uniquely
indiscernible depth of sky gives it a feeling of not being
restricted to a mere rectangle.

The popular method of choosing an interesting picture
seems a mistake to me. Details repeatedly catch my eye.
While a solid color feels trapped to me. But I think that all
depends on temperament. And I find that most people
are simply not sensitive to the effects of environment.
Most leave the desktop as it is and most use a monitor
that's oversaturated and too bright -- without ever
exploring their options.
In Win98 there was an advertising billboard on
the desktop. The Channel Bar. It had ads for things
like Disney that people were expected to click in order
to see more ads. Same scam Facebook uses today:
"We're not imposing corporate ads on you. We're helping
you find brands you want to be friends with."

What repeatedly surprised me was that people not
only didn't mind the billboard. Most people didn't
even notice it. If I mentioned it people didn't know
what I was talking about. If I asked whether someone
I was helping wanted it removed they usually had no
opinion. They hadn't looked at it sufficiently to register
what it was! Most people start their computer, write
an MS Word doc while hoping the thing doesn't crash,
then shut down. Desktop designing is not a high priority.

On 10/21/2017 7:31 AM, Anton Shepelev wrote:
harry newton (in lowercase):

I use "black" for the desktop because it uses the
least electricity. White for the command windows
because it's the most like paper.

LCDs amd CRTs differ from paper in three important
ways:

1. The former emit light whereas the latter re-
flects it.

2. Light from the former is harsh and (relative-
ly) coherent whereas than that from latter is
soft, highly diffuse, and linearly randomised
(in terms of phrase, just as a hall with good
acoustics randomises sound).

3. The former have much higher contrast.

If you care about your vision, use a light-on-dark
color scheme whenever possible (white on black may
be too contrasty) and make sure the average per-
ceived birghtless of your display is comparable to
that of its background. Never watch TV or work at
the computer in complete darkness (even in Midnight
Commander). There is little harm, however, in
watching movies via a projector, because its screen
is a source of diffuse reflected light and, when set
up correctly, occupies the larger portion of your
field of view.

Whereas the contrast of computer displays must be
tamed, that of paper must be enhanced. Shun poorly
printed books like the plague and prefer crisp black
print on immaculate white paper. Remember William
Morris:

When that excellent journal, the Westminster
Gazette, first came out, there was a discussion
on the advantages of its green paper, in which a
good deal of nonsense was talked. My friend, Mr.
Jacobi, being a practical printer, set these wise
men right, if they noticed his letter, as I fear
they did not, by pointing out that what they had
done was to lower the tone (not the moral tone)
of the paper, and that, therefore, in order to
make it as legible as ordinary black and white,
they should make their black blacker [Anton: and
the reader the lighting brighter] -- which of
course they do not do. You may depend upon it
that a gray page is very trying to the eyes.

I think most people want to feel that they have
*control* over their environment, hence they go
overboard on themes and screensavers and back-
grounds.

No, that is how the environment controls them by
wasting their time. Major Microsoft products lack
means of true customisation, of which the basic is
the ablitity to turn the heck off all the annoying
features that the designers have thought it wise and
kind to throw in the users's faces. If they hadn't
activated them by default, nobody would become aware
of them in the first place, proving the utter use-
lessness of those features. Examples:

1. Inclusion of an RTF editor into an e-mail
client.

2. inclusion of an HTML editor and viewer into an
e-mail client, and setting of HTML as the de-
fault format for ougoing mail. It wastes
traffic, produces ugly messages (because most
users are naturally clueless about both web
design and good style, and if they are not,
let them attach a beautifully typeset
PostScript file or an HTML page), introduces
vulnerabilities, and defeats the very cause of
e-mail as a universal and crossplatform way of
communication, because all good e-mail clients
operate on plain text.

3. sedning, by default, attachments in "RTF for-
mat" even if the body of the message is stan-
dard-abiding plain text. Even those defective
e-mail clients that (were forced to) support
HTML, cannot read those. Instead of removing
this function, or at least disabling it by de-
fault, MS keep publishing "knowledge base ar-
ticles" for every new version of Outlook with
instructions how to force it to do what it
ought to out of the box. The instructions are
complicated, offer three or so alternative
"solutions", that do not always work because
of some per-address internac cache that must
be reset in order for the changes to take ef-
fect.

4. the malevolently misnamed option to "remove
extra line breaks":

http://preview.tinyurl.com/nkvaqa4
(Give me back my Plain Text Line Breaks!)

5. Lack of proper quoting funcitonality, which in
the absence of threading (which is present in
Outlook somewhere, but I have neven seen any-
body use it and suppose it is deliverately
hidden or broken and the only feature off by
default) which leads to top-posting and the
creationg of such Outlook plugins as QuoteFix:

http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/outlook-quotefix/

6. Use of proportional font for plain-text mes-
sages do break the traditional means for con-
veying formatting, tables, and graphics by ar-
ramgement of characters on a rectangular grid.

Why do they all this? It think it is to contaminate
the ecosystem of free electronic communications
based on simple open protocols, and unlimately to
destroy it completely through incompatibility.

Another fine example is the deactivation of the
"Aero" interface in the later versions of Windows
Server (which blurs the windows of frozen programs,
(I think) draws ugly wide margins around windows,
and flashes windows at me while ALT-TABbing). To do
it you must download and install some extension
package from Microsoft. Whose sick mind might have
devised it? The correct approach is to install an
extension to enable that feature.



In my command line box I like Yellow on a black background, Seems easier
to read with poor vision and all.

Rene