Convert those dastardly curly quotes to straight quotes on Windows?

He who is Mayayana said on Mon, 9 Oct 2017 11:20:01 -0400:

| I've installed Notepad++ but I don't know anything about it yet.

It's a basic coding editor. Like Vim, it's primarily
designed to provide garden variety coding features,
like line numbers and syntax highlighting. But it's
solidly built and includes most extras you might want.
There's a dedicated menu just for encoding options.

As a decades-long freeware junkie expert, I know that the *cost* of
freeware is in two main places:

1. Finding the best
2. Learning how to use it

Like all freeware, this Notepad++ will only be worth #2 if it's also #1.

He who is Mayayana said on Mon, 9 Oct 2017 10:39:50 -0400:

Beats me. The site won't let me download without an account.
Are you really serious? You need to get a less obnoxious place to
store files.

I humbly apologize before you, in abject correction.
You're the first person to mention the problem, which I deplore.

Bear in mind that I'm a privacy junkie just like you are, and a freeware
junkie, so I *never* log into anything *ever* if I can help it.

Certainly I wouldn't require you do log in just to obtain the file!

In fact, I had just posted yesterday to alt.comp.freeware asking for the
*best* places to store files without needing any account on either side of
the equation (and taking into account the lack of javascript need).
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.comp.freeware/GHTGk6us-_g/ptB59Vx0CAAJ

Here's a repeat of that post - where I was just using one of the sites.
Please improve this list of:
Royalty-free images, audio, video, & registration-free file uploads
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
What are sources of royalty-free images?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Lost & Taken Textures
http://lostandtaken.com/gallery
Image After
http://www.imageafter.com/
Blue Vertigo
http://www.bluevertigo.com.ar/bluevertigo.htm
Morgue File
http://www.morguefile.com/
Bitt Box
http://www.bittbox.com/
Grunge Textures
http://www.grungetextures.com/
Texture King
http://www.textureking.com/
Texturez.com
http://texturez.com/
Openclipart
https://openclipart.org/
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
What are sources of royalty-free videos?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
IgniteMotion.com Free Motion Backgrounds
http://www.ignitemotion.com/
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
What are sources of royalty-free music?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org/legalmusicforvideos
Music for Video
http://music-for-video.com/
Vimeo Music Store (Creative Commons in addition to commercial)
http://vimeo.com/musicstore
YouTube Audio Library
https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
What are sources of registration-free image uploads?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Cube Upload
http://cubeupload.com
Post Image
http://postimage.io
Image Titan
http://www.imagetitan.com
We Take Pic
http://wetakepic.com
ImgUr
http://imgur.com
Bild.Me
http://bild.me
Tiny Pic
http://tinypic.com
File Convoy
http://fileconvoy.com
Share Photo
http://share.pho.to
Turbo Image Host
https://www.turboimagehost.com
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
What are sources of registration-free binary uploads?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Tiny Upload
https://tinyupload.com
File Dropper
http://www.filedropper.com/
Send Space
https://www.sendspace.com/
Upload Files
https://uploadfiles.io/
Files.FM
https://files.fm/
Zippy Share
http://www.zippyshare.com/
GeTT
http://ge.tt/
Drop Canvas
https://dropcanvas.com
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
What are sources of registration-free text uploads?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Paste EE
https://pastee.ee
Paste Bin
https://pastebin.com
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

"harry newton" wrote

| I think the whole UTF-8 direction is a bust.
| It's not about encoding (as far as I can tell), especially since GVIM
seems
| to handle any encoding simply by typing the encoding:
| :set encoding=cp1252 -- tells vim to use Windows-1252 character encoding
| :set coding=utf-8 -- tells vim to return to UTF-8 encoding.
|
| I think the entire encoding issue was a red herring.

Your Euro sign image looks fine, but that's ANSI text in
Gvim. Likewise, it's fine if you can convert the UTF-8 quotes
to 147/148 in ANSI. But what you're copying from online
is almost certainly not 147/148 but UTF-8. The image
you posted earlier is clearly a case of Gvim displaying UTF-8
as ANSI:

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

If you then switch the Vim encoding to UTF-8 that's
fine, but you'll then need to be aware it's a UTF-8
encoded file. We seem to be going in circles here.
As long as you've got what you need then I guess
it's OK. And the other 3 people using Gvim can also
benefit.

He who is harry newton said on Mon, 9 Oct 2017 18:59:59 +0000 (UTC):

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
What are sources of registration-free binary uploads?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Tiny Upload
https://tinyupload.com
File Dropper
http://www.filedropper.com/
Send Space
https://www.sendspace.com/
Upload Files
https://uploadfiles.io/
Files.FM
https://files.fm/
Zippy Share
http://www.zippyshare.com/
GeTT
http://ge.tt/
Drop Canvas
https://dropcanvas.com
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
What are sources of registration-free text uploads?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Paste EE
https://pastee.ee
Paste Bin
https://pastebin.com
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Mayayana,
If you let me know which of those you prefer, I'll move them to the top of
the list, again, as always, so that every action increases and leverages
the tribal knowledge of the group as a whole.

"harry newton" wrote

| Notice the first 3 weird marks in your VIM screenshot?
| Those are the UTF-8 marker characters, bytes EF BB BF,
| that tell the editor it's UTF-8. Vim doesn't see them.
| It's just rendering them as characters.
|
| How does that explain that it works when I change the font?
|
Two different things. your first picture shows Gvim trying
to render UTF-8 as ANSI. The boxes are only a font problem.
Your current picture shows you simply inserting ANSI characters
into ANSI text in GVim. Now try pasting some of that funky
webpage copy into that and see what happens.

"harry newton" wrote

| | I've installed Notepad++ but I don't know anything about it yet.

| Like all freeware, this Notepad++ will only be worth #2 if it's also #1.

It's very highly regarded by a lot of people. In my
limited usage it's very solid and stable. It loads a file
of any size instantly. But it's mainly a coding editor.
All those extras are not useful for plain text, like
writing a letter.

There's somewhat of a cult of people who love
keyboard, avoid mouse, and pick a favorite editor.
(Emacs and Vi on Linux, for instance.) Notepad++
gets very high marks *within that cult* because it
does keyboard in a standard way and also allows
coding. On the other hand, the keyboard cultists
are not necessarily coders. They're just hardnosed
keyboarders. For any kind of programming
code one wants something more dedicated. Notepad++
is just one of a hundred editors in that sense. It does
very limited syntax coloring of code and it has line
numbers. It claims to support oodles of languages.
They all do. It's easy to support oodles of languages
when all you do is colorcode keywords, strings, etc.

For example, such an editor will colorcode HTML tags
in an HTML file. That's handy. But no one in their right
mind would write HTML in such an editor because it
doesn't provide any specialized, HTML-specific
functionality.

Nevertheless, Notepad++ is lightweight, dependable,
and occasionally I find it useful. I use my own editor
for script and HTML. I use Visual Studio for programming.
And mostly I use Notepad. Because that's just what it is:
A quick, light notepad for plain text. I often have several
of them open, holding text snippets, urls, etc. I also like
to save webpages as plain text. So I'll select the text, paste
it into Notepad, add the URL, then save that as a TXT file.
Simple, easy to read, much smaller than the HTML file, and
no risky script to contend with. But Notepad doesn't do
things like global replace.
It sounds like you have what you want with Vim and have
no plans to change, so it's probably not worth spending time
with Notepad++.

"harry newton" wrote

Very handy list. Thanks. The sendspace site seems to be
functional and no-nonsense. Most of them I'm not familiar with.
I just don't want to have to enable script to download files
or view images. (The wetakepic site also works fine.) I can
also see imgur, postimg.org and pictr.com. I can't see images
on photobucket, tinypic, or flickr. And I know that Vimeo is
completely broken. Other than that I'm not sure. But
sendspace seems nice. Just clickt he link and a download
window comes up. No cookies. No script. No nothing.

He who is Mayayana said on Mon, 9 Oct 2017 15:19:14 -0400:

It sounds like you have what you want with Vim and have
no plans to change, so it's probably not worth spending time
with Notepad++.

This is probably true. Unless Notepad++ is light years ahead of what I can
do with GVIM, it probably won't be worth switching pure text editors.

That's the thing about freeware - the best is worth learning, where
anything else isn't. And the best is on all platforms, of course.

Apparently Notepad++ isn't available on Linux, which usually is the death
knell for freeware to not be cross platform.
https://itsfoss.com/notepad-alternatives-for-linux/

Some freeware, e.g., Irfanview, can surmount the cross-platform death
knell, but most can't.

Right now, I'm spending a *lot* of time learning the cross-platform
freeware video editor "Shotcut", which is much like vi in that it can do
everything - but in not the most intuitive of ways. Sigh.
https://www.shotcut.org/features/

(I wonder if all video editors, free or payware, are that way.)

In message , harry newton
writes:
He who is Mayayana said on Mon, 9 Oct 2017 11:20:01 -0400:

| I've installed Notepad++ but I don't know anything about it yet.
It's a basic coding editor. Like Vim, it's primarily
designed to provide garden variety coding features,
like line numbers and syntax highlighting. But it's
solidly built and includes most extras you might want.
There's a dedicated menu just for encoding options.

As a decades-long freeware junkie expert, I know that the *cost* of
freeware is in two main places:

1. Finding the best
2. Learning how to use it

Like all freeware, this Notepad++ will only be worth #2 if it's also #1.

But you've already decided, I think, that vi is best, therefore you're
not willing to give anything else any #2 (-:.

Incidentally: there's something very odd about some of your emails
(possibly this encoding you don't want to learn about (and which I don't
know much about). In the above email, the fifth word in the last line is
- with added spaces -

N o t e p a d + +

In some of your other emails, it isn't.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind. - Mahatma Gandhi
(according to the film Gandhi [1982])

He who is Mayayana said on Mon, 9 Oct 2017 15:24:12 -0400:

Very handy list. Thanks. The sendspace site seems to be
functional and no-nonsense.

Thanks. I moved it up to the top of the list.

I will test the list as time goes on, and I will add what people suggest,
but only 1 out of 10,000 people will suggest anything, so, I'm not
expecting a lot of edits.

Most of them I'm not familiar with.

With the exception of the image-upload sites, most of them I'm not familiar
with also. But having a clickable list that we can trust is not an
advertising ploy, is a good start for us to begin testing them and
reporting back on which are to be added, removed, or demoted to the lower
end of the list.

I just don't want to have to enable script to download files
or view images. (The wetakepic site also works fine.)

Yes. You've noticed that I moved from tinypic to wetakepic just for you in
posting of the screenshots in this thread!

I also moved wetakepic up higher in the list, although it's not on the top
because it is super slow to upload compared to others and it doesn't do
multiple pics easily as do the others and it doesn't seem to provide a
delete uri as do some of the others, etc., so it's on the bottom of the top
section now and tinypic is in the top of the bottom section (because it's
better than some, believe it or not).

Here are my tests which failed (so they're not on the list).
http://www.photobucket.com (BAD, requires login)
https://www.flickr.com (BAD, requires login)
http://imgsrc.ru (BAD, requires signup)
http://imageshack.us (BAD, requires signup)
https://www.supload.com (just failed)
http://freeimagehosting.net (Uses imgur URLs, only one pic at a time)
http://imgsafe.org (failed with various IP addresses so give up on this)
http://www.use.com (useless as you can't get a URL to the full size)
etc.

I can
also see imgur, postimg.org and pictr.com. I can't see images
on photobucket, tinypic, or flickr.

I've just moved them all lower, since you're one out of 10,000 so you speak
for the other 9,999 people!

Well, I didn't have "pictr.com" on my list, so you must have added that
yourself! Ah, I just tested pictr.com and it seems to be 99.9% the
*same* as wetakepic.com is. At least 99.9% of the GUI is exactly the same,
and since the GUI is unique, I "think" they're the same site.

The only difference I can see is that the URL to pictr.com results sucks:
https://pictr.com/images/2017/10/10/3f8b6595b23c6a47ecca4789d76c3dcd.jpg
versus
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/09/encodinge4275.jpg

And I know that Vimeo is
completely broken. Other than that I'm not sure. But
sendspace seems nice. Just clickt he link and a download
window comes up. No cookies. No script. No nothing.

At the moment, "sendspace" is in the top for registration-free binary
uploads.

This is an example of one of your emails where what I see is not what
you see.


In message , harry newton
writes:
He who is J. P. Gilliver (John) said on Mon, 9 Oct 2017 13:41:49 +-0100:

Does it accept the Alt-plus-NumPad method of entering characters (in
Windows)?

Check this screenshot out I just made for you!
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/09/digraphs.jpg

I know more now than I did yesterday, so I can say that this works in vi:
control +- q +- 147 == adds an opening curly quote unprintable character

I see the above line as (with spaces added by me):

c o n t r o l + - q + - 1 4 7 ...

I think you typed "control+q". I'm seeing "control+-q".

control +- q +- 148 == adds a closing curly quote unprintable character
See also: http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Entering_special_characters

Try this in Notepad first, to see how it works:
0. Ensure the Num Lock light is on.
1. Press _and hold down_ the Alt key.
2. Type some digits - on the numeric pad, _not_ the top row of keys.
3. Release the Alt key.
(It's a lot smoother than it sounds.)

In vi, this process of [Numlock]Alt +- {0,1,2,...9} didn't seem to do
anything differently than if I had used the top row of number keys.

That is, it typed in the numbers.

Did you hold down Alt while typing the numbers (e. g. 0215), releasing
it afterwards? Did you try it in NotePad (or more or less any other
Windows app. in which you can type text)?

If it really didn't work, then it sounds as if maybe Ctrl-Q in vi does
something like Alt in most other Windows app.s does.

Sad, I know, but I had actually memorised the codes for several
characters I used a lot: 0177 IIRR for plus-or-minus +ALE-, 0215 for
multiply +ANc-, 0176 and 0186 for degrees and raised o +ALA- +ALo-
(though I can never remember which is which), 230 for micro +A7w-.
(Note that a lot of those start with a zero, which _is_ needed.)

Although that was the text I typed, it isn't: as I typed it, I had the
plus-or-minus character after "plus-or-minus", but now it's been through
the system from me to you and back, I'm seeing "+ A L E -" (extra spaces
added by me) in its place. Similarly "+ A N c -" for the multiply sign,
and other variations (all starting with "+A" and ending with "-", with
two other characters in between). I know usenet is, strictly, a "pure
text" system, and I'm used to sometimes seeing characters above decimal
126 converted into something else - usually a single rectangle or a
character other than what the originator typed, and sometimes into a
string of two or three characters. But (until this thread) I've never
seen them turned into a string of _five_ characters.

Look at this, which I didn't know VIM could do until now!
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/09/digraphs.jpg

That's the same URL as above?!?

Typing the following digraphs all worked just fine in VIM:
control +- q +- 177 == resulted in a single +-/- (+ALE-) character
control +- q +- 215 == resulted in a multiply (+ANc-) character
control +- q +- 176 == resulted in a degree (+ALA-) character
control +- q +- 186 == resulted in an underscore-degree (+ALo-) character
control +- q +- 230 == resulted in a single ae (+AOY-) character
:digrapahs (will list all of them in vim)
The zero wasn't needed as is explained here in section 12:32

[This is fine if you _have_ a numeric pad. Since my default machine
is this netbook which doesn't, I now use Allchars which generates
them by two-character sequences that are fairly intuitive - +-- for
the plus-or-minus, "o for o umlaut +APY-, and so on.]

(That was a bit of a diversion - but I think qualifies as one of your
"best" freewares. There are lots - at least, several - utilities that
recast what is entered at the keyboard, mainly to allow addition of
characters not on the one you happen to have. IMO, Allchars is the best
- and takes very little time to learn, too.)
[]
The beauty of choosing the most well known of all command-line text editors
is that my choice can't be wrong since everyone has to compare to it.

I think you'll find that vi/emacs are far from "the most well known"
today. You, I, and a few other diehards know of them.
[]
See previous post, that just _perhaps_ you've got "muscle memory" for
some of the _in_efficiencies of vi? Not that I'm suggesting you change
- I was the same over Windows 98 (and still use XP in preference to
7).

Well, to support your point, I admit it's not intuitive that a search and
replace of a to b is the set of instructions:
:s/a/b
which means:
: = begin a command
s/ = search for
a = a
/b = and replace it with b

But those commands are run ten thousand times a year, so, it's not hard for
the muscles to remember them.

It's probably not hard for those familiar with other editors to learn
the sequences for those, as well - and without the necessity to keep
switching back and forth between two modes (I think you're calling them
edit and command), which overhead you've forgotten about as you're so
used to doing it.
[]
OK. You're the second person to chastise me for that; but I only belatedly
realized people were talking about Notepad+-+- which is nothing like Notepad.

I've installed Notepad+-+- to test.

What, Notepad plus minus plus minus? I don't know that one.
[]
I disagree. There will almost always be "canonical" software that does
a certain job
where *most* people will agree and *all* people will have heard of it such
that *every* competitor *must* compare against the canonical software.

My humble opinion is that if vi isn't in any given list of "canonical" text
editors, then it's not a list of canonical text editors.

Somewhat circular argument (-: ["If it doesn't contain my preferred
choice, it's not a valid list" - see the problem with that reasoning?]
[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind. - Mahatma Gandhi
(according to the film Gandhi [1982])

In message , harry newton
writes:
[]
SUMMARY:
I learned a new word today, which is "diagraphs", defined in VIM as:
:diagraphs http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/09/digraphs.jpg
[]
You haven't _quite_ learn it - check the spelling (-: [It's correct in
the URL, and you have got it right at least once in an earlier post.]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind. - Mahatma Gandhi
(according to the film Gandhi [1982])

He who is Mayayana said on Mon, 9 Oct 2017 15:06:19 -0400:

| How does that explain that it works when I change the font?
|
Two different things. your first picture shows Gvim trying
to render UTF-8 as ANSI. The boxes are only a font problem.
Your current picture shows you simply inserting ANSI characters
into ANSI text in GVim. Now try pasting some of that funky
webpage copy into that and see what happens.

I'm confused because the encoding test failed empirically and the
font-changing test worked empirically.

Here's my report on how I tested encoding, but failed:
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/09/curly_quotes.jpg

I don't understand encoding but I do know what doesn't work empirically.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/09/encoding.jpg

I had tried encoding loooooong ago, and I found encoding does nothing
(AFAICT).

Here's what I just tried:
1. I created an empty text file.
2. I checked the default encoding, which turned out to be "latin1".
:encoding
3. I pasted a problematic set of smartquote text from:
https://practicaltypography.com/stra...ly-quotes.html
Namely this section:
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/09/curly_quotes.jpg
4. I noted that, in vi, the curly quotes show up as black boxes.
5. I changed the vi encoding to cp1252
:set encoding=cp1252
6. Nothing changed, even though it said "translated".
7. I doublechecked the encoding and it was now cp1252
:encoding
8. So I gave up on encoding.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/09/encoding.jpg


For fonts, here's my initial test (from the OP), which works with Courier:

1. I created an empty text file.
2. I checked the default font which was "Fixedsys" (Regular, 9 point).
gvim: Edit Select font
:set guifont
Reported: guifont=Fixedsys:h9:cANSI:qDRAFT
3. I pasted a problematic set of smartquote text from:
https://practicaltypography.com/stra...ly-quotes.html
Namely this section:
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/09/curly_quotes.jpg
4. I noted that, in vi, the curly quotes show up as black boxes.
5. I changed the vi font to "courier new"
gvim: Edit Select font Courier New (Regular, 9 point).
:set guifont
Reported: guifont=Courier_New:h9:cANSI:qDRAFT
6. Bingo! Problem solved!
All the curly quotes now show up.

FAILS: Changing encoding from "latin1" to "cp1252".
WORKS: Changing font from "Fixedsys" to "Courier_New".

While I admit ignorance of encoding, I will only assert strongly that
changing the character encoding did nothing while just changing the font
fixed everything.

Why?
I do not know why.

On Mon, 9 Oct 2017 21:07:18 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , harry newton
writes:
He who is Mayayana said on Mon, 9 Oct 2017 11:20:01 -0400:

| I've installed Notepad++ but I don't know anything about it yet.
It's a basic coding editor. Like Vim, it's primarily
designed to provide garden variety coding features,
like line numbers and syntax highlighting. But it's
solidly built and includes most extras you might want.
There's a dedicated menu just for encoding options.

As a decades-long freeware junkie expert, I know that the *cost* of
freeware is in two main places:

1. Finding the best
2. Learning how to use it

Like all freeware, this Notepad++ will only be worth #2 if it's also #1.

But you've already decided, I think, that vi is best, therefore you're
not willing to give anything else any #2 (-:.

Incidentally: there's something very odd about some of your emails
(possibly this encoding you don't want to learn about (and which I don't
know much about). In the above email, the fifth word in the last line is
- with added spaces -

N o t e p a d + +

In some of your other emails, it isn't.


Emails? What emails here in a newsgroup? ;-)

Peter Moylan:

The other day I had to add a feature to my FTP
server where a list of users could be sorted by
username, or user type, or timestamp of last lo-
gin. To do the sort I used a Quicksort module that
I had written 21 years ago.

I can never get it right at the first attempt, but
when I do, I have to work around the worst case of
O(n^2). What is your partitioning scheme?

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