Convert those dastardly curly quotes to straight quotes on Windows?

In message , Anton
Shepelev writes:
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
(phase)
acoustics randomises sound).

3. The former have much higher contrast.
[]
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.
How big a portion (proportion?) does it have to be for it to be OK?
[]
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.

(As I've said in an earlier post - yes, most people do want to feel in
control, but no they don't necessarily go overboard with themes etc..)

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

I think we're wandering from the choice of foreground and background
colours, not that this thread isn't wandering magnificently! But to
address your points ...

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.

Certainly, having it available by default.

2. inclusion of an HTML editor and viewer into an

_Viewer_, I don't mind (as long as it can be set to "safe" HTML only, i.
e. not running scripts, etcetera).

e-mail client, and setting of HTML as the de-
fault format for ougoing mail. It wastes

Definitely agree there.
[]
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

And there.
[]
4. the malevolently misnamed option to "remove
extra line breaks":

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

Yes, it doesn't work properly, does it!

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

Please miss, I did (when I had to use Outlook) - though it doesn't half
make it difficult. [At least, I think I did.]

default) which leads to top-posting and the
creationg of such Outlook plugins as QuoteFix:

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

Ah, they managed to break that, I think from Outlook (Office) 2007 on.

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.

ASCII art (-:

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.

I think there may be a trace of that, but it's more a matter of not
understanding things than deliberate.

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 thought that was to reduce the processing load - Aero requires a
certain amount of processing overhead, which it can be argued isn't
justified on a machine whose main purpose is to be a server.

(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.

Sorry, are you objecting to Aero, or to the deactivation of it?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"... all your hard work in the hands of twelve people too stupid to get off jury
duty." CSI, 200x

J. P. Gilliver to Anton Shepelev:

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.

How big a portion (proportion?) does it have to be
for it to be OK?

I learn that by introspection. Watching a movie on
a screen 270 cm wide from a distance of 300 cm feels
just right to me, like a micro-IMAX. But bear in
mind that it is not the ratio alone that matters,
and a large absolute distance is beneficial in it-
self in relaxing the eye muscles, so do not try to
imitate this setup with a monitor.

Another fine example is the deactivation of the
"Aero" interface in the later versions of Win-
dows 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 in-
stall some extension package from Microsoft.
Whose sick mind might have devised it? The cor-
rect approach is to install an extension to en-
able that feature.

Sorry, are you objecting to Aero, or to the deac-
tivation of it?

In this paragraph, I object to the enablement of
Aero by default and to the requirement to download
and install additional software just to disable it.

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Rene Lamontagne:

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

My friend has recently developed a syntax-highliting
scheme based on my adivce to imitate on screen the
contrast of good printed text. He did so by compar-
ing the lightntess of the various font colors with
that of the background in the LAB color space. From
photography I know that printed text has a contrast
from about 9:1 to 15:1, whereas a pitch-black back-
ground produces the maximum contrast of which your
monitor is capable. It is orders of magnitude high-
er than the comfotalbe value.

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On 10/24/2017 2:14 PM, Anton Shepelev wrote:
Rene Lamontagne:

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

My friend has recently developed a syntax-highliting
scheme based on my adivce to imitate on screen the
contrast of good printed text. He did so by compar-
ing the lightntess of the various font colors with
that of the background in the LAB color space. From
photography I know that printed text has a contrast
from about 9:1 to 15:1, whereas a pitch-black back-
ground produces the maximum contrast of which your
monitor is capable. It is orders of magnitude high-
er than the comfotalbe value.

Care to post a link to an image?

Mike S to Anton Shepelev:

My friend has recently developed a syntax-highlit-
ing scheme based on my adivce to imitate on screen
the contrast of good printed text. He did so by
comparing the lightntess of the various font colors
with that of the background in the LAB color space.
From photography I know that printed text has a
contrast from about 9:1 to 15:1, whereas a pitch-
black background produces the maximum contrast of
which your monitor is capable. It is orders of mag-
nitude higher than the comfotalbe value.

Ask and it shall be given unto thee:

https://freeshell.de/~antonius/img_h..._S100_B100.png

Pay attention to the problem on Eternal-Septermber
that prevents propagation. It is not fixed yet.

By the way, 15:1 may be a low estimate because it
corresponds to only four steps.

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On 26/10/17 23:32, Anton Shepelev wrote:

Pay attention to the problem on Eternal-Septermber
that prevents propagation. It is not fixed yet.

I wondered about that. Yesterday I got only about 4 or 5 AUE articles.
Today their web site is back up, and I've received over 200 articles. I
don't know whether that includes the backlog.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

On 10/26/2017 5:32 AM, Anton Shepelev wrote:
Mike S to Anton Shepelev:

My friend has recently developed a syntax-highlit-
ing scheme based on my adivce to imitate on screen
the contrast of good printed text. He did so by
comparing the lightntess of the various font colors
with that of the background in the LAB color space.
From photography I know that printed text has a
contrast from about 9:1 to 15:1, whereas a pitch-
black background produces the maximum contrast of
which your monitor is capable. It is orders of mag-
nitude higher than the comfotalbe value.

Ask and it shall be given unto thee:

https://freeshell.de/~antonius/img_h..._S100_B100.png

Pay attention to the problem on Eternal-Septermber
that prevents propagation. It is not fixed yet.

By the way, 15:1 may be a low estimate because it
corresponds to only four steps.

that is very nice!

Peter Moylan to Anton Shepelev:

Pay attention to the problem on Eternal-
Septermber that prevents propagation. It is not
fixed yet.

I wondered about that. Yesterday I got only about
4 or 5 AUE articles. Today their web site is back
up, and I've received over 200 articles. I don't
know whether that includes the backlog.

Yes, it is. Nothing was lost.

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Mike S to Anton Shepelev:

https://freeshell.de/~antonius/img_h..._S100_B100.png

that is very nice!

You are free to recreate and use it. I hope you
know how to measure pixel colors in an image viewer.

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On 10/27/2017 1:42 PM, Anton Shepelev wrote:
Mike S to Anton Shepelev:

https://freeshell.de/~antonius/img_h..._S100_B100.png

that is very nice!

You are free to recreate and use it. I hope you
know how to measure pixel colors in an image viewer.

Thanks!

What editor do you like for javascript/PHP where this could be used?

He who is harry newton said on Sat, 7 Oct 2017 21:38:03 +0000 (UTC):

How can we convert those dastardly curly quotes to straight quotes on Windows?
http://i67.tinypic.com/2h5mjbr.jpg

I like to save into TEXT files on Windows technical information cut and
pasted from disjoint news articles where the unprintable curly quotes drive
me nuts!

Here is a screenshot of a sample cut and paste:
http://i67.tinypic.com/2h5mjbr.jpg

I tried cutting from the web and pasting into MS Word and then cutting from
MS Word and pasting into the text file - but the dastardly curly quotes
were still there.

I tried using Google Gmail, pasting into a composition window and then
hitting the "Tx" format text button, and even changing the font to some
other font, but the dastardly curly quotes were still there.

Since almost every technical web site uses the dastardly curly quotes, how
can I just get *rid* of them using a Windows method so that I can have a
text file that contains normal quotes?

Here's just one sample but the web is filled with dastardly curly quotes!
http://theverge.com/2017/10/6/16437790/iphone-8-swollen-battery-issue-apple-investigating

TESTED SOLUTION:
================================================== ========================
The vi "ga" command reports the following decimal values:
'9' apostrophe is decimal 146 (aka %d146) == replace with decimal 39 (')
'66' smartquote is decimal 147 (aka %d147) == replace with decimal 34 (")
'99' smartquote is decimal 148 (aka %d148) == replace with decimal 34 (")
================================================== ========================
To replace curly apostrophes with straight apostrophes on Windows
:%s/control+q+146/'/g
To replace curly quotes with straight quotes on Windows
:%s/[control+q+147,control+q+148]/"/g
================================================== ========================
ROUGH TRANSLATION:
: = command
% = for the entire file
s = search
/ = for
control+q = a non-keyboard value follows) - use control+v on Linux
146 = the non-keyboard decimal value for the '9' curly apostrophe
/ = then replace it with
' = the normal standard keyboard apostrophe
/g = and do that globally for all instances found
================================================== ========================
QED

Anton Shepelev:
https://freeshell.de/~antonius/img_h..._S100_B100.png

Mike S:
that is very nice!

Anton Shepelev:
You are free to recreate and use it. I hope
you know how to measure pixel colors in an image
viewer.

Mike S:
What editor do you like for javascript/PHP where
this could be used?

Pray take no umbrage, but *I* hate both and do not
consider them programming languages. That friend of
mine, however, has implemented that scheme for the
good and free programmer's editor Notepad++, which
no doubt has built-in support for these languages.
If you can and will use it, I will send you the
sytax file.

You may dumur the small set of different colours,
but that minimalism in intentional, for my friend
ackowledges only four categories:

1. background,
2. keywords,
3. comments,
4. and "code", which comprises the rest.

In his opinion any finer granularity creates noise
and harms readability.

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On 10/28/2017 4:18 AM, Anton Shepelev wrote:
snip
You may dumur the small set of different colours,
but that minimalism in intentional, for my friend
ackowledges only four categories:
1. background,
2. keywords,
3. comments,
4. and "code", which comprises the rest.
In his opinion any finer granularity creates noise
and harms readability.

I'd be very happy to have that, thank you for the generous offer, am
already using Notepad++. (My return email address in this group works.)

Best Regards,
Mike

Mike S:

I'd be very happy to have that, thank you for the
generous offer, am already using Notepad++. (My
return email address in this group works.)

Here you are (or here it is):

freeshell.de/~antonius/file_host/Nightfall.zip

The archive contains the scheme you saw in the
screenshot and a futher working draft of it.

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On 10/29/2017 1:50 PM, Anton Shepelev wrote:
Mike S:
I'd be very happy to have that, thank you for the
generous offer, am already using Notepad++. (My
return email address in this group works.)
Here you are (or here it is):
freeshell.de/~antonius/file_host/Nightfall.zip
The archive contains the scheme you saw in the
screenshot and a futher working draft of it.

got it, thx.