Question regarding the conversion of special characters

[crsgrg]

Just a quick question before I buy the software:
How does WeBuilder/HTMLPad convert special characters? Does it use the "unicode entities" like this website (http://www.unicodetools.com/unicode/convert-to-html.php), or does it use the special html entities like ä for example?

Is there an option to have characters like Ā§$% converted as well?

[davenz]

If I insert a character from the 'Special Character' menu, like a copyright symbol, the software shows it as © in the code.

As far as converting symbols, I don't know sorry.

Dave.

[Cary]

It doesn't convert special characters. You can use character entities and all of the unicode characters supported by utf-8.

[Karlis]

There is a feature that allows to convert special characters to entities, however it works only with the pre-defined common entities, not with all of the alphabeths. You can try it, it is under the Edit menu.

[Guardian]

The 'conversion' feature works well for my needs (might be nice to see more characters in the future) however, if you have problems with 'invalid character' errors or characters not showing as they should when working with XML files, make sure you 'save as' and select UTF-8 - without BOM - I have found this cured my own problem

[Karlis]

Also advanced user may update the conversion feature by editing entities.ini file which defines which characters (char codes) are changed to what entities.

[syrupcore]

Also advanced user may update the conversion feature by editing entities.ini file which defines which characters (char codes) are changed to what entities.

and remember to manually back it up when upgrading/moving computers. Its not part of the "export settings" tool.

[Karlis]

Also advanced user may update the conversion feature by editing entities.ini file which defines which characters (char codes) are changed to what entities.

and remember to manually back it up when upgrading/moving computers. Its not part of the "export settings" tool.

Exactly, because it is a part of the program, not the settings, so it is kind of a way to change the program. In fact you can change a lot of things by editing some data files that ship with the editor. E.g. you can also customize auto-complete.

[syrupcore]

I wonder if a note about this should be added to the export settings dialog? "If you've changed any included ini files, please back these up manually".

Not to veer too far off topic but I think a few of these .ini type files could be saved with settings. I'm guessing the reason they're considered changing the program instead of changing settings is because they define how the software works and the team may need to update these periodically (which means users who continue to use their own will not be getting the updates). That said, certain things are not likely to change, namely the language def files. XHTML and CSS, for instance, are complete, right? I mean, at least to a specified version (css 2.1, html strick 4.0, ...) since they're based on published standards. I change these to suit my coding style and manually back up and replace them each time. It's great that I can change them and it's not a big deal to back them up manually but it does seem like an unneeded set of extra steps.

[davenz]

The only real danger, as you pointed out, is the fact that an update way wreck your files/changes. This happens with another piece of software I use and it is very tiresome having to manually replace the repalced versions of my ini files with my previously edited ones. The issue is that the new ini files may contain new functionality that we would then break by restoring older, user-modified versions of those files. Not an ideal situation for us, nor for the Blumentals team who would then worry about changing core files because it may break someone's customization. Perhaps what is needed is a 'tweaks' ini editor that allows us to easily change ini files and further 'expert' customizations. The files can then be merged instead of replaced if an update comes along. Getting complicated though...

Dave.

[Karlis]

The program files are not meant to be changed so this is not documented and neither this is an official feature, thus there are no warnings. This was meant more for hardcore geeks.

I have no statistics of how many of our users actually do change these data files. Maybe this should be turned into a feature? But then again I do not want to add weight by adding any interface to this "feature".