UE help wrote:The Encoding Type control allows users to change the encoding used to display the active file. This does not actually affect the underlying content of the file. No conversion is done. This merely changes the encoding used to display the file in the editor.

Mofi wrote:Well, nearly nothing written in this paragraph is really correct which results in a big confusion of the users. It was not the first time that I needed to explain what the code page setting for active file is really for.

The display of the active file is not changed by selecting for a single byte encoded text file a different code page. For example for a non Unicode file with characters in code page Windows-1252, selecting code page 1251 does not change anything on display of the characters with a code value greater 127.

The font currently selected respectively the "script" selected for the font controls the display of the text. A message informs the user about
the requirement to change font or script of font to get the text displayed correct (or at least as expected).

Which code page is currently selected in status bar or in dialog View - Set Code Page has no effect on display of the text.

This is one point confusing users. What is code page selection dialog respectively the encoding type control in status bar for if the display
of the text is not changed?


The statement "No conversion is done." is also not correct in case of selecting one of the 4 Unicode options of the encoding type control in status bar. In this case the file is converted always from current encoding to selected Unicode encoding. This is indicated by the file change indication symbol on file tab.

But most users are not aware of the fact that the file is converted with selecting one of the four Unicode encodings as no message informs
the user about this conversion.


For an HTML and XHTML it is necessary to change after this silent conversion also the character set declaration in header as well as the encoding declaration of an XML file in first line. Most XML, HTML and XHTML writers do not know that in my experience simply because not knowing what below really means in their files:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252" />

My suggestions:

1. The user should be asked with a message box prompt if the file should be really converted if a file currently encoded
   
   • with one of the 4 Unicode encodings will be converted to a different Unicode encoding or to a single byte encoding, or
   • with 1 byte per character will be converted to a Unicode file
   after user selected a different encoding in status bar.
   
   Example for the message prompt:
   

   Code: Select all

   Should the file be converted from ... to ... ?
   
                    Yes     No

   For advanced users it would be good to have an option to suppress this message prompt.
   
2. If a conversion is done for a file syntax highlighted by a wordfile containing HTML_LANG or XML_LANG with any of the conversion commands in menu File - Conversions or on selecting a code page or a Unicode encoding in status bar, it would be good if a message prompt informs the user about the requirement to change charset respectively encoding declaration in header of the file. Of course this message prompt should not be displayed on conversion done from within an UE macro/script. And it must be possible for advanced users to suppress this message prompt in future.
   
   Example for the message:
   

   Code: Select all

   Conversion to ... done.
   
   The charset / encoding declaration in header of the file should
   be updated to match the new encoding of the characters in file.
   
                                 OK

3. The help text for Encoding Type on help page Status Bar should be improved and describe what this control is really for.
   
   Example for help text:
   

   UE help wrote:The Encoding Type control allows users to change the encoding used for the active file. This does not actually affect the underlying content of an ASCII/ANSI file (1 byte per character) as no conversion is done if just a different code page is selected for active file.
   
   The code page is important for an ASCII/ANSI file for right conversion of text in clipboard on paste and for conversion to a Unicode encoding.
   
   If this control is used and a new code page is selected that requires a different font and script for proper display a dialog will be displayed to prompt this change. A proper font and script can be set using Set Font and Set HEX/Column Mode Font in menu View.
   
   If UTF-8, UTF-16LE (little endian), UTF-16BE (big endian) or ASCII Escaped Unicode is selected from submenu Unicode, the file will be converted to the selected new Unicode encoding independent on current encoding of the file. A conversion is also done if the active file is a Unicode encoded file and a code page is selected from one of the non Unicode submenus.
   
   The character set (charset) or the encoding declaration in header of an HTML, XHTML or XML file should be adapted according to new code page or Unicode encoding.
   
   For details about text encoding look on power tip Working with Unicode in UltraEdit/UEStudio.