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webhead Offline OP
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So I'm having a heck of a time here. Some of my buddies in IRC informed me that for the longest time, they've been getting all kinds of crap on their screens when I use any sort of character. Having quite frequently seen pitfalls of character encoding in web stuff, I naturally understand that it probably has something to do with the UTF character stuff. I went into the options and turned off "UTF-8 encode/decode message" in the options which did actually help...except for basically apostrophe/single quotes and double quotes. Oddly enough the accent mark works as well. Nothing I do seems to fix it. I spent a good 30 minutes searching this forum and on Google and I can't seem to find anything about it. I see a few topics on people trying to join channels with weird names and stuff but that's about it. My friend are using older versions of mIRC and can't be bothered to upgrade, but I'm curious WHY this is happening. Does anyone have any idea? Why would everything else get fixed while the apostrophes and quotes are still broken? It's mind boggling.

Here is an example of the stuff working and not working after the change (screenshot from my friend):
http://metalgearonline.multiservers.com/lolweb2.jpg

Is there any way to fix that or is it basically screwed now on the newer versions?

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Hoopy frood
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It's definitely an encoding issue. The new mIRC uses Unicode as it's the best encoding available (it handles all languages instead of just certain ones). As long as the other people are not still using code pages, they should have no trouble displaying the text correctly. mIRC has supported displaying Unicode for a long time.

Whether that is a code page issue or they (or you) are using a script that is doing some encoding or decoding of its own, it's hard to say from that little bit.

In short, the newest mIRC can send and display all Unicode fine without errors. This includes all languages. If someone can't be bothered to upgrade, then they are the ones with the problem and not you. They either need to upgrade or accept that not everything will display correctly. If you feel that you are the one who has to bend over backwards to make it display for them, then you can always use mIRC 6.35 instead. But it's really their job to upgrade.


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Hoopy frood
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Note that 6.35 users don't need to "upgrade" to be good internet citizens. Simply inform your friends to switch on the unicode encoding (Alt+O -> IRC -> Messages and Alt+V -> Fonts "display and encode"), since mIRC 6.17 onward can send and receive unicode text. They don't need to upgrade to 7.x to send text properly.

The issue here is that codepages are quickly becoming obsolete encodings. "Nobody" uses them anymore unless it's latin1 (the iso-8859-1 encoding) for random "mostly ascii" data. Even those people are switching over to utf-8. Note that when I say "nobody", I'm referring to all of the internet, not just the IRC world, which is a tiny drop in a huge ocean of people. Windows stopped using codepages for new software (though it still supports it, because let's be honest, Microsoft will be backwards compatible to 1995 forever), most other OS'es are doing the same. You're unlikely to find anybody using codepages for new stuff. Your friends can switch now, or they can be forced to switch in 5-10 years when no software will support codepages anymore. Doesn't really matter to me. But if they switch now, things will work a lot better for them.


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webhead Offline OP
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Well I've got part of my answer. One of my friends is using version 5.91 so...I'm guessing that's going to be a problem? Something must have changed between there and now obviously. What I don't get is how I was using the 6.x versions in the past without issue. o_O

Edit: And somehow this problem mysteriously fixed itself. I hadn't changed anything since the last time we talked about things being messed up and my apostrophes and double quotes show up fine now. I don't know...maybe closing and opening the program a few times did...something. Strange.

Last edited by webhead; 03/08/11 05:24 AM.
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Hoopy frood
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Keep in mind that there are straight quotes and single quotes and there are curly quotes and single quotes. One should always work fine no matter what version anyone is using and the other may not display on some setups.

'test' "test" vs. ‘test’ “test”

Note that all quotes and single quotes regardless of direction were done with the '/" key and not the `/~ key.

You can switch between them in mIRC using Ctrl-Shift-' . That may be how things changed for you without knowing that you did anything different and why it was only affecting quotes/single quotes.

As for using 5.91, that is over a decade old. There are MANY changes and fixes including security fixes since then. Using a version that old is just asking for trouble. If they won't upgrade, you shouldn't feel like you have to do anything special just so they can see what you type. It's there fault if they refuse to update.


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Originally Posted By: Riamus2
As for using 5.91, that is over a decade old. There are MANY changes and fixes including security fixes since then. Using a version that old is just asking for trouble. If they won't upgrade, you shouldn't feel like you have to do anything special just so they can see what you type. It's there fault if they refuse to update.

Very off-topic and not very helpful.. Why do most sites still support IE6.0? because at least someone uses it

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webhead Offline OP
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Originally Posted By: Riamus2
Keep in mind that there are straight quotes and single quotes and there are curly quotes and single quotes. One should always work fine no matter what version anyone is using and the other may not display on some setups.

'test' "test" vs. ‘test’ “test”

Note that all quotes and single quotes regardless of direction were done with the '/" key and not the `/~ key.

You can switch between them in mIRC using Ctrl-Shift-' . That may be how things changed for you without knowing that you did anything different and why it was only affecting quotes/single quotes.

As for using 5.91, that is over a decade old. There are MANY changes and fixes including security fixes since then. Using a version that old is just asking for trouble. If they won't upgrade, you shouldn't feel like you have to do anything special just so they can see what you type. It's there fault if they refuse to update.

Holy crap you're completely right. I'm not sure how I managed to hit that combination but there you have it. I sort of saw that it was doing that but wasn't sure why. I wonder if that happens in other windows programs too which would explain the frustrating copypasta-time I have from emails at work sometimes. :p

On the other point, I'm fairly sure you can guess why they're still using an older version. Older versions don't force you to upgrade after a certain point. I did actually pay for a license myself though. As for feeling like I have to do something...it's really more that I don't want my text to look messed up because they're all stubborn. I'm the less lazy one I guess. <_<

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Hoopy frood
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I've never really understood not wanting to pay $20 for a program you use regularly. It isn't all that much. And in any case, the forced purchase didn't happen until somewhere near 6.35 (I forget when exactly). They could update much further without that problem. smile

Anyhow, glad we figured out where the problem was coming from. As a note, you can also do accented characters in a similar way if you ever need them.

Anthing needing ’ over it, such as é, use Ctrl-' then let go and press a valid letter, such as e. For `, use Ctrl-` then press the letter. For something like ö, use Ctrl-: (Ctrl-Shift-;) and then press the letter. And for ^ over letters, Ctrl-^ (Ctrl-Shift-6) and then the letter. It's a nice, easy way to get accents for those who don't have those on their keyboards.


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Hoopy frood
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I think it's fine to mention that v5.91 is an old version in the context of this thread since it does not support UTF-8. Apart from that, anyone using an older version of mIRC may be open to remote exploits which means that their computer can be compromised with serious implications for them and others. So if an older version is mentioned in a thread, I usually point out that it should not be used for security reasons, regardless of the topic thread, and that users should upgrade to v6.35 or v7.19.

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In addition to what Khaled said, I think most sites "support" IE6 not because they are trying to support something that old, but because they simply aren't using newer things on their pages that aren't supported by IE6. I have a few sites and they don't use anything fancy on them besides Javascript. Chances are that IE5 could probably view them correctly. That doesn't mean I actually support it. And I just looked up browser stats. Only a little over 2% of users are using IE6 and that number has been falling all year. I don't think many companies are going to spend time and money trying to support something used by so few people. Even IE7 is under 5% right now.


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Closing Link: 0.0.0.0 (K-banned: [exp/comp] Compromised host on this IP. See http://www.dal.net/monitor.php?dnsbl=tc.b&ip=223.255.231.17 for more information. (2011/09/10 23.59))

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Hoopy frood
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** Create a new post rather than replying to a post that has nothing to do with what you are posting.

As to your paste, it gives you a link for more information. I suggest following the link. If you still need help, contact Dalnet. There should be an email link on their webpage. We can't do anything for you if you are banned. Only the network will be able to help you.


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