[users] Re: Saving files
In news:4bd30416.8070...@the-martin-byrd.net, RA Brown rabr...@the-martin-byrd.net typed: Manuel Barros wrote: Hello everybody. Dear user helpers, let's suppose that I use separate main files for odt and ods works and that I have been working on an xxx.ods file and then I have closed OOo application. If then I need to work on an xxx.odt file, when trying to open it, the files that will appear to be chosen will not be odt files but ods files, because ods was the type of file I have been working previously. Although I have separate files where I keep ods files and odt files, I think this happens because this is the philosophy of OOo itself, as I am not able to tell OOo writer to look for the odt main file when opening writer application. I think this is the problem that happens often with people who comes from Microsoft, because there you can inform Word program where to look for Word files. I know a little of OOo, and if someone tells me I am wrong and that there is a way to solve this matter, I would became a more happy user of OOo. Regards. Manuel Barros Hi Manuel, I am not quite sure what you asking here. OpenOffice.org as well as Word looks in the Documents folder for files. If your using a different location for different types of documents the you will have to 'browse for them each time. Under Tools Options Paths you can set the base directory that OpenOffice.org will start in when looking for documents to open. The easiest way I have found to open documents is go to the location and open it from there, as I have documents scattered across several folders on several disk. Hope this helps some. ps. Please start your own thread and not hijack someone else's. Andy Right: This needs to be a brand new thread! In any case, I think he's referring to opening Writer and then opening, say, an .ots file. It'll open in Calc instead of in Writer since it's a calc file, where Word would attempt to open an Excel file in Word. Twayne` - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.org
[users] Re: Saving files
Manuel Barros wrote: Hello everybody. Dear user helpers, let's suppose that I use separate main files for odt and ods works and that I have been working on an xxx.ods file and then I have closed OOo application. If then I need to work on an xxx.odt file, when trying to open it, the files that will appear to be chosen will not be odt files but ods files, because ods was the type of file I have been working previously. Although I have separate files where I keep ods files and odt files, I think this happens because this is the philosophy of OOo itself, as I am not able to tell OOo writer to look for the odt main file when opening writer application. I think this is the problem that happens often with people who comes from Microsoft, because there you can inform Word program where to look for Word files. I know a little of OOo, and if someone tells me I am wrong and that there is a way to solve this matter, I would became a more happy user of OOo. Regards. Manuel Barros -Mensagem original- De: Barbara Duprey [mailto:b...@onr.com] Enviada: sábado, 24 de Abril de 2010 01:29 Para: users@openoffice.org; gcur...@uwclub.net Assunto: Re: [users] Saving files george curran wrote: Sir, I have just converted my original Microsoft x-cel and word files to your open office system. Whilst the transfer was successful I note I can only access the files by checking on all files Can you advise in which format I can save the original x-cel and word docs so that I do not have to open everything to find a specific file. THANKS FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE G A CURRAN Hi, George. If the files were opened in OpenOffice.org, and saved using the normal Save option, they should still be in their Office formats. Normally, the Word files would have an extension of .doc or .docx, and the Excel files would be .xls or .xlsx. If you used File Save As, and told OOo to use its own format (the first one listed) they would now be .odt or .ods, respectively (always assuming that you have the automatic file extension option selected -- it should be). In the File Open dialog, you should be able to use the list box options to find the appropriate file type (for example, the Text documents types for Writer) and restrict the file list to the ones you want. It sounds as if you're letting Windows hide the file extensions for known file types; I'd recommend changing your folder options so they are shown, it might make things easier for you.. snipped I am positive this is what he is doing. Going off topic here, but I am curious as to why MS still has this antiquated file naming convention. I know it served a purpose at one time, but does it still? Michael -- http://www.education.man.org/ - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.org
[users] Re: Saving files
In news:cadf357f08ab49adb154be0a29ae6...@your01352a0c79, george curran gcur...@uwclub.net typed: Sir, I have just converted my original Microsoft x-cel and word files to your open office system. Whilst the transfer was successful I note I can only access the files by checking on all files Can you advise in which format I can save the original x-cel and word docs so that I do not have to open everything to find a specific file. THANKS FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE G A CURRAN What format are they saving in now? HTH, Twayne` - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.org
[users] Re: Saving Files with a colon in name
Harold Fuchs wrote: But this is exactly my point. It shouldn't be up to the program. The program shouldn't have to be able to handle it. The program shouldn't know. The program should just trap the error generated by the OS and tell the user what the OS said. Moving stuff from one OS to another is an issue but any decent migration guide will bring it to the implementer's attention. But the implementer is likely to be a user who has never read any decent migration guide, or has read it years ago, and doesn’t now recall anything about illegal characters. I agree that your belief that the program “shouldn’t know” is one way of looking at this problem. But the OpenOffice.org programming staff has chosen instead to permit only the minimal set of characters allowed in filenames on all systems on which OpenOffice.org runs, so that the user can be sure that whatever file they output should run on any system to which the file is transferred. The OpenOffice philosophy appears to be that OpenOffice ought to run almost exactly the same on every system, which means that of necessity that it must limit the characters allowed in filenames, which in effect means allowing only those characters allowed on the MS-Dos/Windows systems and perhaps even fewer characters. Many Linux users complaint about the Unicode BOM character, for example, though I don’t recall anyone ever complaining about this in a file name. Also some characters, while technically allowed on a Linux system, will break shell expansions, pipes, etc, etc. Samba has more limitations than does Linux which in most systems only disallows the “/” character and the NUL character. Many Linux users complaint about the Unicode BOM character, for example, though I don’t recall anyone ever complaining about this in a file name. I think it more helpful to a user to disallow characters that ought not be to be used because they sometimes cause problems, than to allow everything, as the numerous talks about this on the web indicates that applications producing files with illegal or problemical characters is something that comes up again and again. The problem especially occurs with networks that have mixed operating systems in their servers. And somehow these files with characters that are illegal on a particular system do get onto the drives, presumably through applications that follow your philosophy that applications ought not to know about such things. At least on most systems all file names are now in the Unicode character set which avoids many previous problems. Jim Allan - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [users] Re: Saving Files with a colon in name
I think that we are off topic here. I'm not getting a message that the file name is invalid. Rather, OOo gives me the message You cannot save in the URL location you specified. Please choose another location. This implies something completely different, in that OOo seems to think I'm specifying a location that is inaccessible or not understood. If that is not the intention of the message, then it should be changed to better reflex it's meaning. I'm trying too understand what's going that leads to that message. On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 8:52 AM, Jim Allan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Harold Fuchs wrote: But this is exactly my point. It shouldn't be up to the program. The program shouldn't have to be able to handle it. The program shouldn't know. The program should just trap the error generated by the OS and tell the user what the OS said. Moving stuff from one OS to another is an issue but any decent migration guide will bring it to the implementer's attention. But the implementer is likely to be a user who has never read any decent migration guide, or has read it years ago, and doesn't now recall anything about illegal characters. I agree that your belief that the program shouldn't know is one way of looking at this problem. But the OpenOffice.org programming staff has chosen instead to permit only the minimal set of characters allowed in filenames on all systems on which OpenOffice.org runs, so that the user can be sure that whatever file they output should run on any system to which the file is transferred. The OpenOffice philosophy appears to be that OpenOffice ought to run almost exactly the same on every system, which means that of necessity that it must limit the characters allowed in filenames, which in effect means allowing only those characters allowed on the MS-Dos/Windows systems and perhaps even fewer characters. Many Linux users complaint about the Unicode BOM character, for example, though I don't recall anyone ever complaining about this in a file name. Also some characters, while technically allowed on a Linux system, will break shell expansions, pipes, etc, etc. Samba has more limitations than does Linux which in most systems only disallows the / character and the NUL character. Many Linux users complaint about the Unicode BOM character, for example, though I don't recall anyone ever complaining about this in a file name. I think it more helpful to a user to disallow characters that ought not be to be used because they sometimes cause problems, than to allow everything, as the numerous talks about this on the web indicates that applications producing files with illegal or problemical characters is something that comes up again and again. The problem especially occurs with networks that have mixed operating systems in their servers. And somehow these files with characters that are illegal on a particular system do get onto the drives, presumably through applications that follow your philosophy that applications ought not to know about such things. At least on most systems all file names are now in the Unicode character set which avoids many previous problems. Jim Allan - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Government big enough to supply everything...is big enough to take everything you have. The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases --- Thomas Jefferson www.CampaignForLiberty.org
[users] Re: Saving Files with a colon in name
Grover Blue wrote: I think that we are off topic here. I'm not getting a message that the file name is invalid. Rather, OOo gives me the message You cannot save in the URL location you specified. Please choose another location. This implies something completely different, in that OOo seems to think I'm specifying a location that is inaccessible or not understood. If that is not the intention of the message, then it should be changed to better reflex it's meaning. I'm trying too understand what's going that leads to that message. Presumably OpenOffice.org thinks that the colon has its usual meaning of terminating a device name. As it does not find a device or folder with the name preceding the colon, it tells you that you cannot save to that location. Jim Allan - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [users] Re: Saving Files with a colon in name
Hey everyone, I love discussions like this very one. It always serves as a reminder to me that a community of any type (computers, family, friends, church members) all may have lots of things in common, but are still very unique and different in their own way. I also grow to appreciate that being a part of a community helps me to be a better 'something'. In the case of this discussion, it helps me to be a better computer user! As far as the error message goes. I have to agree with Harold, the OS should throw an error and the application should handle that error and/or display a relevant meaningful message to the user about what has gone wrong, or what the user(s) are doing wrong. As we all know, OOo runs on several OS's and there are several versions of OOo. That being said with each cycle of software release we hope OOo gets better. Same goes with the OS!! (Keep in mind, not all OS' are created equal) :-' If you send or receive a file and that file has illegal characters in the name when you try to use or manipulate that file, you should receive an error (Which you are). So that is a good first start. The OS throws the error and OO displays it. The message should be meaningful and help you resolve the issue. Which it sounds like it does, you know if you remove the colon then you resolve your issue. Now, since we know that the first statements are true about multi-platform, free software etc, etc. We really can not expect anything more out of the application. (A free application at that) I would suggest you revisit WHY (I may have missed this in the thread) you need the colon in the filename?? Can the desired goal/outcome be achieved in a different way? Shawn -Original Message- From: news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jim Allan Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2008 10:31 AM To: users@openoffice.org Subject: [users] Re: Saving Files with a colon in name Grover Blue wrote: I think that we are off topic here. I'm not getting a message that the file name is invalid. Rather, OOo gives me the message You cannot save in the URL location you specified. Please choose another location. This implies something completely different, in that OOo seems to think I'm specifying a location that is inaccessible or not understood. If that is not the intention of the message, then it should be changed to better reflex it's meaning. I'm trying too understand what's going that leads to that message. Presumably OpenOffice.org thinks that the colon has its usual meaning of terminating a device name. As it does not find a device or folder with the name preceding the colon, it tells you that you cannot save to that location. Jim Allan - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[users] Re: Saving Files with a colon in name
Brian Barker wrote: May I please rehearse an alternative viewpoint? One of the obvious needs for document files is their exchange between users, and users may have different platforms. If I save, say, an odt file on my system, I may wish to transmit it to you by some means. If, with your suggestion, I can use any file name that my operating system allows, it may transpire to be an illegal name under your system. We are not talking about migration here - at least as I understand that term: I merely want to be able to send you a document file and - especially if I am an ordinary user - I need to be able to do this without being troubled to know what your operating system may be, still less what its idiosyncrasies are. Under your proposed arrangement, if I send you a file and tell you what it is called, you may well have difficulty finding it. Either its name will be a problem for your operating system and it will be inaccessible, or perhaps its name will have been regularised in some unpredictable fashion for your system and it will no longer match what I tell you the file is called. In each case the ordinary user may be at least confused or even unable to find and use the document. On the other hand, if any application software capable of saving in this format lays down more restrictive rules for file naming than most operating systems and allows only names which will be acceptable to all or most operating systems, it will be possible for me to save a document and be confident that any user that can use the format will be able to use the file. I've no idea where OpenOffice stands on this issue. But I do know that one of its professed advantages is its availability for a range of platforms. I imagine the same goes for Open Document Format. Brian Barker You know, this leads me to recall one of my pet peeves against the kind of typical average joe users (many business or corporate or I am going to show you my powerpoint types fall into this) who have this misplaced belief that not trying to know even the basics of how to use a computer or their OS is perfectly okay. They are totally oblivious to the fact that it is common sense to know the important things about a machine they are using. One does not need to be an automobile engineer, but not knowing how to properly use and maintain his/her vehicle is just not wise. Regarding this problem of valid characters in filename, I have always discourages uses from using spaces in their filename. I think all of the present OSes handle those perfectly well, but one cannot be sure if an application will do so or not; that depends on the programmer who built that application. I recommend the rule of thumb: use alpha-numeric characters only (a-z, 0-9) and perhaps an underscore to separate words in the filename, and additionally a period for the extension. How hard can this be? Using basic common sense precautions prevents huge headaches later on. Coming back to your point of making the application warn the user, well that depends totally on the programmer. And if you ask me, trying to force programmers to do this is fighting a losing battle. Programmers are not known to follow best practices rigorously. In short, one just cannot replace users' common sense with programming best practices. regards. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[users] Re: Saving Files with a colon in name
H.S. wrote: Regarding this problem of valid characters in filename, I have always discourages uses from using spaces in their filename. I think all of the present OSes handle those perfectly well, but one cannot be sure if an application will do so or not; that depends on the programmer who built that application. I recommend the rule of thumb: use alpha-numeric characters only (a-z, 0-9) and perhaps an underscore to separate words in the filename, and additionally a period for the extension. How hard can this be? Would you recommend this to a ordinary Joe who just happens to be Chinese and mostly uses Chinese? Are not Chinese, and Gujarati, and even French and German normal languages? I agree with you about avoiding spaces and being careful, and testing anything you are doing that seems unusual, but one has little reason any more to be careful about perfectly normal characters in one’s language, if that language happens not to be English, and characters like “é” or “ö” are even “þ” or “ŵ” or “ŋ” or “ħ” are used. Since colon is normally forbidden, I tend to use the central dot character “·” between digits in time strings, that is, for example, to indicate that a file was created on September 16, 2008, at 14:22 by including “2008-08-16_14·22” in the name. Using basic common sense precautions prevents huge headaches later on. Yes. Coming back to your point of making the application warn the user, well that depends totally on the programmer. And if you ask me, trying to force programmers to do this is fighting a losing battle. Programmers are not known to follow best practices rigorously. In short, one just cannot replace users' common sense with programming best practices. But in this case the application did warn the user. But the user did not understand the warning. This applied to programmers also, when they stumble across an error message. One of the last things even experienced programmers often do is attempt to read and understand the error message. Jim Allan - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [users] Re: Saving Files with a colon in name
On 16/09/2008 04:06, Brian Barker wrote: At 23:44 15/09/2008 +0100, Harold Fuchs wrote: On 15/09/2008 22:10, Jim Allan wrote: Harold Fuchs wrote: Personally I think that the checking of a file name for legality is the job of the OS and not of the application but that's just me. You might think so, until you send a file to a system where the user can't read it, or vice versa. [...] But this is exactly my point. It shouldn't be up to the program. The program shouldn't have to be able to handle it. The program shouldn't know. The program should just trap the error generated by the OS and tell the user what the OS said. Moving stuff from one OS to another is an issue but any decent migration guide will bring it to the implementer's attention. May I please rehearse an alternative viewpoint? One of the obvious needs for document files is their exchange between users, and users may have different platforms. If I save, say, an odt file on my system, I may wish to transmit it to you by some means. If, with your suggestion, I can use any file name that my operating system allows, it may transpire to be an illegal name under your system. We are not talking about migration here - at least as I understand that term: I merely want to be able to send you a document file and - especially if I am an ordinary user - I need to be able to do this without being troubled to know what your operating system may be, still less what its idiosyncrasies are. Under your proposed arrangement, if I send you a file and tell you what it is called, you may well have difficulty finding it. Either its name will be a problem for your operating system and it will be inaccessible, or perhaps its name will have been regularised in some unpredictable fashion for your system and it will no longer match what I tell you the file is called. In each case the ordinary user may be at least confused or even unable to find and use the document. On the other hand, if any application software capable of saving in this format lays down more restrictive rules for file naming than most operating systems and allows only names which will be acceptable to all or most operating systems, it will be possible for me to save a document and be confident that any user that can use the format will be able to use the file. I've no idea where OpenOffice stands on this issue. But I do know that one of its professed advantages is its availability for a range of platforms. I imagine the same goes for Open Document Format. Brian Barker You make a good point. However, if every application adopted its own rules about what constitutes a legal file name you'd get the most horrible mess even within a single OS, let alone across OS's. Just as an example I could easily envisage OOo Writer not being able to process (or even find) a document saved, by MS Word because Word had allowed a file name that Writer can't handle, possibly even on the same computer. Letting the OS make these decisions at least protects the user from that sort of situation. Admittedly it doesn't solve the cross OS problem but I'm willing to bet that that's a much rarer case. In addition, putting the enforcement of naming rules in the OS makes it much easier when and if someone eventually defines a widely accepted standard for such things. Instead of having to certify/change a very large number of applications you'd only need to deal with a handful of OS's. -- Harold Fuchs London, England Please reply *only* to users@openoffice.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[users] Re: Saving Files with a colon in name
Jim Allan wrote: H.S. wrote: I recommend the rule of thumb: use alpha-numeric characters only (a-z, 0-9) and perhaps an underscore to separate words in the filename, and additionally a period for the extension. How hard can this be? Would you recommend this to a ordinary Joe who just happens to be Chinese and mostly uses Chinese? Are not Chinese, and Gujarati, and even French and German normal languages? Yes, but only if the unicode (utf8 or utf16 or others) text support has been polished and verified that it works in the OSes in their languages. Having said this, the reality is the operating systems have been predominantly ascii based. Their source code is predominantly ascii based (if you are a programmer, how many programs have you made which support unicode?). It is just not realistic to simply ignore that. Secondly, for a person who has *absolutely* no idea about any English characters and want to input strings to the operating system safely, I would suggest s/he not use any OS which is predominantly ASCII based. It would be better to use an OS created in his/her language. In my own view, unicode support is coming along quite well. But it is just not there yet so that I can recommend a Gujrati user to change his/her locale and simply forget all English s/he knows. Some European languages are much better supported, though. But if you translate the recommendation I made in my earlier post to a different language than English, it still hold! Please don't get me wrong, I know where you are coming from, but it is wishful thinking that ignoring the underlying realities of basic computer usage will not result in any problems. I agree with you about avoiding spaces and being careful, and testing anything you are doing that seems unusual, but one has little reason any more to be careful about perfectly normal characters in one’s language, if that language happens not to be English, and characters like “é” or “ö” are even “þ” or “ŵ” or “ŋ” or “ħ” are used. Here is where I will repeat that a users should first get comfortable with the limitations of their computer instead of continuing to use it in blissful ignorance. Some of the special characters should be avoided, no matter what language is being used. For any minimally competent computer user, this should be almost trivial to find out. Example of blissful ignorance: it is not uncommon to find users (usually in the business field or in teaching field) to make powerpoints and then call tech support complaining they are having problem with it. The cause? Their including of tens of photo at their max resolution as taken with their digital camera. So you see, there are two basic problems here: the user has no idea about basics of digital pictures and cameras and none about using powerpoint. And hey, lo and behold, it is the computer that fails to work! But in this case the application did warn the user. But the user did not understand the warning. This applied to programmers also, when they stumble across an error message. One of the last things even experienced programmers often do is attempt to read and understand the error message. It is a good thing the application warned the user. However, I think it is unrealistic to foresee every conceivable user mistake. The user has to shoulder some responsibility, after all. Do you have any idea how may users just yank a USB stick from their computers without removing them safely and then blame the computer for fscking it up? In any case, I see what you mean by the application throwing a useful warning. I am just trying to point out that there are all kinds of users out there and they may not even understand what a particular warning is about if they are completely computer-illiterate. The underlying problem is making people understand that they need to get some basic education about computer usage. Regards. Jim Allan - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[users] Re: Saving Files with a colon in name
On 09/16/2008 07:13 AM, Grover Blue wrote: I think that we are off topic here. I'm not getting a message that the file name is invalid. Rather, OOo gives me the message You cannot save in the URL location you specified. Please choose another location. This implies something completely different, in that OOo seems to think I'm specifying a location that is inaccessible or not understood. If that is not the intention of the message, then it should be changed to better reflex it's meaning. I'm trying too understand what's going that leads to that message. Using a simple SaveAs name of 'wally:21' In WinXP you will get the popup: wally:21 The above filename is invalid (OOo 2.4.1 StarOffice Writer 8/11) MS Word (2000) will give you: The Internet address 'wally:21.doc' is not valid. Type the correct address. MS Word (97) in Win2KPro SP4 (NTFS) will give you: The file name, location, or format 'wally:21.doc' is not valid. Type the file name and location in the correct format, such as c:\location\file name. So following the hint from the last; in OOo I _can_ save as c:\tempdir\wally and it saves as wally.odt in my c:\tempdir The following characters are invalid in file names Windows FAT32 and NTFS: ? * / \ :| In linux you will get no such popup as the name is valid for that OS and the file saves as wally:21.odt. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[users] Re: Saving Files with a colon in name
H.S. wrote: Yes, but only if the unicode (utf8 or utf16 or others) text support has been polished and verified that it works in the OSes in their languages. I would say that goes without saying. But people were computing in those languages, except for Gujarati, long before Unicode. Having said this, the reality is the operating systems have been predominantly ascii based. Their source code is predominantly ascii based (if you are a programmer, how many programs have you made which support unicode?). It is just not realistic to simply ignore that. Well, I suppose you could claim that even Unicode systems are ASCII based, since Unicode contains all the ASCII characters in the right order. But in fact even the earlier PCs already contained a full 512 characters in each character set. So did the earliest Macs. Pure 7-bit ASCII was already effectively dead by then, the Web killed it off almost entirely. That source code for traditional computer languages is traditionally ASCII based is true. But what has that to do with file names that don’t contain computer code in those languages? Secondly, for a person who has *absolutely* no idea about any English characters and want to input strings to the operating system safely, I would suggest s/he not use any OS which is predominantly ASCII based. It would be better to use an OS created in his/her language. So they aren’t supposed to use Linux, Macintosh, Windows, or Unix Solaris or Novell Unix? What should they use? Even in Japan those are the predominant operating systems? What should they use instead in Iraq and Iran? In any case, if someone is programming, say in Japanese, on some system using a legacy character set, then normally they will be creating files in this set, usually without difficulty, unless perhaps they are using Mojiko or perhaps G T Code. But Mojiko and G T Code are not normal character sets and aren’t supported by most computers in use in Japan. In my own view, unicode support is coming along quite well. But it is just not there yet so that I can recommend a Gujrati user to change his/her locale and simply forget all English s/he knows. Some European languages are much better supported, though. I never recommended this. That was my extreme example of an unusual script. However the language has a Wikipedia outlet at http://gu.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E0%AA%AE%E0%AB%81%E0%AA%96%E0%AA%AA%E0%AB%83%E0%AA%B7%E0%AB%8D%E0%AA%A0 and several newspapers on line. Obviously the language does work under Unicode well enough to allow this. If you suggest that those using Gujarati should create files (but not file names) in the Gujarati language, I would say that was bad advice. The problem characters are not Gujarati characters at all, but some of the basic ASCII characters. People who wish to do so can create Gujarati files with Gujarati file names right now, without difficulty, and transfer them to another Unicode system without a problem, as long as they avoid those same ASCII characters in the names. Even, then, they will probably have no problems if they stick to Linux. But if you translate the recommendation I made in my earlier post to a different language than English, it still hold! It may, because the dangerous characters are all ASCII characters and are therefore likely to be easily available in other languages, even those that don’t use Latin characters, as a holdover from earlier times and their use in programming languages. Please don't get me wrong, I know where you are coming from, but it is wishful thinking that ignoring the underlying realities of basic computer usage will not result in any problems. I never said that. No-one here has said that. But it is not wishful thinking to point out that a large number of minority languages have their own websites these days and that hardly anyone is having any problems with such characters as “þ” and “æ” and “ŵ”. Here is where I will repeat that a users should first get comfortable with the limitations of their computer instead of continuing to use it in blissful ignorance. Some of the special characters should be avoided, no matter what language is being used. Yes: avoid / ? \ : * | ' ^ # , ~ ` space, period except immediately before file extension, and any control character. That’s it. All of the above are not illegal on all systems, but they may be illegal on some operating systems or file systems or may be illegal in some utilities that may process files. Also, avoid producing file names which differ only in casing. That’s all. But in fact a file name like “$1.00.txt” will work fine on almost any system today (whether you include the quotes or don’t include them). In any case, I see what you mean by the application throwing a useful warning. I am just trying to point out that there are all kinds of users out there and they may not even understand what a particular warning is about if they are completely
[users] Re: Saving Files with a colon in name
Jim Allan wrote: H.S. wrote: Yes, but only if the unicode (utf8 or utf16 or others) text support has been polished and verified that it works in the OSes in their languages. I would say that goes without saying. But people were computing in those languages, except for Gujarati, long before Unicode. (1) Well, that case was covered when I said if those have been verified to work in which I don't see anything wrong in using that language, except when the user of that language is oblivious to the special characters to avoid. See, same reasoning holds here too. Having said this, the reality is the operating systems have been predominantly ascii based. Their source code is predominantly ascii based (if you are a programmer, how many programs have you made which support unicode?). It is just not realistic to simply ignore that. Well, I suppose you could claim that even Unicode systems are ASCII Given the context, I meant the ASCII based systems which do not understand non-ascii characters. based, since Unicode contains all the ASCII characters in the right order. But in fact even the earlier PCs already contained a full 512 characters in each character set. So did the earliest Macs. Pure 7-bit ASCII was already effectively dead by then, the Web killed it off almost entirely. That source code for traditional computer languages is traditionally ASCII based is true. But what has that to do with file names that don’t contain computer code in those languages? It is not the source code, as I said earlier that problem was the programmer not entertaining unicode support. The source code is only as smart as the programmer. Secondly, for a person who has *absolutely* no idea about any English characters and want to input strings to the operating system safely, I would suggest s/he not use any OS which is predominantly ASCII based. It would be better to use an OS created in his/her language. So they aren’t supposed to use Linux, Macintosh, Windows, or Unix Solaris or Novell Unix? What should they use? Even in Japan those are the predominant operating systems? What should they use instead in Iraq and Iran? I don't see why you are writing this. See (1) above. If they can use any system which supports their language, that's great, but they *still* need to be familiar with the singularities in its use. That is the point I am trying to make: whatever language you use, you still need to get basic education on a computer's usage. This is quite independent of the language of use. In my own view, unicode support is coming along quite well. But it is just not there yet so that I can recommend a Gujrati user to change his/her locale and simply forget all English s/he knows. Some European languages are much better supported, though. I never recommended this. That was my extreme example of an unusual But this is a very real example. There is a huge population of Gujrati speaking people in Indian (and some in Pakistan). To *you* it may sound extreme, but to a Gujrati user, who doesn't have any clue about the underlying system, it is not an extreme example. He would be baffled when the system behaves unexpected (to him) while trying to use Gurjrati characters in filenames. Which brings me back to my original point: if the user were already aware of this, he would use suitable precautions, perhaps mixing English with Gujrati. But the user *has to* know basics of the machine he is using, no matter what language he is trying to use. script. However the language has a Wikipedia outlet at http://gu.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E0%AA%AE%E0%AB%81%E0%AA%96%E0%AA%AA%E0%AB%83%E0%AA%B7%E0%AB%8D%E0%AA%A0 I told you, there is a huge number of Gurjartis in this world. and several newspapers on line. Obviously the language does work under Unicode well enough to allow this. If you suggest that those using You are missing the point. Out of all those online document, please point to even a single one which has Gujrati characters in its filename. I don't think you will find any. Why? Because the web page creator was aware of the limitations of the system and knew Gujrati characters will not be entertained in the URLS yet. This is not surprising. This is just validating my original point -- the content is Gujrati, the filename isn't, because the creator was ware of the systems limitations unlike average joe ignorant user. Gujarati should create files (but not file names) in the Gujarati language, I would say that was bad advice. The problem characters are not Gujarati characters at all, but some of the basic ASCII characters. But this knowledge is not known a priori. A new user should find out and verify which ones are okay. This is true in general. People who wish to do so can create Gujarati files with Gujarati file names right now, without difficulty, and transfer them to another Unicode system without a problem, as long as they avoid those same ASCII characters in the names.
Re: [users] Re: Saving Files with a colon in name
On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 14:44, H.S. wrote: You are missing the point. Out of all those online document, please point to even a single one which has Gujrati characters in its filename. AFAIK, મુખપૃષ્ઠ is a Gujurati word. The word મુખપૃષ્ઠ is part of the file name of the page http://gu.wiktionary.org/wiki/મુખપૃષ્ઠ; Whether or not your browser will correctly render that page is a different issue. Because the web page creator was aware of the limitations of the system and knew Gujrati characters will not be entertained in the URLS yet. I can't read Gujurati, so I don't know when the first URLs containing Gujurati were created. However, I was reading web pages whose URLs contained Chinese glyphs back in 1999. I ditched all of my 阿妹 links a couple of months ago, otherwise I'd supply URLs where the only thing that uses the Latin writing system is http. (Even the TDL was a Chinese character.) because the creator was ware of the systems limitations unlike average joe ignorant user. That would true, if, and only if the website creator is deliberately designing a website that works with broken web browsers that ignore all web standards. Note that their URL is still only those limited set of ascii characters! That hasn't been true for at least a decade, and probably longer. xan jonathon
[users] Re: Saving Files with a colon in name
jonathon wrote: On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 14:44, H.S. wrote: You are missing the point. Out of all those online document, please point to even a single one which has Gujrati characters in its filename. AFAIK, મુખપૃષ્ઠ is a Gujurati word. The word મુખપૃષ્ઠ is part of the file name of the page http://gu.wiktionary.org/wiki/મુખપૃષ્ઠ; Aha! I stand corrected. Last time I tried to use unicode in a URL, it didn't work. Whether or not your browser will correctly render that page is a different issue. Because the web page creator was aware of the limitations of the system and knew Gujrati characters will not be entertained in the URLS yet. I can't read Gujurati, so I don't know when the first URLs containing Gujurati were created. However, I was reading web pages whose URLs contained Chinese glyphs back in 1999. I ditched all of my 阿妹 links a couple of months ago, otherwise I'd supply URLs where the only thing that uses the Latin writing system is http. (Even the TDL was a Chinese character.) because the creator was ware of the systems limitations unlike average joe ignorant user. That would true, if, and only if the website creator is deliberately designing a website that works with broken web browsers that ignore all web standards. Note that their URL is still only those limited set of ascii characters! That hasn't been true for at least a decade, and probably longer. Ah, right. I think I missed making the distinction between the filename and the top level domain. My bad. The filenames should work, but domain names do not, at least not yet. Perhaps there's been progress, but I haven't checked that in ages. In any case, glad to know this is coming along nicely. Still, it doesn't absolve a computer user from knowing practical limitations of a machine and using common sense precautions. Invalid characters in filenames are only part of the symptoms, there is a whole bunch of other bad practices that should be avoided (I have given some examples in my earlier posts, they were real examples!) Regards. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [users] Re: Saving Files with a colon in name
On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 20:56, H.S. wrote: I ditched all of my 阿妹 links a couple of months ago, otherwise I'd supply URLs where the only thing that uses the Latin writing system is http. (Even the TDL was a Chinese character.) The filenames should work, but domain names do not, at least not yet. Perhaps there's been progress, but I haven't checked that in ages. Paraphrasing what I wrote, domain names do not have to contain glyphs that use the Latin Writing System. There are Top Level Domains that use Chinese characters. xan jonathon
