Support for UTF-8 encoded Unicode?

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kleist
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Jan 11, 2011 6:20 pm

Support for UTF-8 encoded Unicode?

Post by kleist »

I'm halfways through my evaluation period, and I'm very impressed indeed by Zeus as a developer's editor. However, I have some questions about the alleged support for UTF-8 encoded Unicode.

When opening an UTF-8 encoded Unicode file that has been written by Notepad with Zeus, everything seems ok.

But when I enter non-ascii characters with the keyboard (e.g. one of the Swedish characters "å ä ö Å Ä Ö", hopefully this forum is capable of displaying them, if not: "U+00E5, U+00E4, U+00F6, U+00C5, U+00C4, U+00D6) the glyph displayed is a question mark inside a standing rectangle.

The same thing happens if I copy/paste the characters, e.g. from the paragraph above, or from Notepad.

I create a new file in Zeus, enter "å ä ö Å Ä Ö", those glyphs become question marks inside rectangles the very instant I click the Save button in "Save As File" dialog (after having set UTF-8 as encoding).

Also: When entering the third non-ascii character, it seems to be rendered before the other two, with two spaces before it and one space after it.

I'm using 64 bit Windows 7. In the "Editor Options" dialog, no matter which font I choose (I prefer "Consolas").

Am I missing something? I'd hate to resort to UltraEdit, but at least it seems to have solid support for UTF-8.

Karl Johan Kleist, Berlin
jussij
Site Admin
Posts: 2650
Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2004 5:10 pm

Post by jussij »

Hi Karl,
I'm halfways through my evaluation period, and I'm very impressed indeed by Zeus as a developer's editor.

Thanks :)
However, I have some questions about the alleged support for UTF-8 encoded Unicode.

The Unicode changes to Zeus are only a few versions old so I am sure there are still issues with it :(

The difficulty for me is I don't get to see a lot of UTF-8 so I do rely on bug reports like this to notify me of these sorts of issues.
The same thing happens if I copy/paste the characters, e.g. from the paragraph above, or from Notepad.

The Unicode related bug report below seems to have broken the cut/copy and paste :(

http://www.zeusedit.com/zforum/viewtopic.php?t=3613

As a test could you please try the follow:
  1. Copy your current c:\program files\zeus folder to c:\program files\zeus397c
  2. Download this file: http://www.zeusedit.com/z300/ze397c.zip
  3. Unzip the file to the c:\program files\zeus397c folder
  4. Close all other Zeus applications and then run the zeus.exe found in the c:\program files\zeus397c folder
I suspect this older version will handle the copy and paste correctly, in which case I will obviously have to re-think the fix for the previously noted bug report :(
I create a new file in Zeus, enter " ", those glyphs become question marks inside rectangles the very instant I click the Save button in "Save As File" dialog (after having set UTF-8 as encoding).

Can you tell me what happens is you create a new file empty file and save it as UTF-8 or Unicode and then type into this newly created file. Do you still see the issue :?:

Also could you send me two sample files as an e-mail attachment (see mail button below).

Create the first file by typing in the Unicode characters from above into notepad and create the second file by typing in the same character in Zeus.
Also: When entering the third non-ascii character, it seems to be rendered before the other two, with two spaces before it and one space after it.

This sounds to me like a display or font issue :?

One limitation of Zeus is that it only works with true monospaced fonts and from what I have seen is that sometimes Unicode character input results in non-monospaced fonts being used to display the text.

For example if I was to enter Korean characters into Zeus using the Windows IME, the character would get displayed correctly in Zeus, but the resulting font that is used is not truly monospaced and as a result the Zeus cursor movement does not work correctly.

I'm using 64 bit Windows 7. In the "Editor Options" dialog, no matter which font I choose (I prefer "Consolas").
Am I missing something?
I am sure you have found a Zeus bug :(

But I will be more than happy to try an fix provided of course you are willing to help me with the testing ;)

Cheers Jussi
jussij
Site Admin
Posts: 2650
Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2004 5:10 pm

Post by jussij »

Hi Karl,

I have done some more testing with the copy and paste in the 3.97d version and think I can safely say it is well and truely broken :(

Would you mind trying the 3.97c test that I described earlier, since I am pretty sure that will work a lot better.

If it does, then I will roll back the changes that have now broken this 3.97d release.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers Jussi
kleist
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Jan 11, 2011 6:20 pm

Post by kleist »

> Can you tell me what happens is you create a new file empty file and save it as UTF-8 or Unicode and then type into this newly created file.

Using 3.97d (or 3.97c, for that matter), this also causes the question mark glyphs to be rendered.

As for the remark about non-true monospaced fonts, I'm pretty sure that Microsoft Consolas (part of Win7) is truely monospaced. And after all, the tab "Font Details" on the "Editor Options" dialog does filter the available fonts, and lists only "true" monospace fonts?
kleist
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Jan 11, 2011 6:20 pm

Post by kleist »

Sorry, I forgot: Pasting UTF-8 does work fine in 3.97c, as you suspected.
jussij
Site Admin
Posts: 2650
Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2004 5:10 pm

Post by jussij »

> Can you tell me what happens is you create a new file empty file and save it as UTF-8 or Unicode and then type into this newly created file.

Can you tell me how you are entering these Unicode characters :?:

Do you use the Windows IME utility?

Cheers Jussi
kleist
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Jan 11, 2011 6:20 pm

Post by kleist »

Jussi,

I'm using the normal Swedish keyboard, as selected from the "Language bar" in Windows 7.
jussij
Site Admin
Posts: 2650
Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2004 5:10 pm

Post by jussij »

I'll see if I can replicate this keyboard input issue at this end.

Cheers Jussi
jussij
Site Admin
Posts: 2650
Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2004 5:10 pm

Post by jussij »

There latest version of Zeus should fix these issues.

It can be found here: http://www.zeusedit.com/zforum/viewforum.php?f=6

What has changed in this beta:

1) The earlier breaking cut/copy/paste change was roll out.

2) The Zeus code that interfaces with Windows IME was modified to better support differing code pages. I'm hoping this will resolve the text input issues you where seeing with your Swedish keyboard configuration.

Cheer Jussi
Last edited by jussij on Mon Feb 07, 2011 1:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
kleist
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Jan 11, 2011 6:20 pm

Post by kleist »

Jussi, the latest beta seems indeed to handle text input in an UTF-8 document fine!
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