Template talk:Contains special characters

Two comments:

• Strictly speaking, it's not the MSIE in itself, but only in combination with missing fonts or improper font settings. Without any font to render a specific char, also Mozilla or Opera will give up.
• The use of � "�" is misleading as it renders as "broken encoding glyph" in all browsers. The character that MSIE users see, when the character can not be displayed due to not being in the selected font, is the "missing character glyph", which is strictly speaking font dependant, but mostly an open rectangle. Perhaps using ௿ "௿" would be a better fit.

Pjacobi 21:04, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I made sure I didn't say "IE is crap and all character viewing problems are Microsoft's fault; death to Bill!", but I knew someone would complain anyway. OK, now I've put "not always display correctly". That is true. These characters do not always display correctly in IE (in the real world, they never display correctly in IE for the vast majority of people), and they will always display correctly in Firefox unless you do something to screw it up.

I was just being realistic.

I don't think � is misleading. In IE I get a box — the same box I see for the characters IE can't display at Pinyin. Your ௿ gives me a different, narrow box. In Mozilla, however, I get a question mark in a diamond with � and a normal question mark with your ௿ or with the characters Mozilla can't handle at Greek alphabet. I'll add a real question mark. Chameleon 21:35, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm normally on Moz 1.7 for surfing but I have MSIE5 installed for testing, and I can test with MSIE6 and Opera7 from another computer. My only concern, is to not confuse users even, which may be already be confused due to their broken display.

Now MSIE5 displays two question marks on the warning template, but open rectangle for polytonic Greek on Greek alphabet.

OTOH it seems U+0BFF was a bad choice in any case. Let's try to do it systematically, if there is a system in it

Code	Char	Moz1.7	MSIE5
�	�	diamond-?	?
஀	஀	?	box
Ϡ	Ϡ	sampi	box

But perhaps it depends on too many factors, and a more vague description is needed.

217.227.2.156 21:49, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC) Oops, logged out. That was me again --Pjacobi 22:01, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

---

This template is not really needed: the issue is not with the so-called "special characters", but rather with MSIE's broken implementation of characters the browser cannot display. Under no circumstances should people be told NOT to use the correct characters just to work around bugs in outdated software. My ¢2. {Ανάριον} 10:07, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I hate IE as much as you, but I tried to make my wording NPOV. I fear your changes will simply be reverted by someone who believes it is too anti-IE.

Nobody is being told not to use the correct characters just to work around bugs. Please don't interpret my template like that. Its entire purpose is to warn people (people consulting the article, rather than editors) about encoding problems they might come across. I think it does that well.

I'll tell you why I created the thing. The other day, someone asked me to write out the letters of the Greek alphabet for him. I told him it would be quicker if he just looked up the appropriate article on Wikipedia, and he did so. An hour later, I asked how it had gone, and he told me "ah, Wikipedia haven't done the article right. It's corrupted or something, with little boxes instead of letters." Then I remembered he had refused to install Firefox on his computer. It really annoyed me that hundreds of people must come to our articles, just like him, and decide that we have made a mistake and not put the proper characters in. I set him straight, telling him the problem was IE, but what about all the people I don't get to tell? I decided to create a template that would inform IE users that, if they saw little boxes, there was a reason for it. Then, if they don't care about seeing the symbols, they can just ignore them, at least knowing that it is not a screw-up on our side; if they do care about seeing the symbols, they are informed of a way around the problem.

I think this is essential. We desperately need this template until Internet Explorer users on Xp (the vast majority of people on the internet) can see our symbols "out of the box". Chameleon 11:07, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm going to revert:

• Calling IE "outdated" is just going to raise the ire of IE supporters. Let's keep cool. It is clear enough that IE is the main problem.
• Adding "௿" is not helpful. In IE, it displays a narrow box, which is not how obscure characters display in IE (they display a wider box). In Gecko-based browsers, it displays a question mark, which is already there.
• It is not true that installing a Unicode font helps. Windows comes with Arial Unicode MS. The problem is that this is not the default font, and that fact that IE can't deal with Unicode except when a Unicode font is used (unlike Mozilla, which makes the appropriate substitutions).

Chameleon 11:07, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Agreed with many points, but I still have to reword it.

Don't get me wrong: MSIE was a good browser once, but the fact its standards support has hardly been updated in the past six years has made it the new Netscape 4: a single browser holding back the entire web. I've slightly reworded it again, focus should be on the browser being the problem, not the characters.

And Arial Unicode MS does not come with Windows: this only comes with Microsoft Office. Unfortunately as you state MSIE is incapable of using Unicode fonts correctly, unlike Opera, Mozilla, Firething, etc.. {Ανάριον} 11:38, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

AFAIK the main MSIE problem is, that it doesn't try other fonts if the "normal" (selected by user, stylesheet, etc) font doesn't implement the character. Gecko browsers will try, and as a result you will sometimes see, that some rare latin characters (with underdot or underbar) are displayed from a different font.

For the concrete wording of the message, we should try to reproduce the "open box", as it is a very common display in MSIE. If ௿ doesn work, perhaps ଀ or Ϡ will.

Pjacobi 14:21, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)