Re: Copy/Paste problems when contains non-ascii characters

[Jay Smith <jay at JaySmith dot com>]

Hi Harold,

Thanks for your input.  Either I don't understand all of what you are 
saying or you don't understand the problem -- though Windows 95 is always a 
problem. :-)

I *can* copy/paste from Linux Mozilla 1.4 to Windows 95.  That is okay.

What I *can't* do is copy/paste within Linux Mozilla 1.4 (running in X, 
when the copy contains European characters....)

When I was using Linux Mozilla 1.2, the paste truncated immediately before 
the European character.  Now, under Linux Mozilla 1.4, the paste is null 
(nothing pastes).

I was doing this all the time under Linux Mozilla 1.2 (since about February 
2003) without any problem (other than the darn truncation).  No crashes or 
other problems of that nature.

Regarding getting off Windows 95 you are quite right, however, the 
economics are not as you assume.  What it really means is a) also replacing 
all the workstations (these are Pentium 200 or 300 machines); b) switching 
to Linux *IF* Linux could get its productivity apps up to a productive 
level (I don't mind twiddling around with them, but I certainly can't have 
my staff -- who are lucky to find the "on" button) dealing the the Linux 
problems I have to deal with every day; c) finding, replacing, configuring, 
and learning software for the roughly 30 (thirty) apps we run.  Even if we 
stayed with Windows (going to 2000 Professional probably), just replacing 
the apps would cost $3000+ per seat and the machines around $1500 per seat. 
In a small company like mine, a conversion like this could put us out of 
business if we are not careful.  A week out of business is close to our 
annual profit.  Thus we hang on until we really have to make the switch. 
Hopefully Linux will get there (but the bugs I have encountered in only 2 
days of use of Mozilla 1.4 make me wonder.....)

Jay

Harold L Hunt II said the following on 10/12/2003 07:24 PM:
> Jay,
>
> Your problem is that you are using Windows 95, which does not natively 
> support unicode text.  There is support in Cygwin/XFree86 for converting 
> characters to unicode and back, but it only works on NT-based platforms 
> (NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003).
>
> The Microsoft Layer for Unicode on Windows 95/98/Me Systems should allow 
> the support to work properly, but we would have to change the unicode 
> support detection slightly for this to take effect.  Have you installed 
> the unicode support for Windows 95?  More information and a link to 
> download are here:
>
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/devnotes/winprog/microsoft_layer_for_unicode_on_windows_95_98_me_systems.asp 
>
>
> Or, the tiny url to the same thing:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/qo9n
>
>
> Hmm... just did some more checking... using the Layer for Unicode 
> support will not be trivial.  Kensuke may be interested in it as an 
> alternative to using libiconv on Windows 95/98/Me.
>
> As for why you text copying is truncated vs. not appearing at all, I 
> suspect that Mozilla 1.2.x to 1.4 changed the format of some clipboard 
> data from plain text to INCR.  But that would only make sense if you 
> have only tried this with the versions of XFree86-xserv that don't crash 
> when they see an INCR clipboard format.  If you didn't try this until 
> recently, then that would explain your problem.  You should at least be 
> thankful that XWin.exe doesn't core dump like it used to in these cases.
>
> In summary, your problem is known, it isn't trivial to solve, and the 
> change from Mozilla 1.2.x to 1.4 is due to a change that they made, not 
> something that we did.  Also, your issue is already known to be not an 
> issue on NT-based platforms, so the Microsoft answer to this problem 
> would be "The Cygwin/XFree86 has identified this to be a problem with 
> the products listed above.", with the idea being that they might fix it 
> or they might not, but perhaps you should consider upgrading to a more 
> recent version of Windows.  In other words, you are more likely to get 
> your problem fixed by spending $200 of your own money upgrading to 
> Windows XP, versus me spending $2000 of my time to cobble together a fix 
> for Windows 95/98/Me.  That's just being honest.
>
> Thanks for testing,
>
> Harold
>
> Jay Smith wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > My copy/paste behavior in MOZILLA running on RedHat 8 LINUX has gone 
> > from bad to worse when I upgraded the Mozilla from 1.2.x to 1.4.
> >
> > Important: The Mozilla is LINUX Mozilla running on an RH8 server.  I 
> > am sitting at a Windows 95 PC, using Cygwin/XFree86 to run an X 
> > session on the PC.  I am sitting at a PC, not at a Linux box.  (Most 
> > people don't get this and thus reply using wrong assumptions.)
> >
> > WHEN RUNNING Linux Mozilla ON PC USING CYGWIN:
> >
> > (old) MOZ 1.2.x: When I copied text that contained a non-ascii typical 
> > European or Scandinavian character from an existing email and PASTED 
> > INTO A MOZILLA MAIL COMPOSE window, the text up to, but NOT including, 
> > the character would copy AND PASTE. That was bad, but at least you got 
> > something (the text before the character).
> >
> > (new) MOZ 1.4: However, now, if the copy contains such a character, 
> > NOTHING gets pasted into A MOZILLA MAIL COMPOSE window.  It changed 
> > from partial to nothing.
> >
> > I AM still able to paste full and properly into windows applications 
> > from Mozilla, including such common European and Scandinvian characters.
> >
> > Because there has been no change to the Cygwin installation on this PC, I
> > don't think the *change* in the problem is related to that.  However, 
> > the root of the problem seems to be related to Cygwin.
> >
> > By contrast, IF I AM WORKING DIRECTLY/PHYSICALLY ON THE LINUX SERVER:
> >
> > Mozilla 1.2.x or 1.4: I *CAN* fully and properly cut/paste the very 
> > same text.
> >
> > MY ENVIRONMENT IS:
> >
> > Server: Red Hat Linux 8
> >
> > Workstation: Windows 95 running Cygwin ....
> > (I think these are the version numbers of what I have installed; they 
> > were as of April 2003 and I don't think I have installed any new 
> > Cygwin stuff on this machine since then -- but I don't know how to 
> > find out what versions I am running. How do I?)
> >   XFree86-base     4.2.0-1
> >          -lib      4.2.0-5
> >          -xserv    4.2.0-28
> >          -xwinclip 4.2.0-8
> >
> > Jay

--
Jay Smith

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