Posted on 01/07/2016 9:06:36 PM PST by Boomer
Just wondering if this is just on my computer or not. It has been going on for several months now.
I use Firefox on Win7. I couldn't find a tech support link.
So, i THINK if, when you create your post, you look at it in preview, if you see those weird characters, then just re-type over those letters that came out wrong, then preview again, it will come out fine.
I think what one of the posters above was saying is ... go to one of these sites, and past your text in and IT WILL do the replacing.
So - not your fault or anything ... and yes, happening to everyone. But I think you can control whether your own posts do it ... just by looking at the preview of your post. I THINK it will only do it if you've copied and pasted in text from other sources ...
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The server is mangling UTF-8 sequences for chars outside the 7-bit ASCII range. These consist of multiple bytes in the 80-FF range. The server looks at each byte of the multi-byte UTF-8 sequence and substitutes an HTML entity. The browser then renders the result as several characters of garbage instead of the character intended.
E.g., E2 80 9C is UTF-8 for the left curly double quote. The server substitutes an entity for circumflex lower case a for the E2, the euro sign for 80, and the trademark symbol for 9C.
What’s annoying, tinyowl, is that there’s no reason for it.
We went through this before, remember? I remember you when we did this about a month ago.
And you’re completely right.
I’ve noticed something.
Right now, I’m posting without preview, and I see that *something* has replaced my standard quotes with smart quotes ... and those worked. They’re curly. My Cantonese Profanity post.
It’s another data point, anyway.
“To be current, you need to upgrade to El Capitan.”
Well I meant El Capitan
You say that bug is only on FR. OK, I thought it was system wide.
Long ago, I wrote a user script to augment the FR posting form. It fixes some formatting deficiencies and adds a UI for injecting commonly needed HTML. Nothing fancy.
When the current bug surfaced, and after waiting for immediate fix which didn't come, I added some code that scans input about to be posted and substitutes HTML entities for any characters outside the 7-bit range. The server lets entities pass. It mangles the corresponding UTF-8, however, which is the current bug.
The result is that I can post arbitrary Unicode and have it display correctly. The downside is, any attempt to quote my posts results in garbage, absent the appropriate client-side assist!
“Click my name if you’d like to try out my user scripts. “
But your fix is for Firefox and I use Safari (since Firefox is pro-gay).
That's apparently a feature of the FR server when posting in non-HTML mode. It automatically finds strings quoted with 7-bit ASCII straight quotes and "fixes" them to use curly quotes.
The result is fine and dandy for the first iteration. But, if somebody quotes the smart-quoted post, they run into the bug, and the result is garbage.
The scripts also work in Chrome, albeit with a convoluted install procedure (deliberate — they want to discourage low-information users from possibly installing malware).
As for Safari, which shares a lot of code with Chrome, there is the Tampermonkey extension. I haven't actually used it, however (I like to keep things simple — I have a Mac and I have Safari, but I use Firefox and Chrome, not Safari).
OK, test x: Here are some “quotes” , but this time I’m going to preview.
It’s the preview code, I think. That last test was previewed, inserted smart quotes, and worked.
OK, test x: Here are some “quotes†, but this time I’m going to preview.
Ha! Gotcha.
I copy-pasted my own post (with the smart) into FR’s box, previewed, then posted. You can see the result above.
Without preview, but with smart quotes
OK, test x: Here are some “quotes†, but this time I’m going to preview.
Nope, just wrong.
OK, test x: Here are some “quotes†, but this time I’m going to preview.
No-preview post, double-test with smart quotes. I’m expecting this to go crazy.
There ya go. Solid testing, there’s reproduction of the problem. Shouldn’t even be a hard fix.
The posting code can’t do UTF-8 properly.
That’s the problem.
And it’s just FR.
It’s made worse by people copy-pasting other people’s posts to reply to them, because FR changes normal quotes to smart quotes, or long dashes, or fancy apostrophes, automatically.
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