Shoutbox

Hello,

long time ago I used to add chinese Quick Text in my Plus! I just copied and pasted the ones which are in simplified chinese ressource files.
I was working well for long time, but now since few days (after I went to the me nu to add a new one), Plus! can't send them anymore correctly...
It just transform any chinese characters in "?"...
The only reason I can find is that now english version of Plus don't use anymore UTF-8 for encoding.... (if it was using it before)

I've just checked, and if I modify it in the Registry directly, then it works well...
So maybe the problem (bug ?) is when Plus! modify/add it to
Registry... it can't encode it correctly...

Any other idea ?
Thanks by advance,

Alexandre

It'll be because your Chinese fonts are somehow corrupted.
Go to Control Panel (Classic View) > Regional and Language Options > Languages, and tick all the checkboxes. When you hit Apply/OK, you may be asked for your Windows CD.

This should restore not just Chinese fonts, but also Japanese, Korean and other East Asian scripts.

quote:

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Originally posted by raceprouk
It'll be because your Chinese fonts are somehow corrupted.

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I thought about that too, but normally if that would have been the case, the characters would be visible as squares, not question marks.

A question mark is a typical indication that unicode is not used within the procedure, but ASCII. So Iskalix might be correct in stating that there is a bug with the writing to the registry (or even a bug right before that were unicode text is converted into ascii somehow... wrong sort of API calling?).

Also it shouldn't matter what languages or character sets you have installed. When you write in unicode to the registry, it should show up as unicode (wheiter or not the characters are properly shown doesn't matter) and not as an ansi question mark.

Iskalix gave away a big hint regarding the registry also though.

quote:

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Originally posted by Iskalix
Any other idea ?

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Can you state what exact version of Messenger Plus! you're using (complete version number, thus including build number)? Also, what is your Windows version and MSN Messenger version.

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EDIT: I can confirm that this is indeed a bug in the latest build 3.63.148 (and maybe even before that). The bug indeed occurs when quicktexts are written to the registry. Somewhere along the code to write to the registry, the unicode is wrongfully converted to ascii. The same occurs when reading quicktexts from the registry btw...

Plus! links to the Unicode implementations though, so what it might be is an erroneous double-conversion, Unicode > ANSI > Unicode. If the question mark is the one in a diamond, I believe that's a Unicode symbol, as I've never seen it in an ANSI font (apart from fonts like Wingdings maybe, but that's another matter).

Iskalix, what OS are you using? Also, what language is Plus! set to?

As I said, it is a normal 7bit ascii question mark. Typical for a conversion from unicode to ansi; true unicode characters will always be converted to a question mark when you convert a string to ascii. OS doesn't matter, and Plus! language doesn't matter at all.

Cookie, you may have said it's a normal question mark, but Iskalix didn't. I wanted to make sure what type it was.

It IS a normal a 7bit ascii question mark.

How I know: experience*, common/logical sense**, reading*** and testing**** before stating something.



* Have seen this happening thousands of times.
** It simply wouldn't make any logical sense if it was the question mark inside a diamont unicode character which was written to the registry
He mentionned the registry + he tested this himself and said when he directly put the unicode in the registry the quicktext is shown correctly in a chat window.
*** If it was the question mark inside a diamont unicode character, I'm sure he would have said it was.
**** I tested this myself again to make sure. Otherwise I wouldn't confirm weither or not I had the bug in the first place

The only thing he did not said was that it will again be shown with question marks when the preference window is openend => which very much pinpoints the whereabouts of the problem: showing and storing of the quicktext from the config window.

PS:

quote:

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Originally posted by raceprouk
Also, what language is Plus! set to?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Iskalix
The only reason I can find is that now english version of Plus don't use anymore UTF-8 for encoding.... (if it was using it before)

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quote:

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
Can you state what exact version of Messenger Plus! you're using (complete version number, thus including build number)? Also, what is your Windows version and MSN Messenger version.

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Plus! : 3.63.148 - April 4th 2006
in english, even if I'm french... I choose english for avoiding mixing with chinese/japanese characters and french accents...
msn : 7.0.0816
OS : Windows 2000

and I think it's normal "?" who occurs when there is a problem of UTF-8 characters...

but now that I know the problem, I added Quick Text in chinese and japanese directly in the Registry... and don't try to Edit the menu for them in Plus!

And about the bug, it's during "writing" in Registry process, 'cause the Texts were encoded with ??? in the Registry...

Thank you for all answear and your search, if you have more question or need some tests, feel free to ask...
Iskalix

quote:

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
* Have seen this happening thousands of times.

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As I have seen the diamond-enclosed one. That's why I was asking.

OK, just reproduced the bug: the Preferences can (and do) accept Unicode (I used an Arabic character for my test), so it must be converted to ANSI incorrectly between the dialog and saving to the Registry.

quote:

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Originally posted by raceprouk
so it must be converted to ANSI incorrectly between the dialog and saving to the Registry.

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Indeed, and already stated... See my first post to this thread. Oh and it is not only right before a quicktext is saved, but also when it is read to be shown in the prefs.