Peter Nyboer

accented-characters-in-lcd-xplatform

This isn't limited to lcd, it hits text anywhere in a patch: 

As a point of comparison: it took about three years of complaining to 

Coda that Finale documents couldn't handle charset translation when 

moving documents between Mac and Windos before they got this sorted 

out. And Finale documents even store platform information as part of 

their data format (and did this from day one).

AFAICT, patcher files do not contain any information that would allow 

Max to reliably identify which charset was intended or whether the 

file was written under Mac OS or XP. Unfortunately.

The status quo, that you are essentially limited to 7-bit ASCII if 

you want text to be legible in a cross-platform patch, is a pain. 

I've wasted hours "dumbing down" text in Litter Power .help patches 

(and not only there). On the positive side, a few things *do* work: 

I've used bullets and degree marks in umenus, and they display 

It would be great if Max' cross-platform compatibility would extend 

to charset translation for all text-based objects. Most importantly 

(I think) message and comment, but ideally a mechanism that would be 

Peter Castine +--> Litter Power & Litter Bundle for Jitter

iCE: Sequencing, Recording & |home | chez nous|

Interface Building for |bei uns | i nostri|

This isn't limited to lcd, it hits text anywhere in a patch:  
comments, message boxes, you name it.

As a point of comparison: it took about three years of complaining to  
Coda that Finale documents couldn't handle charset translation when  
moving documents between Mac and Windos before they got this sorted  
out. And Finale documents even store platform information as part of  
their data format (and did this from day one).

AFAICT, patcher files do not contain any information that would allow  
Max to reliably identify which charset was intended or whether the  
file was written under Mac OS or XP. Unfortunately.

The status quo, that you are essentially limited to 7-bit ASCII if  
you want text to be legible in a cross-platform patch, is a pain.  
I've wasted hours "dumbing down" text in Litter Power .help patches  
(and not only there). On the positive side, a few things *do* work:  
I've used bullets and degree marks in umenus, and they display  
properly on both platforms.

It would be great if Max' cross-platform compatibility would extend  
to charset translation for all text-based objects. Most importantly  
(I think) message and comment, but ideally a mechanism that would be  
transparent to external objects.

--------------    http://www.bek.no/~pcastine/Litter/    -------------
Peter Castine             +--> Litter Power & Litter Bundle for Jitter

wow, really? I have to ask: WWJD - not Jesus, but the Japanese? 

seriously, though... it's basically not possible to make a 

cross-platform international interface in Max?

wow, really?  I have to ask:  WWJD - not Jesus, but the Japanese?  
sorry, had to make a wwjd reference.
seriously, though... it's basically not possible to make a 
cross-platform international interface in Max?

On 29-Mar-2006, at 18:03, Peter Nyboer wrote:

> wow, really? I have to ask: WWJD - not Jesus, but the Japanese?

We had the "2-byte compatible" setting which was, according to some 

reports, specifically for East Asian (partic. Japanese) text.

Japanese text might even translate MacWindows if both sides use 

the same char encoding. This might even be what currently happens.

> seriously, though... it's basically not possible to make a cross- 

> platform international interface in Max?

There's always PICT, GIF, PNG... all unsatisfactory for text in the 

At such time when everybody has moved on to Unicode, this problem 

will disappear. Except for the mass of legacy patchers written in the 

last ~20 years that almost all assumed they would only ever be 

confronted with the Mac 8-bit ASCII encoding.

There is also the fundamental problem of font incompatibility between 

platforms. I am still looking for a set of fonts that will look good 

[Please cf the .sig from my previous post on this thread if you need it]

On 29-Mar-2006, at 18:03, Peter Nyboer wrote:
> wow, really?  I have to ask:  WWJD - not Jesus, but the Japanese?

We had the "2-byte compatible" setting which was, according to some  
reports, specifically for East Asian (partic. Japanese) text.

Japanese text might even translate MacWindows if both sides use  
the same char encoding. This might even be what currently happens.

> seriously, though... it's basically not possible to make a cross- 
> platform international interface in Max?

There's always PICT, GIF, PNG... all unsatisfactory for text in the  
long run.

At such time when everybody has moved on to Unicode, this problem  
will disappear. Except for the mass of legacy patchers written in the  
last ~20 years that almost all assumed they would only ever be  
confronted with the Mac 8-bit ASCII encoding.

There is also the fundamental problem of font incompatibility between  
platforms. I am still looking for a set of fonts that will look good  
and look identical on both platforms.

[Please cf the .sig from my previous post on this thread if you need it]


On 29 mars 06, at 19:50, Peter Castine wrote:

> [Please cf the .sig from my previous post on this thread if you 

Sorry Peter, I missed your last mall. Could you send me your .sig?

> [Please cf the .sig from my previous post on this thread if you  
> need it]

accented characters in LCD xplatform...