Tony Bermanseder
Member
Dear xenforo community!
I recently encountered a problem with the bbc font encoding replacing Latin characters by Greek letters, such as are used in scientific literature and text.
Using the Pale Moon (or Firefox ) browser results in a non translation of the ... command and a default 'Latin'-font is displayed. This does not occur with the IE11 or Chrome broswsers, both of whom translate the font=symbol command as required.
Upon contacting the Pale Moon (related to Firefox) browser creator; the problem became elucidated as a replacement of an old encoding practice used by an early community of mathematical symbol users, utilizing glyph indexes instead of the new standard of the unicode characters.
The Pale Moon browser creator said: "Characters in HTML and XML documents are Unicode characters (even if the document has been encoded using a legacy encoding for transfer)—not font glyph indexes.
...
I'm saying such a scientist could write a script to do such a thing completely automatically. An advanced "search&replace" if you will. I'm assuming here that the bbc and html pages have specific structure around their formulae that would make recognizing and converting [font definition+latin characters] easy enough to do automatically on all documents affected.
If someone would do that it would be a merit to the entire scientific community by converting these non-standard documents into something that is both content-correct and displayed properly now and in the future in any reader."
So my inquiry to the xenforo community and programmers is of how such a 'search and replace' function encompassing the changing of the encoding standard for the changing of fonts can be implemented on the xenforo forum, say on the server front end or the admin forum level with css commands or similar.
Is there an addon available or can an addition of a code template manifest such an update of a forum containing the old font glyph indexes.
Thank you for your condiderations.
TonyB
tonybNewbie
Posts: 6Joined: Sun Dec 17, 2017 5:50 pmRe: The font=symbol does not translate in ple moon
Postby tonyb » Mon Dec 18, 2017 6:23 am
Thanks again, but my inquiry was not about how to update the creation of mathematical text, using the new html-bbc standards.
I have already begun to NOT use the FONT=symbol code and use other means to represent such text to show in PM - and it does.
You have discerned the problem of the local code to its full extent and I thought, when first encountering this issue, that this issue would somehow relate to a default font setting used by PM, just as you stated in your last reply.
But can't you see that it is not practical for any scientist to rewrite decades of mathematically infused text because the older standard of encoding mathematical text has been replaced by a new standard?
You are asking such a scientist to literally rewrite thousands of pages, each page often using the greek/old symbol font alphabet in hundreds of equations and mathematical expressions PER Page?
The problem so is not a particular glyph of the old font=symbol code, but the entire class of glyphs contained by that font. Also in scientific papers, the fonts switch from one to another, often in a single sentence of text.
So my inquiry was about SOME global solution; either at the front end server or a admin forum end.
In particular then a programming code, which could be inserted in the server-forum original setup, say some css code or similar.
Alternatively, I simply asked if such a global solution could be made native to PM, as other browsers still are able to translate the old standard now replaced by a new one.
But again, I appreciate your extended effort and explanation you have expended on my inquiry.
MoonchildPale Moon guru
Posts: 20103Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2011 5:27 pmLocation: 58.5°N 15.5°E
Re: The font=symbol does not translate in ple moon
by Moonchild » Mon Dec 18, 2017 10:24 am
I'm saying such a scientist could write a script to do such a thing completely automatically. An advanced "search&replace" if you will. I'm assuming here that the bbc and html pages have specific structure around their formulae that would make recognizing and converting [font definition+latin characters] easy enough to do automatically on all documents affected.
If someone would do that it would be a merit to the entire scientific community by converting these non-standard documents into something that is both content-correct and displayed properly now and in the future in any reader.
The current documents are not content-correct, because the actual characters are latin, and only visually correct because of a very dependent (and non-standard) display method that is highly-dependent on available fonts to convert the content characters into significantly-different display content. This means the actual documents themselves need to have their content updated. Yes, if this is decades of documentation, then it has been done in a way for decades that is incorrect (wouldn't be the first time).
say on the frontpage of: https://cosmosdawn.net/index.php?lang=en
I recently encountered a problem with the bbc font encoding replacing Latin characters by Greek letters, such as are used in scientific literature and text.
Using the Pale Moon (or Firefox ) browser results in a non translation of the ... command and a default 'Latin'-font is displayed. This does not occur with the IE11 or Chrome broswsers, both of whom translate the font=symbol command as required.
Upon contacting the Pale Moon (related to Firefox) browser creator; the problem became elucidated as a replacement of an old encoding practice used by an early community of mathematical symbol users, utilizing glyph indexes instead of the new standard of the unicode characters.
The Pale Moon browser creator said: "Characters in HTML and XML documents are Unicode characters (even if the document has been encoded using a legacy encoding for transfer)—not font glyph indexes.
...
I'm saying such a scientist could write a script to do such a thing completely automatically. An advanced "search&replace" if you will. I'm assuming here that the bbc and html pages have specific structure around their formulae that would make recognizing and converting [font definition+latin characters] easy enough to do automatically on all documents affected.
If someone would do that it would be a merit to the entire scientific community by converting these non-standard documents into something that is both content-correct and displayed properly now and in the future in any reader."
So my inquiry to the xenforo community and programmers is of how such a 'search and replace' function encompassing the changing of the encoding standard for the changing of fonts can be implemented on the xenforo forum, say on the server front end or the admin forum level with css commands or similar.
Is there an addon available or can an addition of a code template manifest such an update of a forum containing the old font glyph indexes.
Thank you for your condiderations.
TonyB
tonybNewbie
Postby tonyb » Mon Dec 18, 2017 6:23 am
Thanks again, but my inquiry was not about how to update the creation of mathematical text, using the new html-bbc standards.
I have already begun to NOT use the FONT=symbol code and use other means to represent such text to show in PM - and it does.
You have discerned the problem of the local code to its full extent and I thought, when first encountering this issue, that this issue would somehow relate to a default font setting used by PM, just as you stated in your last reply.
But can't you see that it is not practical for any scientist to rewrite decades of mathematically infused text because the older standard of encoding mathematical text has been replaced by a new standard?
You are asking such a scientist to literally rewrite thousands of pages, each page often using the greek/old symbol font alphabet in hundreds of equations and mathematical expressions PER Page?
The problem so is not a particular glyph of the old font=symbol code, but the entire class of glyphs contained by that font. Also in scientific papers, the fonts switch from one to another, often in a single sentence of text.
So my inquiry was about SOME global solution; either at the front end server or a admin forum end.
In particular then a programming code, which could be inserted in the server-forum original setup, say some css code or similar.
Alternatively, I simply asked if such a global solution could be made native to PM, as other browsers still are able to translate the old standard now replaced by a new one.
But again, I appreciate your extended effort and explanation you have expended on my inquiry.
MoonchildPale Moon guru
Re: The font=symbol does not translate in ple moon
by Moonchild » Mon Dec 18, 2017 10:24 am
tonyb wrote: You are asking such a scientist to literally rewrite thousands of pages, each page often using the greek/old symbol font alphabet in hundreds of equations and mathematical expressions PER Page?
I'm saying such a scientist could write a script to do such a thing completely automatically. An advanced "search&replace" if you will. I'm assuming here that the bbc and html pages have specific structure around their formulae that would make recognizing and converting [font definition+latin characters] easy enough to do automatically on all documents affected.
If someone would do that it would be a merit to the entire scientific community by converting these non-standard documents into something that is both content-correct and displayed properly now and in the future in any reader.
The current documents are not content-correct, because the actual characters are latin, and only visually correct because of a very dependent (and non-standard) display method that is highly-dependent on available fonts to convert the content characters into significantly-different display content. This means the actual documents themselves need to have their content updated. Yes, if this is decades of documentation, then it has been done in a way for decades that is incorrect (wouldn't be the first time).
say on the frontpage of: https://cosmosdawn.net/index.php?lang=en
