Re: MML charset tag regression

["Jan D." <jan.h.d@swipnet.se>]

> In article <E19ANpQ-0003Pb-00@fencepost.gnu.org>, Richard Stallman 
> <rms@gnu.org> writes:
>
>>     Recently, many gtk clients start supporting UTF8_STRING
>>     without making COMPOUND_TEXT support better.  It may cause
>>     no problem between gtk clients because they will request
>>     only the type UTF8_STING.  But, it's a too shortsighted
>>     manner.  :-(
>
>> Is this an issue I should raise with the GTK developers?  Could they,
>> should they, do something to encourage app developers to handle
>> COMPOUND_TEXT properly?
>
> Perhaps, app developers are just using some GTK function for
> X selection handing (I don't know if such a function surely
> exists).  In that case, improving that function solve the
> problem.

There is a function that converts selection data to an UTF8 string,
if the format is a known text format.  But mostly widgets take care
of selection handling by themselves (i.e. transparent to an application
that uses GTK).  To get better COMPOUND_STRING handling, I suspect GTK 
as a library must change.

The reason you are seeing more UTF8_STRING is probably not a choice
made by GTK client developers, it is just an effect of porting to
GTK version 2.  UTF8_STRING is not present in GTK 1.x, but the
preferred format in GTK 2.x.  The reason for this is the standards
work being done by the free desktop people
(see http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/) to improve interoperability
between desktop environments, for example KDE and GNOME.  It seems
UTF8_STRING is the preferred coding.

I am not sure, but I suspect that better COMPOUND_STRING handling
is low on the priority, as the web page above kind of implies that
UTF8_STRING is to replace COMPOUND_STRING in the future.  Qt (KDE)
also uses UTF8_STRING as a first choice.

	Jan D.