Vista - Read font and other settings

I cannot work out the logic that dictates which font is used to
display newsgroup posts. Some things seem quite arbitrary and
unpredictable.
(1) If I set the font at Options > Read to a readily-identifiable
one like Times New Roman, then the vast majority of posts are
displayed using that.
(2) Posts using UTF-8 character encoding - like those coming from
the web forum - use another font. At the moment, I think it's
Trebuchet. If I change Times New Roman to Tahoma, UTF+8 posts use
Arial.
(3) Posts using any other character set than ISO8859-1 [Western
European (ISO)] use Arial at a larger size.
(4) Posts using a non-Roman character set (like Big5) use, I think,
Arial Unicode.
(5) HTML posts display as their author's might have intended.

The thread started by 363033091* on 1 December 2008 shows these
differences on my setup. The OP and Winston's reply use a Chinese
charset and are displayed in an outsize Arial Unicode. Kayman's
response is in UTF-8 with 8-bit transfer encoding; this displays in
a normal (for me) size Trebuchet, and the Chinese characters in the
body (强者�巫) are reproduced as such. Those in the headers of the OP
(the poster's screen name) aren't. Then Gary's post, with no
character encoding specified, displays in my chosen font, but with
the Chinese characters represented by '?'. This 'default' setup is
presumably US-ASCII with 7-bit transfer encoding, which is of course
fine for most posters. Some posts take on the encoding of the
message they're replying to and some don't. This may be the OptionsThe number of settings available is bewildering, but I cannot help
thinking that there must be a combination which will enable me to
read all posts in the same font of my choice regardless of the
post's headers. I can see that Arial is probably the only option for
Unicode messages, but can I not fix the font for any non-Unicode
message (without reverting to Read all messages in plain text, which
I don't want to apply to email)? And can't Arial Unicode be
persuaded to display at a normal size? I realize that Chinese glyphs
necessarily take up more space than Roman ones, so this may well be
a built-in feature of the font that I can't do anything about.

* If I put this into the Find a message box, it brings up the thread
immediately. YMMV, of course.
--
Noel

I have long since given up trying to make sense of it.
Seems like it should be possible to design WLM so that it always displays
the chosen font regardless of the character set of the message.

--
Gary VanderMolen, MS-MVP (Mail)


"Ildhund" <jnllb@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:edlc24ieJHA.2112@xxxxxx

Funny you should say that just now. Refusing to admit defeat, I was
going through the settings again. You need the patience of a Job and
the tenacity of a Jack Russell to get there, but I think I've done
it.

The answer is on the Read > Fonts tab. There are *different* font
settings for *each* codepage; some of these have defaults, but many
don't. The default size is Medium - which explains why posts using a
different CP look bigger than others, if the 'normal' font size is
set to Smaller, like mine. The only exception to this seems to be
Traditional Chinese ('big5'), which is one size larger than the
others.

So, go through the whole of that list and apply the right
(proportional) font and size to each CP, and you've cracked it. I've
only tried Arial Unicode, because I reckoned that was probably the
only font that could handle every eventuality. Next time I get the
urge, I'll try Lucida Sans Unicode (which should have everything but
probably hasn't) and then I'll try an Office font like Calibri.

I just scrolled quickly through the last 100 or so posts in this
group, watching the Reading pane meanwhile. Only two posts looked
different, and they were both HTML. Next task: to persuade the
headers (which are extracted from the database at display time,
while the body comes from the stored file) to show Unicode
characters. The ESENT database must have the required info, so it's
the UI that's not rendering it properly. Why not? Presumably that
hard-coded font - whatever it is - doesn't have Unicode capability
in the English language versions. A bug, perhaps.
--
Noel

"Gary VanderMolen" <Gary@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uwWGNrmeJHA.5344@xxxxxx

Hi Noel.

I am far from expert in fonts and encodings, but this is what I now do to display all plain text newsgroup posts in a single font that I like, despite the encoding of the message.

1) Tools->Options->read->Fonts [section]->International Settings [button]->[checked] 'Use default encoding for all incoming messages'

2) Tools->Options->read->Fonts [section]->Fonts... [button]
->Font settings = Unicode [Code Page]
->Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8)->Set as Default [button]

The proportional font I prefer is Segoe UI at Medium font size (Arial is too dark and cramped).

Because I have the option 'Use default encoding for all incoming messages' checked, I just realised that I should set my default encoding to Unicode (UTF-8) so that my feeds will display properly.

I initially had the default encoding set to Western European (ISO), but I had to change the encoding displayed by most feeds in order to display their characters properly, because they all seem to be encoded in Unicode (UTF-8).

But having (just now) changed the default encoding to Unicode (UTF-8), all my newsgroup replies are automatically encoded in Unicode (UTF-8) despite the following settings:

Tools->Options->Send [tab]->Sending [section]
->[unchecked] 'Reply to messages in the format in which they were sent'
->International Settings... [button]->Default encoding: Western European (ISO)

However, new posts are encoded as Western European (ISO).

By the way, my News compose font is 12pt. Segoe UI.

Something else I noticed, is that changing the default encoding from Western European (ISO) to Unicode (UTF-8) also changed the font for the message list (see screenshots), even though I had the exact the same fonts set for both encodings. A bonus, because I like it better with Unicode (UTF-8) - I can now stand to look at the bolded names in the 'From' column.

Screenshots:
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/576/westerneuropeanisopv4.png
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/4349/unicodeutf8pj7.png

--
Cheers,
Peter.R
(Windows Vista Home Premium with Windows Live Mail 14.0.8050.1202)
"There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Shakespeare

"Ildhund" <jnllb@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:Ov7vUBneJHA.1336@xxxxxx

It is always nice to see how different perceptions are.
I kicked Thunderbird for WLM. (search is so much better, gmail gets handled
better)
I am perfectly happy with WLM and my 5 email account (live http, imap an
pop3)
I could care about a different color design, but it is ok once you get used
to it.
(I am a 43 years short sighted guy with glasses)

BUT I almost hate Cleartype!
I dislike it so much that I did everything to get rid of it up to the point
where I simply deleted the SeGOE IU font so that the "new " apps from MS
default back to system fonts which btw works find for all live apps and for
office2007.

On the other hand I don't see a problem with fonts in WLM, once you have set
up all according all the useful hints one got in the ng. (Thanks Peter)


Michael


"Peter.R" <Peter.R@xxxxxx> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:uWWHBNyeJHA.1532@xxxxxx

Hi Peter - thanks for a comprehensive run-down. I'm green with envy
at the look of your message list, and try what I might, I can't
reproduce it. Mine looks like good old MS Sans Serif, back in Win3.1
days. This might have something to do with (a) XP and (b) the fact
that I've removed SegoeUI as an aid to readability. That seems odd,
though, because your message list looks to be using Arial. The
screenshot actually looks better than the reality on my screen.

The idea of setting Unicode as a global default is appealing (and
was indeed the intention when Unicode was invented), but it doesn't
work with text containing high-ascii characters and using another
charset. I'd be interested to hear what your settings do with posts
in this group like
news:5e7407017704a8f3b593189aa0192f6d@xxxxxx-gateway.com (no encoding
specified - defaults to either CP1252 or ISO 8859-1, I suspect)
news:8BD2A1BA-ED48-48E7-9F06-D4A53A17374D@xxxxxx (ISO
8859-2 - Central European) and
news:%23H19Qw5UJHA.4472@xxxxxx (GB2312 - Chinese
Simplified)
Does your message list cope with Unicode? E.g. does the poster's
name show up in the From column if you put 'qq' in the Find a
message box in this group? (This will only work, of course, if you
still have posts from December.) It should be the same as the
reference in the third of the posts I gave the URLs for.
--
Noel

"Peter.R" <Peter.R@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uWWHBNyeJHA.1532@xxxxxx

Hi Noel.

As far as I can tell, your screenshot shows the same font that I now see in my Message List, which looks very much like Arial 10pt. Although, the tail of the 'g' looks different than standard Arial.

Interestingly, when I opened the posts by clicking on the 2nd and 3rd links you supplied, they opened with the Encoding in which they were written. Thus the characters were displayed as intended.

However, when I searched for the posts in WLMail, they were displayed in Unicode (UTF-8) in the Reading Pane, and the characters that could not be displayed correctly were replaced with a rectangle.

However, now that the 'Encoding' button on WLMail's main Toolbar is working , I can easily change the encoding to display the characters correctly (once I use Ctrl + F3 to check what charset was used).

The post for the first link you supplied opens in Unicode (UTF-8). Each of the characters that cannot be displayed correctly are replaced with a rectangle.

And yes, the Chinese poster's name does display correctly in the 'From' column of the Message List.

--
Cheers,
Peter
(Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 with Windows Live Mail 14.0.8050.1202)
"There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Shakespeare
---------------

"Ildhund" <jnllb@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:O#k#mV7eJHA.3708@xxxxxx

On the other hand...

The tail of the 'g' definitely does look Arial when I reduce an Arial font to 9pt. So it would seem that our Message List font is Arial 9pt.

--
Cheers,
Peter
(Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 with Windows Live Mail 14.0.8050.1202)
"There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Shakespeare

"Peter.R" <Peter.R@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:Of4oB68eJHA.5956@xxxxxx

The curtailed tail on the 'g' is linked to the requirement to fit
each character into its appointed grid of pixels at a given size. I
remember reading about this years ago, probably around the time
ClearType was invented, and it all seemed to make sense. After all,
you wouldn't notice if the descender of a 'p' was a pixel or two
shorter, now would you?

Back to the main issue. I expected that if I selected UTF-8 as my
default encoding for everything, with a font like Arial or Lucida
Unicode that would cope, then all posts would display correctly
regardless of which bizarre characters they contained. Not a bit of
it! This combination falls over all the time. The compromise I've
landed on is
(a) Set the reading font to Arial Unicode for all CPs, at 'Smaller'
for all except Far Eastern CPs, where 'Smallest' is the same size as
Smaller in the others.
(b) Select Western European (Windows) [CP1252] as the default
(because it has a few extra things in it, like &oelig; in French,
that ISO-8859-1 doesn't have)
(c) Deselect 'Use default encoding for all incoming messages'

This way, anything with an unusual encoding, like big5 or
ISO-8859-7, uses that to display (also in the Reading pane), and
anything without encoding information displays in CP1252, which - so
far - has covered every eventuality. Arial Unicode is wider-spaced
than standard Arial and is in fact very easy on the eye - you did
complain that Arial was too compact.

Now, to find out why my Message list doesn't display Chinese when
yours does. Any ideas?
[I just thought of one possibility. The Message list (and Headers in
the Reading pane) are read from the database, not the .nws file. In
other words, what appears there is cast in concrete the moment those
headers are downloaded, so any subsequent changes to language
settings would have no effect on what is stored. If WLMail is in
some sort of ANSI mode at download time, then ESENT's Unicode
capability could be set aside, giving the results I see but you
don't. I'm way out of my depth here, I must admit.]

@lurkers: can you see Chinese characters in the From column for the
post that gets selected if you put 'qq' into the Find a message box
in this group? Is this an OS thing? That it works in Vista or Seven,
but not in XP?
--
Noel

"Peter.R" <Peter.R@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:#dCey$8eJHA.4868@xxxxxx

Yes, I see what you mean with the 'g'.

Indeed, Arial Unicode does look better than Arial, so I may experiment with that...

In Vista, with my default encoding set to Unicode (UTF-8), and the Message List font displaying in Arial, the Chinese characters are displayed in the Message List 'From' column when I search 'qq' - 强者�巫's post (see screenshot).

However, LarryE, with his special characters, does not (see screenshot).

Interestingly, for the posts by JethroUK, the characters in the 'From' column keep changing - "JethroUK" is followed by several Chinese? characters (see screenshot).

When I change the default encoding to Western European (Windows), with the Message List font displaying in Segoe UI, LarryE's, JethroUK's, and 强者�巫's special characters display correctly in the Message List.

In an effort to test your theory about why your Message list doesn't display Chinese when mine does, I just reset this newsgroup and re-downloaded the headers. My default encoding was set to Unicode (UTF-8) and 'Use default encoding for all incoming messages' was checked.

The Chinese characters were still displayed in the Message List 'From' column for 强者�巫's post.

Now to test the 'From' column on my XP system...

With my default encoding set to Unicode (UTF-8), and the Message List font displaying in Arial:

LarryE's special characters do not display (no substitute).

JethroUK's special character does not display. Substitute characters keep changing, but no Chinese characters - lots of squares instead.

强者�巫's Chinese characters are not displayed. Characters substituted by squares.

With the default encoding set to Western European (Windows), and the Message List font displaying in Segoe UI:

LarryE's special characters display correctly.

JethroUK's special character displays correctly.

强者�巫's Chinese characters are not displayed. Characters substituted by rectangles.

A reason for you to upgrade to Vista perhaps? ;-)

--
Cheers,
Peter.R
(Windows Vista Home Premium with Windows Live Mail 14.0.8050.1202)
"There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Shakespeare

"Ildhund" <jnllb@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:eo49pIAfJHA.2384@xxxxxx