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Hi everyone, Below is a note sent by a friend of mine to UserHelp. She forwarded the reply from userhelp to me for "translation". ;-) See my comments following; > Dear helpers, > > I have been receiving e-mail in Spanish from Latin America, but when the > message gets here it's got strange signs in the places where the accents > should be. Also, when I write in Spanish I don't know how to find accents > and other signs (like the ~ over the letter n, which is used a great deal > in Spanish). > > When I get the messages from Latin America they come with something that > may give you a clue but which means nothing to me. It says ISO-8859-1. Okay - Norman DeForest replied with a wonderfully detailed, six-or-so page response which will probably solve her problem. Some excerpts: >There are two approaches to viewing accented characters on CCN: >1. Change your CCN configuration so it will convert the characters to ones > your system can see properly or >2. Change your system so it will properly display these characters. <SNIP> >Some users have reported success in configuring their system to use >IBM code page 850 instead of the default IBM character set and choosing >that in their lynx configuration. It includes all of the characters in >the ISO Latin 1 character set but just in a different order so require >translating. <SNIP> >I have created a VGA font with the ISO Latin 1 character set that may >help you browse the 'net and be able to view the accented characters >properly if you use a shell account and lynx, such as on the Chebucto >Community Net. If you download the freeware FPMAN220 font package from >the Simtel Archives at > ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/vga/fpman220.zip >and my ANSICHRW.FNT font file in zipped form from: > http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~af380/ansichrw.zip >you can then use TELIX for DOS (or some other DOS-based terminal programme) >with the Chebucto Community Net and be able to view the high accented >characters properly. <Considerable more info removed for brevity's sake> Norman - great job! Lots of info. However, that's also part of what I see as a problem. this user is a person with little computer experience (WordPerfect and that''s about it) with a low frustration level for technical things. When I'm able to find a few free moments, I'll visit her home and try to get her IBM-XT dinosaur to follow your lead. But it would be useful for our users on the one hand, and tech-support people on the other, to simplify this process. Since we're now a bilingual site, and as a society have multilingual users, is there any way we can take the "tech" out of this process, and offer a "one-stop-shopping" user resource page where selecting language capability is a simple as clicking (following) a particular link? Certainly, installing the VGA font Norman describes above requires some user competence, but insofar as Lynx and Pine are concerned - maybe a script or something? My friend took one look at that sheet of instructions, especially the cryptic (to her) bit about a "VGA font" ..."ISO Latin 1"..."shell account"... "FPMAN 220 Font Package".... (and a ftp addresses), and (after first voicing her appreciation for the effort the userhelp people put into the response) threw up her hands - then called me! Yes, you see it now, I'm just trying to simplify my already-out-of-control life. Thanks to Norman - if this is the level of detail our userhelp team provides, we certainly can consider ourselves one of the best-supported ISPs in town! regards, Mark.
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