[imp] How to disables to UTF-8 Viewing !

[Otto Stolz]

Hello,

Zitat von Umut Arus <umuta at sabanciuniv.edu>:
> I'm using webmail version of IMP: H3 (4.1.4) and Horde: 3.1.4.
> Sending message as ISO-8859-9 translates to UTF-8 in IMP. In other
> words, browsers are changing its "Character Encoding" to UTF-8 although
> message source is "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-9;
> format=flowed
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit"

And I am very happy that Horde 3 and Imp 4 eventually have achieved this.

> Why is it translates?

The message to be viewed is only part of the WWW page displayed
by Webmail (Imp): an important part is the user interface (menus,
sidebar, tool-tips, status line, messages). Now, the user interface
is completely unrelated to the content (language and encoding) of
the messages to be handled: I want to be able to receive, and send,
messages in any language and encoding, regardless of the language
the user-interface is presented to me in. Particularly, the messages
received are encoded at the sender’s whim, and even in my mother
tonge I will receive messages, on a regular base,  in 3 different
encodings, viz. ISO 8859-1, ISO 8859-15, and UTF-8.

Now Unicode is the only available code that contains all characters
contained in all popular encodings. Hence you can easily transform
any standard-conforming message into Unicode, but into no other code.

Moreover, a WWW page must be encoded uniformly, i. e. in one single
code. Hence, having the user interface entirely in Unicode and trans-
forming any information encoded otherwise into Unicode, is the only
technical feasable way to design a versatile Webmail program.

UTF-8 is one of the three standardized Unicode transfer encodings,
and it is understood by virtually any browser; hence I deem this
encoding the best choice for a Webmail interface. With this approach,
Webmail can correctly display the subjects, and senders, of all
messages in my INBOX, and it can display any character in any message
(provided there is a suitable font installed, of course).

Note that Windows NT4/XP/2000/Vista use Unicode internally, hence
cut-and-paste between any system-conforming application and Imp’s
pages (in the browser) is possible without problems -- in both
directions: You can paste any character (or string) from any
application into a message you are creating, and you can paste
a quote from any message received into any application. The same
holds true for most Unix-based systems (including Mac OS X), as
they now normally use UTF-8 as their internal code.

Given the ease of using the UTF-8 based Webmail interface in
an Unicode-based system, why would you ever wish to change the
Webmail interface’s codepage?

With Imp, you can always choose the encoding of the outgoing
messages to please the addressee (or to cope with their technical
limitations, as need may be). Beware however, that Imp will replace
with a question mark every character in your message not contained
in the encoding chosen. (Imp should improve on this, e. g. by
issuing a warning, or even better by tellinmg the user exactly which
characters in the message cannot be sent in the encoding chosen).

Best wishes,
   Otto Stolz