Thanks for the info ron. And yeah, its just not the same by it requiring spaces. Heres to hoping this is something that will change, and some other method devised to prevent antisocial uses. :)

Is there a reason that it rejects &whatever, (such as C&C) instead of changing it internal to C&C or similar?

I suspect it is because & can be interpreted as a control character within a number of different code regimes. Look at the URL at the top of many RPoL pages and you will see ? & and % in  many of then defining instructions and parameters.  These same characters often have other meanings in  other programming languages as well.

I suspect that Jase either suspects that text of the game title will appear some where where if might 'possibly'  be seen as a coding parameter.  Or perhaps jase  has developed one parsing routine that checks code for special characters and uses it every time he needs to check text for special characters .....  That  would mean  a few extra limits imposed in some fields, but could save an awful lot of development time.

In reply to burlingk (msg #27):

If was a while ago, but if memory serves me correctly; because of Netscape.  It was doing funky things with ampersands, even if I took the normal precautions (e.g. turning C&C to C&C).

But who uses netscape anymore :D

+1.

Cedilla. I have actually used the word façade in a character name. I like my cedillas.

*bump*

Now four years on - are we at a point where all the relevant browsers and server-side infrastructure can handle the upgrade to allow special characters in character names?

Or at least À to ÿ?

Reference of Special Character in HTML: http://www.degraeve.com/refere...pecialcharacters.php

If it can be done, I give a definite +1  :)

In reply to PrettyBirdie1 (msg # 33):

Likewise +1

As others have theorised here and in other places, it's no longer about databases (as MySQL can handle the Latin character set).  It's about rendering on end user devices.

Getting À to come out as À here (in a message) is very easy, you type in "À".  The problem is when, as in a character name, you're trying to get À to come out by typing in "À" (which, if you quote me, will see is not an ampersand code, I've just held down alt while pressing 0192 on the keypad).

Computers in different regions can have different character sets.  While RPoL says to use ISO-8859-1 (which is Latin alphabet part 1) I can't guarantee that someone somewhere will have that.  If, for example, they have ISO-8859-R (Latin alphabet part 2) then that special À will actually come out as a capital R with a acute accent over the top.  Google on the "Western (Macintosh)" shows it as ¿.  I just don't know enough about how all the different character sets works to know how different regions will see it!

So then it's not possible to make it where you can type À into a name? Is it because there's something different about that text field as opposed to the message?

(Sorry if the answer is an obvious one, I don't know very much about computer code. ^^)

In reply to jase (msg # 35):

Jase, thanks for the nice clear description of the problem.  Clearly too hard and  difficult.

I retract my +1

In reply to jase (msg # 35):

1. Sorry if I missed something in your explanation... I get why alt-key codes wont work in char names - but why won't ampersand codes work in the char name?

2. Can any analysis be done to get ideas of what percentage of active users ("logged in over last 12 months") use which charsset / region?

It would be a shame for a simple fix to be discounted because of the impact on the "1%".
This message was last edited by the user at 21:36, Mon 09 Dec 2013.

Even if you are in that "1%"?  :)

Ampersand codes don't work currently because both the ampersand and semicolon that they require produce an error message about invalid letters in character names.  Changing the names to allow them will also require changes to other parts of the code - recognising them when addressing private lines or quoting people, for example - so that those items don't break when they run across them.

Also note that any analysis of how many users use any particular character set will only be good for the day that the analysis is done.  RPoL gets quite a few new users every day - which character sets are used the most could change over time.  Adjusting the allowed character sets to take account of changes in which sets are commonly used in future might suddenly render some names invalid.
This message was last edited by the user at 22:46, Mon 09 Dec 2013.

Would it be possible to just set UTF-8 for all pages (and text input fields)? it wouldn't get the ampersand codes, but it would catch nearly all special characters regardless of the local charset.
Granted, it would mean changing all input validation codes to allow this.

In reply to PrettyBirdie1 (msg # 36):

Possibly, but you've got 1 displayed letter taking up 8 stored letters.  Seven of them and you've run out of space in your 60 letter length PC names, and I'm actually trying to reduce the length of that.

Why reduce?  60 is just too long when trying to plan the layout of the site.  40 might be a starting point to reduce it to, but 101 PCs have more than 40 letters in their name (which is 0.0866% of PCs, so yes I do care about 1%!).  I'd want to enforce that reduction before allowing ampersand codes otherwise I'll never get to reduce the limit, which will leave you with up to 5 non-English letters done via ampersand codes.



It'd actually require changing the SQL databases.  I think it'd blow out some of the storage requirements as well.

It is something that needs to be done, eventually, but it's something that needs to be planned and extensively tested.

Thank you for the explanation! :) Makes sense, now.

On a related note - I generally find it easier to type in my own codes, rather than using the dropdowns and stuff at the bottom of the compose screen.  So when I do, say, a Private Line to someone, it makes a big difference if they have a really long name.  If I have to look up the character code just to do a Private To for someone... that would be... very inconvenient.

I know they can be significant for replicating names in other languages accurately, and that's definitely valid, but for me, I'd be a -1 on including special characters in names anyway.

And a +1 to cutting their maximum length back to 40.  Nothing against the 101 Dalmat-- er, PC's with Longer Names Than That, of course, but I have to scroll down a bit to get to the Private Line dropdown and it's easier to just stay on the keyboard and... I hates them.  Hatesses them!!!

   ...Er, in a `would find them inconvenient, if I ever actually had to write a private line to one, which I don't think has actually happened, but I've run into some less-long-but-still-long names and do notice when it comes up' kind of way.  Down, Smèagol!

In other words - I know the dropdown exists and is a reasonable solution to this problem, but being able to just type it in is also part of the system and I use that, so I would be averse to seeing it impinged.

In reply to Utsukushi (msg # 43):

Good points!

How old are those extra-long-name characters? what about adding a restriction to the character name/rename entry so it doesn't accept more than 40 characters?
No character is affected, yet you don't get new characters with too long names, hopefully you could wait until the existing ones die out or get renamed.

Considering that there are some games on here several years old that have long ceased to be active games, I don't think waiting for them to 'die out' would be a viable option for any kind of design/planning purposes.  :)

In reply to tsukoyomi (msg # 45):

I've thought about trying to limit the length of new character names, but the problem with that is name validations are done through a common routine.  Common routines have to be used as writing validation code for every time a character name can be added or edited is a recipe for disaster -- lots of duplicate coding, introduction of errors and inconsistency, and whenever a change is made you have to update it everywhere it's used (and I'll never remember everywhere).  This exact thread is example of why common validation routines have to be used.

So the current routine allows up to 60 letters in length.  If I edit it to 40 then current PCs won't be able to be updated at all if their length is over 60.  So now I've got to try to write detection routines to figure if it's a new character (limit it to 40), an existing character with a length of 40 or under (limit it to 40), or a character with a length of over 40 (in which case limit it to its current length).

I'm probably going to do exactly that, but oh boy what a pain!  (c;

In reply to Utsukushi (msg # 43):

That raises a good point -- if we use ampersand codes how do you address a PL to "Àdam"?  Is it "private to Àdam" or "private to Àdam"?

What a silly question, the second one is ridiculous!

The answer is "the second one".  )c;

This is only tangentially related, but I'd like to see the option for non-standard characters on the Biography lines. In most of the games I'm in, those two lines are best used as a sort of status marker (for things like Hit Points or, in the case of my Edge of the Empire game, the Destiny pool).

Being able to use special characters would make those lines a little more flexible.

[/tangent]

I suspect that bio lines would run into the same problem as described by jase above - an ampersand code is eight characters long, and the bio lines are quite short.