Problems with Japanese

Ninniku · 25 Apr 2003, 03:22 PM

Hello, all! I'm trying to convince my Japanese wife to start using FastMail, but ran into one big problem.

I've got her default charset preference set to ISO 2022-JP "JIS" as mentioned in all of the previous Japanese-related threads, and almost all of her received messages are readable. However, anytime she tries to forward or reply to a Japanese message, the characters that are quoted from the original message become garbled. This occurs regardless of whether the quoted portion is prefixed with ">" or quoted inline. Although this doesn't happen when she IMAPs into her account using Microsoft Entourage, she'd really like to be able to use the webmail.

Is there anyone out there using FastMail regularly in Japanese who's encountered this problem, solved it, or come up with a nifty little workaround? Yoroshiku onegai shimasu!

robmueller · 25 Apr 2003, 05:27 PM

I believe that other people do use it successfully, and changing the default charset is all you need to do.

What browser are you using? IE?

The only problem I've seen is some emails that claim to be 'US-ASCII', when they are really ISO-2022-JP. We let the message override the default charset, which makes sense, but some emails are just really broken...

Rob

Ninniku · 25 Apr 2003, 05:52 PM

Hmm, I wish I knew how everyone else is managing ... I've tried it with IE and Safari in MacOS X, as well as with IE in Windows XP at work. Although received messages look fine, as soon as I try to forward or reply, the quoted part of the message comes out slightly garbled, as if the double-byte characters were just slightly off. The problem occurs within both my Full account, as well as within the Guest account I set up for my wife ...

Help!

**Gankaku** · 25 Apr 2003, 09:40 PM

Hi Ninniku, check this thread for more info.

Ninniku · 26 Apr 2003, 12:44 AM

Thanks, Gankaku, for pointing that out! I thought I'd gone through that thread, but I must've overlooked that bit at the end about copying & pasting as a workaround. Just goes to show that there's so much good information on this board that it's hard to digest it all!

So now, inevitably, I've gotten curious as to whether there's any way to tweak the webmail design so that replying and forwarding in Japanese can be as convenient as it is in English. Or is it simply an inherent problem with combining single- and double-byte messages in one program ... ?

Thanks for all the help ... we'll get my wife on to FastMail yet!

Quadra7 · 3 May 2003, 08:19 PM

Hello Ninniku ( Mr Garlic? (^^

)

As the original poster... I have been using Fastmail with Japanese for quite a while. I've imported Japanese mail from IMAP account and has used many feature available on Fastmail without much trouble. Recently, I did quick check on the problem that still exists... Rob / Jeff, if you can take a look at these problem, us Japanese users would be even more thrilled!

1) Most of the original problem (Japanese in mail header) is fixed. However, I've found at least one case, if the 7 bit JIS encoded mail header includes ">" character, Fastmail interface still translates it to "&lt".

This still seem occurs between ESC-$B and ESC-(B..., thus breaking the encoding for the whole page.

2) Reply feature fix probably would be nice for regular user. Currently the workaround is to copy the original mail text, and then pasting that into the reply mail... basically "Manual" method.

The problem with reply mail is exactly same as the original problem I encountered with the header... Between the "Begin JIS" and "End JIS" markers, if it finds any character that need to be encoded for HTML display (&, ", <, >, etc), it still does the translation... So the text becomes garbage.

I have to say that this conversion involving ISO-2022-JIS, Base64 and HTML is just horribly annoying... but is it possible to suppress all HTML translation when it is within JIS encoded text?

If you need a sample mail, I can probably mail one, similar to the last time... (Or maybe I can take part in Fastmail support in Far East language support? :-) )

Ninniku · 4 May 2003, 04:50 PM

Good to know that someone who knows more about how these things work is out there also using FastMail in Japanese! I imagine Rob must have a ton of feature requests on his plate, but I'm all for fixing the "reply" & "forward" issue for Asian languages whenever someone has a free programming moment ... !

robmueller · 4 May 2003, 07:15 PM

Ah, I understand the reply problem now! I'll make sure this is fixed at some stage. I've actually written a bunch of new code for the compose HTML screen, and I think my code takes this into account properly.

Rob

Quadra7 · 4 May 2003, 11:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Quadra7
However, I've found at least one case, if the 7 bit JIS encoded mail header includes "<" character, Fastmail interface still translates it to "&lt".

Oops, I realized that the last one should be written like "&-l-t" to convey what I really meant... I keep on forgetting the fact that HTML quoted chars still get converted.

Thanks for your great help again, Rob!

robert@fm · 5 May 2003, 12:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Quadra7
Oops, I realized that the last one should be written like "&-l-t" to convey what I really meant... I keep on forgetting the fact that HTML quoted chars still get converted.

Or you could have typed it as "&amp;lt;", so as to make it come out on screen as "&lt;"...

Quadra7 · 19 May 2003, 08:06 PM

BTW, the problem with Reply feature mis-translating ISO-2022-JIS encoded text into HTML character code as listed above also happens when address book lookup is used... When I pressed "Check", all the mail text I typed becomes garbled...

I did not notice this problem before since I tend to enter the address before I type main text.

Quote:

Originally posted by robert@fm
Or you could have typed it as "&amp;lt;", so as to make it come out on screen as "&lt;"...

Oops. thanks Robert.

Quadra7 · 23 May 2003, 11:41 PM

I just found out that saving and reopening draft mail is another area that exhibits this problem... All the saved text becomes garbage.

This actually may need higher priority than the reply (Although my guess is that the common fix can repair both features), since recovering original text from garbled saved draft is much much harder than just copy and pasting the contents of received mail.

Ninniku · 24 May 2003, 03:48 PM

Yes, I get the same problem with saved drafts, as well. Been using Entourage for Japanese lately instead of webmail, so I'd forgotten to mention this ...

Now if I could just get the spell checker to fix all my incorrect kanji characters ... !

Ninniku · 30 May 2003, 02:27 PM

Sorry to bring this thread back up to the front again, but I'm having more serious problems now sending mail in Japanese. Now, it seems that all of the messages I compose come out garbled at the receiving end. I have my account preferences still set for JIS, as well as my browser, but still no luck. I also have the style sheets check box unchecked in my account preferences, as well.

Any suggestions? I've been having this problem only for the past week or so ... before that, my messages were readable. Help!

robmueller · 3 Jun 2003, 01:11 PM

Can you email the webmaster with details. It should be working fine...

Rob

25 Apr 2003, 03:22 PM	#1
Ninniku Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: San Francisco, CA Posts: 55	Problems with Japanese Hello, all! I'm trying to convince my Japanese wife to start using FastMail, but ran into one big problem. I've got her default charset preference set to ISO 2022-JP "JIS" as mentioned in all of the previous Japanese-related threads, and almost all of her received messages are readable. However, anytime she tries to forward or reply to a Japanese message, the characters that are quoted from the original message become garbled. This occurs regardless of whether the quoted portion is prefixed with ">" or quoted inline. Although this doesn't happen when she IMAPs into her account using Microsoft Entourage, she'd really like to be able to use the webmail. Is there anyone out there using FastMail regularly in Japanese who's encountered this problem, solved it, or come up with a nifty little workaround? Yoroshiku onegai shimasu!

3 May 2003, 08:19 PM	#6
Quadra7 Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 25	Some things I noticed so far... Hello Ninniku ( Mr Garlic? (^^ ) As the original poster... I have been using Fastmail with Japanese for quite a while. I've imported Japanese mail from IMAP account and has used many feature available on Fastmail without much trouble. Recently, I did quick check on the problem that still exists... Rob / Jeff, if you can take a look at these problem, us Japanese users would be even more thrilled! 1) Most of the original problem (Japanese in mail header) is fixed. However, I've found at least one case, if the 7 bit JIS encoded mail header includes ">" character, Fastmail interface still translates it to "&lt". This still seem occurs between ESC-$B and ESC-(B..., thus breaking the encoding for the whole page. 2) Reply feature fix probably would be nice for regular user. Currently the workaround is to copy the original mail text, and then pasting that into the reply mail... basically "Manual" method. The problem with reply mail is exactly same as the original problem I encountered with the header... Between the "Begin JIS" and "End JIS" markers, if it finds any character that need to be encoded for HTML display (&, ", <, >, etc), it still does the translation... So the text becomes garbage. I have to say that this conversion involving ISO-2022-JIS, Base64 and HTML is just horribly annoying... but is it possible to suppress all HTML translation when it is within JIS encoded text? If you need a sample mail, I can probably mail one, similar to the last time... (Or maybe I can take part in Fastmail support in Far East language support? :-) )

23 May 2003, 11:41 PM	#12
Quadra7 Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 25	Saving Draft also problematic I just found out that saving and reopening draft mail is another area that exhibits this problem... All the saved text becomes garbage. This actually may need higher priority than the reply (Although my guess is that the common fix can repair both features), since recovering original text from garbled saved draft is much much harder than just copy and pasting the contents of received mail.

25 Apr 2003, 05:27 PM	#2
robmueller Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 6,102 Representative of: Fastmail.FM	I believe that other people do use it successfully, and changing the default charset is all you need to do. What browser are you using? IE? The only problem I've seen is some emails that claim to be 'US-ASCII', when they are really ISO-2022-JP. We let the message override the default charset, which makes sense, but some emails are just really broken... Rob

25 Apr 2003, 05:52 PM	#3
Ninniku Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: San Francisco, CA Posts: 55	Hmm, I wish I knew how everyone else is managing ... I've tried it with IE and Safari in MacOS X, as well as with IE in Windows XP at work. Although received messages look fine, as soon as I try to forward or reply, the quoted part of the message comes out slightly garbled, as if the double-byte characters were just slightly off. The problem occurs within both my Full account, as well as within the Guest account I set up for my wife ... Help!

25 Apr 2003, 09:40 PM	#4
Gankaku Moderator Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Virginia, USA Posts: 3,265	Hi Ninniku, check this thread for more info.

26 Apr 2003, 12:44 AM	#5
Ninniku Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: San Francisco, CA Posts: 55	Thanks, Gankaku, for pointing that out! I thought I'd gone through that thread, but I must've overlooked that bit at the end about copying & pasting as a workaround. Just goes to show that there's so much good information on this board that it's hard to digest it all! So now, inevitably, I've gotten curious as to whether there's any way to tweak the webmail design so that replying and forwarding in Japanese can be as convenient as it is in English. Or is it simply an inherent problem with combining single- and double-byte messages in one program ... ? Thanks for all the help ... we'll get my wife on to FastMail yet!

4 May 2003, 04:50 PM	#7
Ninniku Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: San Francisco, CA Posts: 55	Good to know that someone who knows more about how these things work is out there also using FastMail in Japanese! I imagine Rob must have a ton of feature requests on his plate, but I'm all for fixing the "reply" & "forward" issue for Asian languages whenever someone has a free programming moment ... !

4 May 2003, 07:15 PM	#8
robmueller Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 6,102 Representative of: Fastmail.FM	Ah, I understand the reply problem now! I'll make sure this is fixed at some stage. I've actually written a bunch of new code for the compose HTML screen, and I think my code takes this into account properly. Rob

24 May 2003, 03:48 PM	#13
Ninniku Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: San Francisco, CA Posts: 55	Yes, I get the same problem with saved drafts, as well. Been using Entourage for Japanese lately instead of webmail, so I'd forgotten to mention this ... Now if I could just get the spell checker to fix all my incorrect kanji characters ... !

30 May 2003, 02:27 PM	#14
Ninniku Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: San Francisco, CA Posts: 55	Sorry to bring this thread back up to the front again, but I'm having more serious problems now sending mail in Japanese. Now, it seems that all of the messages I compose come out garbled at the receiving end. I have my account preferences still set for JIS, as well as my browser, but still no luck. I also have the style sheets check box unchecked in my account preferences, as well. Any suggestions? I've been having this problem only for the past week or so ... before that, my messages were readable. Help!

3 Jun 2003, 01:11 PM	#15
robmueller Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 6,102 Representative of: Fastmail.FM	Can you email the webmaster with details. It should be working fine... Rob