229564 - Preference panel shows incorrect 'Arabic (IBM-864)' (default) character encoding, instead of 'Unicode (UTF-8)', when pref. value is not explicitly set.

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Other Applications Graveyard :: ChatZilla, defect)

Description

[Erik Karu]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031208
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031208

After installing Mozilla 1.5 or 1.6b, Mozilla the Browser's Default Character
Coding (under Edit->Preferences->Navigator->Languages) is set to Western
(ISO-8859-1) which is ok, since my locale setting in WinXP is en-us. However,
for ChatZilla setting for Default Character Coding (under
Edit->Prefereces->ChatZilla) is the first one on the list, Arabic (IBM-864),
which causes problems when chatting.

Please consider changing Default Character Coding for ChatZilla to some more
used one, like Western (ISO-8859-1), to system default, or sharing the value
with Navigator.

Thanks.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install Mozilla (make sure no previous settings are left anywhere)
2. Open Preferences
3. See Preferences->ChatZilla->Default Character Coding

Actual Results:  
Coding was Arabic (IBM-864).

Expected Results:  
Coding is set to a common coding (like Western ISO-8859-1) or to system default.

Newbies tend to be flamed because of this one and could start to dislike
ChatZilla for this.

Comment 1

[Robert Ginda]

chatzilla's default encoding is actually utf-8.  I'm not sure why it doesn't
always show up like that on the pref panel.  check in chatzilla with the
/charset command to see what it's actually set to.

Comment 2

[Erik Karu]

/charset in a newly installed Mozilla 1.6b/Linux says:

[INFO] Using utf-8 as default charset.

But still the Preferences->ChatZilla->Default Character Coding is Arabic (IBM-864).

So a little inconsistency here. Leaving to others to decide what to do with this
report.

Thanks.

Comment 3

[Jo Hermans]

I could reproduce this, although it's not really the Arabic charset that is
selected. When the extensions.irc.charset preference is empty (""), the dialog
box would just select the first item in the list. The default charset (utf-8)
isn't really used in this case.

build 2003122605 on Mac OS X 10.2.5 (ChatZilla 0.9.52B)

- I wiped out my extensions.irc.charset preference in about:config. The default
seems to be empty (b/c chatzilla is an extension ?)
- when I opened Chatzilla, I tried the /charset command, which showed me that
the default was utf-8 (Using “utf-8” as default charset), although the
preference was really empty
- when I opened the Preferences-dialog, I saw that the selected charset was the
first one (Arabic IBM-64) - that's obvously an error.
- when I closed the dialog with the ok button, the extensions.irc.charset
preference was written again (became bold in about:config), but was still empty
- when I used the /charset command again, it told me that the charset is empty,
not utf-8 (Using “” as default charset).
- I opened that dialog box again, and again I saw that Arabic was selected.

Comment 4

[Robert Ginda]

If the pref is set to "" by default, it's probably indicates that you ran a
0.8.x version of chatzilla on that profile.  I think chatzilla will still use
utf-8 in that case.  The pref window probably just displays the first charset in
the list when the pref is blank, which is a bug that won't exist once silver
lands his new pref panel.

Comment 5

[Conny Brunnkvist]

I can confirm the same behaviour on Mac OS X and Moz 1.6 as reported by Jo Hermans.

>If the pref is set to "" by default, it's probably indicates that you ran a
>0.8.x version of chatzilla on that profile.

This is on a totally fresh install (user previously never used Moz/ChatZilla
whatsoever). Never ran any other version of either one before.

Comment 6

[James Ross]

Wouldn't the fact the pref window has no default set for the charset drop-down
be the problem here?

Comment 7

[James Ross]

*** Bug 234177 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8

[ratman]

confirm (and reproducible) with moz1.6b, moz1.6, and now moz1.7a with winxp.

Comment 9

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

[Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040616] (release) (W98SE)
and
[Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.8a1) Gecko/20040520] (release) (W98SE)

Updating:
*(S) normal -> minor: workaround is to select the right charset manually.
*(K) blocking1.7.1=?, blocking1.8a2=?: based on comment 3: (pref.) default value
can be lost.

Comment 10

[James Ross]

This dialog is now gone. The replacement isn't ideal, but many improvements are
in the works.