235312 - Support for UTF-8 mail server hostnames and email addresses in account settings

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Internationalization, defect)

Description

[Christian Eyrich]

On the way to IDN support for MailNews we have to be able to cope with
international characters in server hostnames and email addresses used in account
and identity settings.
This includes storage (UTF-8 or Unichar), validation, output in the UI and using
internally for generating message URI and folder pathes.

Comment 1

[Christian Eyrich]

I'm a little bit stuck at the moment.
Generally my patch works, but when in comes to creating the folder structure for
a new account with IDN domain I don't get a consistent result.
Hostname is "tÃŒst", in directory-rel it's "tÃŒst" too, but in directory and on
disk it's "tüst", in draft_folder & co initially "t%FCst" and when closing
Account Manager with OK it becomes "t%C3%BCst".

Because of these differences and because we should avoid to use 8 bit characters
as folders or files on disk, some more changes are needed.
My question is, what should the folder and filename for e.g. "tüst" be? I think
we have only two possible solutions. 1. ACE coded "xn--tst-hoa" and 2. escaped
UTF-8 "t%C3%BCst".
And what about directory and directory-rel prefs, same as on disk, always UTF-8
or what?

Generally I think I need help by someone experienced with message DB.

Comment 2

[R.K.Aa.]

*** Bug 242059 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 3

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

(In reply to comment #1)
> I'm a little bit stuck at the moment.
> Generally my patch works, but when in comes to creating the folder structure for

Christian are you still working on this ?

Comment 4

[Moritz Strübe]

It seems like this is pretty broken in TB 8.0. When adding an account where the server(!)-name is puny-code this account will not work. It will also break things like filters. 

Way to reproduce: Create new IMAP-Account. Choose puny-code for the server. 

Results: You get the account, but its name is empty in the folder-pane and has no sub folders. It is listed when managing accounts - but without name. The name is correctly listed in the details. Pressing ok does not close the window anymore - settings are saved, though. It is also impossible to create new filters for any account.

Expected results: If umlauts are not supported, it should at least work with puny-code.

Fix: This is only server-related. Once you change the server domain to an IP or an alternative domain, everything is fine (You can use puny-code for email addresses).

BTW: This is a regression! It worked some time ago (Maybe around TB 4.0), but I did not look into it until now.

Comment 6

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Removing myslef on all the bugs I'm cced on. Please NI me if you need something on MailNews Core bugs from me.

Comment 7

[KamilDudek]

I bought an overkill domain "ノoヮoノ.みんな" and came across this bug. I'd like to add my comments:

- UTF usernames get garbled into the old web %HEX format
- IDN server names get malformed in the ANSI-based "prefs.js" file

The IDN-based addresses might become more and more popular soon.
Also, the URL field in this bug description leads to nowhere

Cheers!

Comment 9

[Frank Gadegast]

Bug 235312 is ... 20 years old.
ICANN approved IDN in 2009.
In May 2010, the first IDN ccTLDs were installed in the DNS root zone.

Still not fixed.