Display Unicode text in lynx run in a Putty window

[Yong Huang]

I use Putty (a telnet or ssh program) to connect to a UNIX box and run lynx (Version 2.8.8rel.2 (09 Mar 2014)). On a page with Unicode text, such as the
language names under the "Languages" heading of

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx_%28web_browser%29

how
do I configure lynx to display the text correctly?  For example, the first Arabic and the last Chinese language names are not shown correctly. I set lynx option "Display character set" to "UNICODE (UTF-8)", "Assumed
document character set" to "utf-8", and saved the setting. I also tried
various fonts inside Putty and Translation to either UTF-8 or "Use font
encoding". None worked. Thanks for help.

[Thomas Dickey]

Post by Yong Huang
I use Putty (a telnet or ssh program) to connect to a UNIX box and run lynx (Version 2.8.8rel.2 (09 Mar 2014)). On a page with Unicode text, such as the
language names under the "Languages" heading of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx_%28web_browser%29
how
do I configure lynx to display the text correctly?  For example, the first
Arabic and the last Chinese language names are not shown correctly. I set
lynx option "Display character set" to "UNICODE (UTF-8)", "Assumed
document character set" to "utf-8", and saved the setting. I also tried
various fonts inside Putty and Translation to either UTF-8 or "Use font
encoding". None worked. Thanks for help.

What does "lynx -version" show?

(offhand, I recall only looking at PuTTY with Lucida Console, which has some CJK coverage,
but not "good" - all of the good-coverage Microsoft fonts are part of Office).

[Yong Huang]

Thanks Tom. Lynx version is
Lynx Version 2.8.8rel.2 (09 Mar 2014)
libwww-FM 2.14, SSL-MM 1.4.1, OpenSSL 1.0.1g, ncurses 5.9.20110404
Built on netbsd Jun 28 2014 17:07:45


I can get the Chinese text in GB2312 encoding to work (e.g. the homepage of cnd.org). But I really want to get Unicode to work. It seems more and more non-European web pages use Unicode instead of language-specific encoding these days.

(Does this list oppose top-posting? If so, I'll do it the right way next time.)



________________________________
From: Thomas Dickey <***@his.com>
To: Yong Huang <***@yahoo.com>
Cc: "lynx-***@nongnu.org" <lynx-***@nongnu.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2014 3:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Lynx-dev] Display Unicode text in lynx run in a Putty window

Post by Yong Huang
I use Putty (a telnet or ssh program) to connect to a UNIX box and run lynx (Version 2.8.8rel.2 (09 Mar 2014)). On a page with Unicode text, such as the
language names under the "Languages" heading of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx_%28web_browser%29
how
do I configure lynx to display the text correctly?  For example, the first
Arabic and the last Chinese language names are not shown correctly.  I set
lynx option "Display character set" to "UNICODE (UTF-8)", "Assumed
document character set" to "utf-8", and saved the setting. I also tried
various fonts inside Putty and Translation to either UTF-8 or "Use font
encoding". None worked. Thanks for help.

What does "lynx -version" show?

(offhand, I recall only looking at PuTTY with Lucida Console, which has some CJK coverage,
but not "good" - all of the good-coverage Microsoft fonts are part of Office).

[Thomas Dickey]

Post by Yong Huang
Thanks Tom. Lynx version is
Lynx Version 2.8.8rel.2 (09 Mar 2014)
libwww-FM 2.14, SSL-MM 1.4.1, OpenSSL 1.0.1g, ncurses 5.9.20110404

^^^^^^^ (problem)

Post by Yong Huang
Built on netbsd Jun 28 2014 17:07:45

ncurses comes in two flavors - in pkgsrc, I think you need the "ncursew" package,
and then (when running the configure script) to use the "--with-screen=ncursesw" option.

If you look at the files in the PACKAGE directory of lynx's sources,
you will find "lynx.spec" and debian/rules files showing typical options
that I use for configuring lynx.

Post by Yong Huang
I can get the Chinese text in GB2312 encoding to work (e.g. the homepage of
cnd.org). But I really want to get Unicode to work. It seems more and more
non-European web pages use Unicode instead of language-specific encoding
these days.

yes... (though offhand I thought GB2312 didn't work...)

Post by Yong Huang
(Does this list oppose top-posting? If so, I'll do it the right way next time.)

some people are likely to object...

[Yong Huang]

Post by Yong Huang
Thanks Tom. Lynx version is
Lynx Version 2.8.8rel.2 (09 Mar 2014)
libwww-FM 2.14, SSL-MM 1.4.1, OpenSSL 1.0.1g, ncurses 5.9.20110404

                                                 ^^^^^^^ (problem)

Post by Yong Huang
Built on netbsd Jun 28 2014 17:07:45

ncurses comes in two flavors - in pkgsrc, I think you need the "ncursew" package,
and then (when running the configure script) to use the "--with-screen=ncursesw" option.
If you look at the files in the PACKAGE directory of lynx's sources,
you will find "lynx.spec" and debian/rules files showing typical options
that I use for configuring lynx.

Post by Yong Huang
I can get the Chinese text in GB2312 encoding to work (e.g.  the homepage of
cnd.org).  But I really want to get Unicode to work.  It seems more and more
non-European web pages use Unicode instead of language-specific encoding
these days.

yes... (though offhand I thought GB2312 didn't work...)
--
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net

Found something interesting. Earlier I was checking lynx on a NetBSD box. Lynx didn't correctly show a Unicode (UTF-8) encoding web page, even though the version is quite new. Then I check a Linux box, where Lynx version is

Lynx Version 2.8.6rel.5 (09 May 2007)
libwww-FM 2.14, SSL-MM 1.4.1, OpenSSL 1.0.0-fips, ncurses 5.7.20090207(wide)
Built on linux-gnu Aug 25 2010 15:17:35

Surprisingly, Unicode text is shown beautifully. What I need to do is:

set "Display character set" to "UNICODE (UTF-8)"
set "Assumed document character set" to "utf-8"

set Putty Window -> Translation- -> UTF-8

Then I went back to the NetBSD box and did the same thing. Unicode characters are not shown as wigly wires any more, but "nubular" rectangles. Putty font is either Courier New or Lucida Console.

For now, I'll just use the Linux box. Thanks!

[Thorsten Glaser]

Post by Yong Huang
Then I went back to the NetBSD box and did the same thing. Unicode
characters are not shown as wigly wires any more, but "nubular"

You might want to tell the NetBSD people to link lynx against
ncursesw on their platform. (Hint: on MirBSD, there is *only*
ncursesw, we dropped ncurses entirely… works just fine…)

bye,
//mirabilos

[Thomas Dickey]

Post by Thorsten Glaser

Post by Yong Huang
Then I went back to the NetBSD box and did the same thing. Unicode
characters are not shown as wigly wires any more, but "nubular"

You might want to tell the NetBSD people to link lynx against
ncursesw on their platform. (Hint: on MirBSD, there is *only*
ncursesw, we dropped ncurses entirely
 works just fine
)

NetBSD has its own curses (which doesn't work well with UTF-8 and Lynx).