Hello All!

Проверка GoldED с поддержкой UTF-8 через iconv
GoldED with UTF-8 via iconv support test

هذا نص تجريبي لاختبار ترميز اللغة العربية الموحد (UTF-8).
Áâæçéèêëîïôœùûüÿñß - ÅåØøÆæ - ŁłŻżĆć - Č芚Žž - ĞğŞşıİ - ŐőŰű
ใฝ่หาเทคโนโลยีและวัฒนธรรมที่ยั่งยืน ๒๕๖๙
ძალზედ საინტერესო ტექსტია კოდირების შესამოწმებლად!
בדיקת קידוד טקסט בשפה העברית 12345, כולל סימני פיסוק.
Chào tất cả các bạn! Tuyển tập những từ ngữ có dấu tiếng Việt khó hiển thị.
यह देवनागरी लिपि में एन्कोडिंग परीक्षण के लिए एक वाक्य है।

ใฝ่หาเทคโนโลยี ๒๕๖๙ | ძალზედ | בדיקת קיดוד 123 | هذا نص تجريبي | Chào tất cả các bạn (ấ, ế) | यह देवनागरी | ŐőŰű Łł

Où l'œuvre d'un grand garçon naïf a mûri sur le vieux canapé, là-bas près du ruisseau ?
Übermütige Clowns quälen die süßen Vögel in großen, hässlichen Käfigen.
El pingüino leyó una canción en el camión más pequeño, ¡qué extraño y difícil año!
Særlig den blå østers i åen var sprød og lækker, så vi spiste otte i går.
Zażółć gęślą jaźń w dżungli, gdzie mąż płaci za łódź i świeże mięso.
Příliš žluťoučký kůň úpěl ďábelské ódy na starém mistrovském dvoře.
Árvíztűrő tükörfúrógép, amely különlegesen éles és működőképes.
Gheorghe cumpără țigări și pâine proaspătă în timp ce ședea pe jos. Glāžšķūņa rūķīši mēģina ievietot mīkstus čiekurus šaurā, tukšā kastē.

Zażółć gęślą jaźń! Où l'œuvre d'un garçon mûri? Übermütige Clowns quälen süßen Vögel. Příliš žluťoučký kůň úpěl. Árvíztűrő tükörfúrógép! Særlig den blå østers. El pingüino leyó una canción.


Eugene
... It's full of stars!
--- GoldED+/BSD 1.1.5-b20260304 (NetBSD 11.0 Intel_Core_Haswell)
* Origin: FireFox Station (2:5075/35)

In a message of 22 Aug 26 10:27, Eugene wrote to All:

Hello All!

Проверка GoldED с поддержкой UTF-8 через iconv GoldED with UTF-8
via iconv support test

هذا نص تجريبي لاختبار ترميز اللغة العربية الموحد (UTF-8).
Áâæçéèêëîïôœùûüÿñß - ÅåØøÆæ - ŁłŻżĆć - Č芚Žž - ĞğŞşıİ - ŐőŰű
ใฝ่หาเทคโนโลยีและวัฒนธรรมที่ยั่งยืน ๒๕๖๙ ძალზედ საინტერესო ტექსტია
კოდირების შესამოწმებლად! בדיקת קידוד טקסט בשפה העברית 12345, כולל סימני פיסוק.
Chào tất cả các bạn! Tuyển tập những từ ngữ có dấu tiếng Việt khó
hiển thị.
यह देवनागरी लिपि में एन्कोडिंग परीक्षण के लिए एक वाक्य है।

ใฝ่หาเทคโนโลยี ๒๕๖๙ | ძალზედ | בדיקת קיดוד 123 | هذا نص تجريبي |
Chào tất cả các bạn (ấ, ế) | यह देवनागरी | ŐőŰű Łł

Où l'œuvre d'un grand garçon naïf a mûri sur le vieux canapé, là-bas près du ruisseau ?
Übermütige Clowns quälen die süßen Vögel in großen, hässlichen Käfigen.
El pingüino leyó una canción en el camión más pequeño, ¡qué extraño
y difícil año!
Særlig den blå østers i åen var sprød og lækker, så vi spiste otte i går.
Zażółć gęślą jaźń w dżungli, gdzie mąż płaci za łódź i świeże
mięso.
Příliš žluťoučký kůň úpěl ďábelské ódy na starém mistrovském dvoře.
Árvíztűrő tükörfúrógép, amely különlegesen éles és működőképes.
Gheorghe cumpără țigări și pâine proaspătă în timp ce ședea pe jos.
Glāžšķūņa rūķīši mēģina ievietot mīkstus čiekurus šaurā, tukšā
kastē.

Zażółć gęślą jaźń! Où l'œuvre d'un garçon mûri? Übermütige Clowns
quälen süßen Vögel. Příliš žluťoučký kůň úpěl. Árvíztűrő
tükörfúrógép! Særlig den blå østers. El pingüino leyó una canción.

Looks ok in "FidoMail web".

'Tommi

--- FidoMail v0.1.3
* Origin: -------------> (2:221/1.245)

Hello Eugene!

Replying to a msg dated 22 Aug 26 10:27, from you to all.

Hello Eugene!

Replying to a msg dated 22 Aug 26 10:27, from you to all.

My copy of Golded is not configured to do unicode but I can save it.

SC Unipad gives three replacement chars in the Thai text.
Babelpad has in addition trouble with the Arabic text.
After I deleted the troubles it displays fine in Notepad.

Chris


--- Binkd, FMail, Golded+
* Origin: https://drschrisjacobs.nl (2:280/5555.11)

Eugene,

Проверка GoldED с поддержкой UTF-8 через iconv GoldED with UTF-8 via
iconv support test

هذا نص تجريبي لاختبار ترميز اللغة العربية الموحد (UTF-8).
Áâæçéèêëîïôœùûüÿñß - ÅåØøÆæ - ŁłŻżĆć - Č芚Žž - ĞğŞşıİ - ŐőŰű
ใฝ่หาเทคโนโลยีและวัฒนธรรมที่ยั่งยืน ๒๕๖๙ ძალზედ საინტერესო ტექსტია
კოდირების შესამოწმებლად! בדיקת קידוד טקסט בשפה העברית 12345, כולל סימני
פיסוק. Chào tất cả các bạn! Tuyển tập những từ ngữ có dấu tiếng Việt khó
hiển thị. यह देवनागरी लिपि में एन्कोडिंग परीक्षण के लिए एक वाक्य है।

ใฝ่หาเทคโนโลยี ๒๕๖๙ | ძალზედ | בדיקת קיดוד 123 | هذا نص تجريبي | Chào tất
cả các bạn (ấ, ế) | यह देवनागरी | ŐőŰű Łł

Où l'œuvre d'un grand garçon naïf a mûri sur le vieux canapé, là-bas près
du ruisseau ? Übermütige Clowns quälen die süßen Vögel in großen, hässlichen Käfigen. El pingüino leyó una canción en el camión más pequeño, ¡qué extraño y difícil año! Særlig den blå østers i åen var
sprød og lækker, så vi spiste otte i går. Zażółć gęślą jaźń w dżungli,
gdzie mąż płaci za łódź i świeże mięso. Příliš žluťoučký kůň úpěl
ďábelské ódy na starém mistrovském dvoře. Árvíztűrő tükörfúrógép, amely
különlegesen éles és működőképes. Gheorghe cumpără țigări și pâine
proaspătă în timp ce ședea pe jos. Glāžšķūņa rūķīši mēģina ievietot
mīkstus čiekurus šaurā, tukšā kastē.

Zażółć gęślą jaźń! Où l'œuvre d'un garçon mûri? Übermütige Clowns quälen
süßen Vögel. Příliš žluťoučký kůň úpěl. Árvíztűrő tükörfúrógép! Særlig
den blå østers. El pingüino leyó una canción.

Looks good in Winpoint (and also in HotdogED)

Carlos

--- WinPoint 415.0
* Origin: cyberiada (2:341/234.5)

Hey Eugene!

On Sat, 22 Aug 2026 10:27:56 +0300, you wrote:

Проверка GoldED с поддержкой UTF-8 через iconv GoldED with UTF-8 via iconv support test

I think you may be on to something!

How is progress with this? Is the terminal UI display also in the works here?

For example, Golded displaying one byte per character while being unaware that UTF-8 is multi-byte, so when things are translated to UTF-8 there is early wrapping, etc.

If you need, I wouldn't mind helping test this feature! ;)

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm: because beating people up is illegal.
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20260425
* Origin: _thePharcyde telnet://bbs.pharcyde.org (Wisconsin) (1:154/10)

Hello Nick!

Sunday August 23 2026 07:49, you wrote to me:

Проверка GoldED с поддержкой UTF-8 через
iconv

GoldED with UTF-8 via iconv support test

I think you may be on to something!

How is progress with this? Is the terminal UI display also in the
works here?

For example, Golded displaying one byte per character while being
unaware that UTF-8 is multi-byte, so when things are translated to
UTF-8 there is early wrapping, etc.

If you need, I wouldn't mind helping test this feature! ;)

So, I've finished a huge refactoring of GoldED+ code (of course, not without the help of AI, otherwise there would be a year's worth of work there). There are a lot of changes in the code, everything is documented and described in notework.txt.

You can test it from my repo fork https://github.com/evs38/golded-plus/tree/unicode
Use the “unicode” branch 🪾

Binary releases are here: https://github.com/evs38/golded-plus/releases

I'm getting a little tired of testing all these changes, especially since I have to do it on a dozen different platforms and compilers to make sure I don't break anything. So some help would be appreciated 😀

Eugene

... It's full of stars!
--- GoldED+/BSD 1.1.5-b20260825 (NetBSD 11.0 Intel Core Haswell)
* Origin: FireFox Station (2:5075/35)

Hello Chris!

Saturday August 22 2026 14:06, you wrote to me:

My copy of Golded is not configured to do unicode but I can save it.

SC Unipad gives three replacement chars in the Thai text.
Babelpad has in addition trouble with the Arabic text.
After I deleted the troubles it displays fine in Notepad.

You can try GoldED+ version from here: https://github.com/evs38/golded-plus/releases/tag/golded-plus-1.1.5-20260825
It should work with unicode out of box. But check the XlatLocalCharset / XlatConfigCharset / XlatAreaCharset config options, may be they need to be configured to UTF-8.

Eugene

... It's full of stars!
--- GoldED+/BSD 1.1.5-b20260825 (NetBSD 11.0 Intel Core Haswell)
* Origin: FireFox Station (2:5075/35)

Hey Eugene!

On Wed, 26 Aug 2026 01:45:40 +0300, you wrote:

So, I've finished a huge refactoring of GoldED+ code (of course, not
without the help of AI, otherwise there would be a year's worth of work there). There are a lot of changes in the code, everything is documented
and described in notework.txt.

WOW. What you've added to notework.txt is hefty!

You can test it from my repo fork https://github.com/evs38/golded-plus/tree/unicode Use the “unicode” branch

Currently testing it right now. I went back and looked at a few screens that used to display improperly (early wrapping due to multibyte characters with a somewhat "hacked" UTF-8 setup), and they display correctly now! ;)

I'm getting a little tired of testing all these changes, especially
since I have to do it on a dozen different platforms and compilers to
make sure I don't break anything. So some help would be appreciated 😀

What are the future plans? Are you going to get rid of translation tables altogether, or plan on keeping them for backward compatibility?

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm: because beating people up is illegal.
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20260825
* Origin: _thePharcyde telnet://bbs.pharcyde.org (Wisconsin) (1:154/10)

Hey Eugene!

On Wed, 26 Aug 2026 01:45:40 +0300, you wrote:

You can test it from my repo fork https://github.com/evs38/golded-plus/tree/unicode Use the “unicode” branch

I forgot to mention, before I wrote these replies, I commended out any 'xlatcharset' lines as well as the inclusion of charsets.cfg. I'm currently only working with:

xlatimport cp437
xlatexport utf-8
xlatlocalset utf-8

Nice job! A few times, hours into it, I had AI running around in circles trying to at least support multibyte characters in Golded's UI while displaying a message. That and my patience wears thin when it gets things blatantly wrong, or says something completely different from what it said 5 minutes prior. I can only imagine what you've put into it. ;)

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm: because beating people up is illegal.
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20260825
* Origin: _thePharcyde telnet://bbs.pharcyde.org (Wisconsin) (1:154/10)

Hello Eugene!

26 Aug 26 01:56, you wrote to me:

Hello Chris!

Saturday August 22 2026 14:06, you wrote to me:

My copy of Golded is not configured to do unicode but I can save
it.

SC Unipad gives three replacement chars in the Thai text.
Babelpad has in addition trouble with the Arabic text.
After I deleted the troubles it displays fine in Notepad.

You can try GoldED+ version from here: https://github.com/evs38/golded-plus/releases/tag/golded-plus-1.1.5-20 260825 It should work with unicode out of box. But check the XlatLocalCharset / XlatConfigCharset / XlatAreaCharset config options,
may be they need to be configured to UTF-8.

Eugene

... It's full of stars!
--- GoldED+/BSD 1.1.5-b20260825 (NetBSD 11.0 Intel Core Haswell)
* Origin: FireFox Station (2:5075/35)

Chris

Yes, that works. Thanks.

--- Binkd, FMail, Golded+
* Origin: https://drschrisjacobs.nl (2:280/5555.11)

Hello Nick!

Tuesday August 25 2026 19:05, you wrote to me:

Currently testing it right now. I went back and looked at a few
screens that used to display improperly (early wrapping due to
multibyte characters with a somewhat "hacked" UTF-8 setup), and they display correctly now! ;)

I'm getting a little tired of testing all these changes, especially
since I have to do it on a dozen different platforms and compilers
to make sure I don't break anything. So some help would be
appreciated 😀

What are the future plans? Are you going to get rid of translation
tables altogether, or plan on keeping them for backward compatibility?

I'll leave them; they don't get in the way. In fact, they supplement the conversion of characters that iconv, the Win32 API, or ULS might not recognize—for example, MAC-CYRILLIC.

While reviewing the code, I actually found quite a few areas that could use further investigation and optimization. So now I want to test what’s been done, finish up what’s described by me in todowork.txt, and address some cosmetic issues that I don’t like (such as handling emojis in ncurses or message coloring in the old curses on BSD systems, which for some reason works completely randomly), and merge all the code into the main repository. Many of these cosmetic issues have been around for a very long time and have nothing to do with Unicode; we’ve simply gotten used to them and stopped paying attention to them.

Eugene

... It's full of stars!
--- GoldED+/BSD 1.1.5-b20260825 (NetBSD 11.0 Intel Core Haswell)
* Origin: FireFox Station (2:5075/35)

Hello Nick!

Tuesday August 25 2026 19:13, you wrote to me:

Nice job! A few times, hours into it, I had AI running around in
circles trying to at least support multibyte characters in Golded's UI while displaying a message. That and my patience wears thin when it
gets things blatantly wrong, or says something completely different
from what it said 5 minutes prior. I can only imagine what you've put
into it. ;)

Thanks! That's right. AI isn't yet a tool that can function on its own, so programming or design skills are still necessary. The problem is that AI can’t put such a large amount of information — such as the code for an entire project — into context, even though it isn’t that large in size. What’s more, it will forget what it’s done and end up writing a bunch of duplicate functions instead, reinventing them from scratch every time 😃

Eugene

... It's full of stars!
--- GoldED+/BSD 1.1.5-b20260825 (NetBSD 11.0 Intel Core Haswell)
* Origin: FireFox Station (2:5075/35)

Hey Eugene!

On Wed, 26 Aug 2026 07:02:42 +0300, you wrote:

I'll leave them; they don't get in the way. In fact, they supplement the conversion of characters that iconv, the Win32 API, or ULS might not recognize—for example, MAC-CYRILLIC.

I feel wierd not using them, but everything finally looks so much better!

I'm not sure I've run into much that iconv can't handle. Definitely not anything we would see in Fidonet, and I've honestly never seen MAC-CYRILLIC used anywhere, let alone Fidonet. ;)

While reviewing the code, I actually found quite a few areas that could
use further investigation and optimization. So now I want to test
what’s been done, finish up what’s described by me in todowork.txt,
and address some cosmetic issues that I don’t like (such as handling emojis in ncurses or message coloring in the old curses on BSD systems, which for some reason works completely randomly), and merge all the code into the main repository. Many of these cosmetic issues have been around
for a very long time and have nothing to do with Unicode; we’ve simply gotten used to them and stopped paying attention to them.

Great! It's definitely nice to see more progress, and I'll continue to follow along for the ride!

Is there anything specific I can do (even if out of the ordinary) to test what has been done so far besides just continue to use it? I was kind of going in expecting some issues, and honestly haven't had a single one. All of the display issues I had before while forcing UTF-8 when multibyte characters weren't supported have gone away.

Only thing I've seen different so far, is in the area list, the arrows pointing at areas with new messages at almost the beginning of the line(s). Before they looked like: -> (but fancier, obviously), and now they look like: |> (colored in).

Also, If I remember right, "make strip" now fails.

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm: because beating people up is illegal.
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20260825
* Origin: _thePharcyde telnet://bbs.pharcyde.org (Wisconsin) (1:154/10)

Hey Eugene!

On Wed, 26 Aug 2026 07:28:56 +0300, you wrote:

Thanks! That's right. AI isn't yet a tool that can function on its own,
so programming or design skills are still necessary. The problem is that
AI can’t put such a large amount of information — such as the code
for an entire project — into context, even though it isn’t that
large in size. What’s more, it will forget what it’s done and end up writing a bunch of duplicate functions instead, reinventing them from scratch every time 😃

Yes! Quite a few times, I almost started cursing at it.. and had to pull myself back because I would look stupid (even to myself) cursing out a robot. ;)

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm: because beating people up is illegal.
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20260825
* Origin: _thePharcyde telnet://bbs.pharcyde.org (Wisconsin) (1:154/10)