KOI8-R in Win95 Netscape

Netscape v4.0b2 tuning

Netscape v4.0b2 supports KOI8-R using standard Win95 European UNICODE fonts, so you don't need Win3.1 KOI8-R fonts (Netscape will not work with them in any case) neither KOI8-R GDI.EXE hack. If you have Win95 Russian Edition or Win95 CE Edition or install MutliLanguage Support in Win95 Standard Edition, you already have needed fonts, so no additional actions required from you.

In Netscape Navigator choose Cyrillic(KOI8-R) encoding into Edit|Preferences|Appearance|Fonts|For the Encoding and standard Win95 European UNICODE fonts (Times New Roman and Courier New) in ... Width Font boxes.
Call Netscape Messenger and choose Cyrillic(KOI8-R) encoding in View|Encoding for each of Inbox, Outbox, Drafts, Trash, Sent folders separately to view Mail messages in the right font.
In Netscape Collabra after entering into each Russian newsgroup you need to set Cyrillic(KOI8-R) encoding in View|Encoding (once per group) to view news articles in the right font.

In Netscape Navigator do not set Cyrillic(KOI8-R) in View|Encoding as permanent default encoding scheme (don't press Set Default). It violates HTML and HTTP standards which says that default document encoding (without any special instructions) must be ISO 8859-1. Temporary setting of another encoding is possible as workaround for broken Russian WWW pages.

Bug list:

Netscape not decode <FORM> input from CP1251 (Russian Windows default character set) to KOI8-R when needed. I.e. it totally ignores ACCEPT-CHARSET="KOI8-R" <FORM> attribute and global HTML page character set too for both <META> and HTTP header cases. See Internationalization of the Hypertext Markup Language (RFC 2070) for details.
According to Internationalization of the Hypertext Markup Language (RFC 2070) charset= from HTTP header must overwrite charset= from <META ...> tag. Netscape does just opposite thing, i.e. <META ...> overwrites HTTP header charset. This bug seriously affect automatic character sets decoding proxies. Load this test page with different HTTP header and META charsets to see this bug in action (check View|Page Info for Charset value, there must be KOI8-R, not windows-1251).
Netscape forget to decode document <TITLE>s in the top of browser window and Bookmarks from KOI8-R character set to CP1251 character set (Russian Windows default). It makes documents with Russian <TITLES>s or bookmark entries for them looks ugly. It seems that Netscape not use even Russian Windows default (CP1251) font for bookmarks, so they appearse in the ISO 8859-1 font. HTML documents title character set can be detected using the same two methods as for document body, i.e. by <META> tag or HTTP header character set, so each bookmark entry must have its own CHARSET="..." attribute in the bookmark.htm file which will be used for each bookmark entry displaying.
This version can't send Russian mail because it not decodes user input from CP1251 to KOI8-R for both body and Subject:, not use user-specified Russian font for Subject: entering and not add charset=KOI8-R to MIME Content-Type: field. Moreover, there is no place in New Message window to specify Mail encoding (which is always KOI8-R for Russians).
While viewing Mail messages and News articles this version not sense KOI8-R character set from MIME Content-Type: field (or from RFC 2047 encoded words for headers) automatically, so user forced to switch to Cyrillic(KOI8-R) encoding manually to view his Mail/News in the right font.
After closing View|Page Info window displayed page font resets to ISO 8859-1 (Russian letters replaced with Latin1 ones) so the page requires reloading.
Pop-up image ALT= tags (when you place cursor on them) not decoded from KOI8-R to Windows default (CP1251) code table. Alternatively UNICODE font must be used for them, not Windows default font.

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Bug report:
Communicator 4.0 PR2 bugs with Cyrillic(KOI8-R) encoding: 1) Netscape not decode <FORM>s input from CP1251 (Russian Windows default character set) to KOI8-R when needed. I.e. it totally ignores ACCEPT-CHARSET="KOI8-R" <FORM> attribute and global HTML page character set too for both <META> and HTTP header cases. See Internationalization of the Hypertext Markup Language (RFC 2070) for details. Look at http://www.nagual.pp.ru/~ache/form.html to see this bug in action. 2) According to Internationalization of the Hypertext Markup Language (RFC 2070) charset= from HTTP header must overwrite charset= from <META ...> tag. Netscape does just opposite thing, i.e. <META> overwrites HTTP header charset. This bug seriously affects automatic character sets decoding proxies. Load this test page at http://www.nagual.pp.ru/~ache/a.html8 with different HTTP header and META charsets to see this bug in action (check View|Page Info for Charset value, there must be KOI8-R, not windows-1251). 3) Netscape forget to decode document <TITLE>s in the top of browser window and Bookmarks from KOI8-R character set to CP1251 character set (Russian Windows default). It makes documents with Russian <TITLES>s and bookmark entries for them looks ugly. It seems that Netscape not use even Russian Windows default (CP1251) font for bookmarks, so they appearse in the ISO 8859-1 font. HTML documents title character set can be detected using the same two methods as for document body, i.e. by <META> tag or HTTP header character set, so each bookmark entry must have its own CHARSET="..." attribute in the bookmark.htm file which will be used for each bookmark entry displaying. Check http://www.nagual.pp.ru/~ache/title.html to see this bug in action. 4) This version can't send Russian mail because it not decodes user input from CP1251 to KOI8-R for both body and Subject:, not use user-specified Russian font for Subject: entering and not add charset=KOI8-R to MIME Content-Type: field. Moreover, there is no place in New Message window to specify Mail encoding (which is _always_ KOI8-R for Russians). 5) While viewing Mail messages and News articles this version not sense KOI8-R character set from MIME Content-Type: field (or from RFC 2047 encoded words for headers) automatically, so user forced to switch to Cyrillic(KOI8-R) encoding manually to view his Mail/News in the right font. 6) After closing View|Page Info window displayed page font resets to ISO 8859-1 (Russian letters replaced with Latin1 ones), so the page requires reloading, see http://www.nagual.pp.ru/~ache/koi8.html for example. 7) Pop-up image ALT= tags (when you place cursor on them) not decoded from KOI8-R to Windows default (CP1251) code table. Alternatively UNICODE font must be used for them, not Windows default font. See http://www.nagual.pp.ru/~ache/koi8.html for example. For all tests you need standard Win95 European UNICODE fonts from Microsoft.

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Subject:
Bug report:
Communicator 4.0 PR2 bugs with Cyrillic(KOI8-R) encoding: 1) Netscape not decode <FORM>s input from CP1251 (Russian Windows default character set) to KOI8-R when needed. I.e. it totally ignores ACCEPT-CHARSET="KOI8-R" <FORM> attribute and global HTML page character set too for both <META> and HTTP header cases. See Internationalization of the Hypertext Markup Language (RFC 2070) for details. Look at http://www.nagual.pp.ru/~ache/form.html to see this bug in action. 2) According to Internationalization of the Hypertext Markup Language (RFC 2070) charset= from HTTP header must overwrite charset= from <META ...> tag. Netscape does just opposite thing, i.e. <META> overwrites HTTP header charset. This bug seriously affects automatic character sets decoding proxies. Load this test page at http://www.nagual.pp.ru/~ache/a.html8 with different HTTP header and META charsets to see this bug in action (check View\|Page Info for Charset value, there must be KOI8-R, not windows-1251). 3) Netscape forget to decode document <TITLE>s in the top of browser window and Bookmarks from KOI8-R character set to CP1251 character set (Russian Windows default). It makes documents with Russian <TITLES>s and bookmark entries for them looks ugly. It seems that Netscape not use even Russian Windows default (CP1251) font for bookmarks, so they appearse in the ISO 8859-1 font. HTML documents title character set can be detected using the same two methods as for document body, i.e. by <META> tag or HTTP header character set, so each bookmark entry must have its own CHARSET="..." attribute in the bookmark.htm file which will be used for each bookmark entry displaying. Check http://www.nagual.pp.ru/~ache/title.html to see this bug in action. 4) This version can't send Russian mail because it not decodes user input from CP1251 to KOI8-R for both body and Subject:, not use user-specified Russian font for Subject: entering and not add charset=KOI8-R to MIME Content-Type: field. Moreover, there is no place in New Message window to specify Mail encoding (which is _always_ KOI8-R for Russians). 5) While viewing Mail messages and News articles this version not sense KOI8-R character set from MIME Content-Type: field (or from RFC 2047 encoded words for headers) automatically, so user forced to switch to Cyrillic(KOI8-R) encoding manually to view his Mail/News in the right font. 6) After closing View\|Page Info window displayed page font resets to ISO 8859-1 (Russian letters replaced with Latin1 ones), so the page requires reloading, see http://www.nagual.pp.ru/~ache/koi8.html for example. 7) Pop-up image ALT= tags (when you place cursor on them) not decoded from KOI8-R to Windows default (CP1251) code table. Alternatively UNICODE font must be used for them, not Windows default font. See http://www.nagual.pp.ru/~ache/koi8.html for example. For all tests you need standard Win95 European UNICODE fonts from Microsoft.