KOI8-R in X Window Netscape 4.0

How to setup X Window Netscape 4.0 for KOI8-R

Netscape client must put acceptable charset (KOI8-R assumed) via Accept-Charset header field when interact with HTTPD, but not do it currently.

Frank Tang from the Netscape Team tell me about their plans of implementing Accept-Charset field into after-3.0 releases, but if you ask them too, it can be faster.

Tuning description

There is obvious way to substitute koi8-r fonts on iso8859-1 fonts place, but I don't recommend it because it breaks displaying of iso-8859-1 HTML documents and all programs which uses iso8859-1 fonts correctly.

For all Netscape versions:

Install Cronyx KOI8-R fonts set v2.0 (see upper level section for details).
Install X11R5 NLS workaround (see upper level section for details), without this step cyrillic characters not treated as legal characters in all places and can be replaced with blanks.
Install KOI8-R keyboard to enter Mail/News messages.

For Netscape v4.0b2

Netscape v4.0b2 have KOI8-R support but with few serious bugs.

In Navigator choose Cyrillic (koi8-r) in Edit|Preferences|Appearance|Fonts|For the Encoding. Chose Times (Cronyx) into Variable Width Font and Courier (Cronyx) into Fixed Width Font.
In Collabra Discussions set Cyrillic (koi8-r) encoding for each Mail folder and each Russian newsgroup separately.

Do not set Cyrillic (KOI8-R) encoding 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:

Most unpleasant bug is that it is impossible to enter Russian (KOI8-R) characters in all places using correct Cyrillic_* keysyms, not hacked ISO 8859-1 keysyms. Now X11R6 XKB keyboard description defines Russian (KOI8-R) keyboard using right keysyms and old hacks not work anymore. Correct (minimally localized) application must call XtSetLanguageProc (NULL, NULL, NULL); to work with any charset not equal to ISO 8859-1, this call must be added to Netscape.
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. It cause serious bugs for 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).
It shows <FORM> button names in wrong (ISO8859-1) encoding instead of KOI8-R encoding. It uses wrong ISO8859-1 font for <FORM> input instead of KOI8-R font. Look at <FORM> input test to see <FORM> bugs in action.
This release can't Cut&Paste Russian (really, any 8bit) characters with its own Clipboard even when X Clipboard is able to do it.
Netscape can't show special HTML characters such as ©, ®, etc. according to RFC 1489, this version replace them with '?'.

Enter your name, E-mail address and send the bug report above to Netscape team, the more bug reports they receive - the higher chances there are that they fix it.

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Bug report:
X11 Communicator 4.0 PR2 Cyrillic (KOI8-R) encoding support bug list: o Most unpleasant bug is that it is impossible to enter Russian (KOI8-R) characters in all places using correct Cyrillic_* keysyms, not hacked ISO 8859-1 keysyms. Now X11R6 XKB keyboard description defines Russian (KOI8-R) keyboard using right keysyms and old hacks not work anymore. Correct (minimally localized) application must call XtSetLanguageProc (NULL,NULL,NULL); to work with any charset not equal to ISO 8859-1, please add this call to Netscape. o 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. It cause serious bugs with 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). o It shows <FORM> button names in wrong (ISO8859-1) encoding instead of KOI8-R encoding. It uses wrong ISO8859-1 font for <FORM> input instead of KOI8-R font. Look at http://www.nagual.pp.ru/~ache/form.html to see <FORM> bugs in action. o This release can't Cut&Paste Russian (in fact, any 8bit) characters with its own Clipboard even when X Clipboard is able to do it. o Netscape can't show special characters as ©, ®, etc. according to RFC 1489, this version replaces them with '?'. Look at http://www.nagual.pp.ru/~ache/special.html to see this bug in action.

You can use original Netscape bug report page instead, just Copy this bug report and Paste it there.

Additional links: Netscape Internationalization Secrets.

Subject:
Bug report:
X11 Communicator 4.0 PR2 Cyrillic (KOI8-R) encoding support bug list: o Most unpleasant bug is that it is impossible to enter Russian (KOI8-R) characters in all places using correct Cyrillic_* keysyms, not hacked ISO 8859-1 keysyms. Now X11R6 XKB keyboard description defines Russian (KOI8-R) keyboard using right keysyms and old hacks not work anymore. Correct (minimally localized) application must call XtSetLanguageProc (NULL,NULL,NULL); to work with any charset not equal to ISO 8859-1, please add this call to Netscape. o 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. It cause serious bugs with 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). o It shows <FORM> button names in wrong (ISO8859-1) encoding instead of KOI8-R encoding. It uses wrong ISO8859-1 font for <FORM> input instead of KOI8-R font. Look at http://www.nagual.pp.ru/~ache/form.html to see <FORM> bugs in action. o This release can't Cut&Paste Russian (in fact, any 8bit) characters with its own Clipboard even when X Clipboard is able to do it. o Netscape can't show special characters as ©, ®, etc. according to RFC 1489, this version replaces them with '?'. Look at http://www.nagual.pp.ru/~ache/special.html to see this bug in action.