Unicode/UTF-8 Please

[hamptonk]

I really need to be able to open and edit mysql dump files and since my database is utf-8 i can't without corrupting my data.

I've tried a number of other editors, and they are all SOOOO slow and inferior to textpad.

It would be so very nice if it supported utf-8 and unicode!

thanks for a great product

[saffer]

I agree. The lack of Unicode support has become terribly problematic, but there isn't another editor with the same capabilities.

[Moz]

I know, and it even says really clearly in the specifications page

16-bit Unicode, UTF-8 and 8-bit text files with single and double byte characters can be edited.

I came here thinking that I'm obviously missing something but apparently not. Well, I'm missing the ability to edit 16 bit unicode files, but evidently that's because Textpad can't do it.

[SteveH]

Looking into some copletely unrelated issues on another platform I stumbled across a UTF-8 demo file that was interesting to try in a number of test editors and OS.

Due to the tact that TextPad was limited to code page 1252 it didn't do particularly well.

As an aside, the Box drawing alignment tests at the bottom of the file seem to work rather well as a torture test for mono fonts!

[ben_josephs]

TextPad supports several code pages, although, of couse, only one at a time. They can be selected as "scripts" from
Configure | Preferences | Document Classes | <Class> | Font | Script
or
View | Document Properties | Font | Script.

I believe that this is the correspondence between scripts and code pages:

Code: Select all

Western            1252
Greek              1253
Turkish            1254
Central European   1250
Cyrillic           1251

[jonesy]

I really need to be able to open and edit mysql dump files and since my database is utf-8 i can't without corrupting my data.

I've tried a number of other editors, and they are all SOOOO slow and inferior to textpad.

It would be so very nice if it supported utf-8 and unicode!

thanks for a great product

I agree that the unicode support is lacking. Two problems I've encountered are:

1) Textpad does not write the unicode Byte Order Mark (BOM) by default. Many applications require this, hence the reason that Textpad "corrupts" UTF files. (e.g. the Microsoft XML reader will barf if Textpad saves a unicode XML file)
2) Can't search the contents of UTF-8 text files - get a memory error as soon as the first unicode file is opened. This happens even if the file was created by Textpad. The presence of the BOM makes no difference. This bug has been in there for ages...

[smjg]

There was a thread on this a while ago:
http://www.textpad.info/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4777

[rsperberg]

I've voiced my need for Unicode support in other threads.

With some Eastern languages, character merging needs to take place at a lower-level than in the application.

With XP, you have to have a relatively recent version of USP10.dll for this to work, and Microsoft doesn't readily supply this file. For Helios to include it might incur a licensing fee.

Vista incorporates all the necessary pieces, however, even for little-used languages with complicated requirements like Khmer (the language I need support for).

Hope Unicode support makes it into Helios' early list of enhancements for 2007.

Roger

[Paul Kienitz]

TextPad supports several code pages, although, of couse, only one at a time. They can be selected as "scripts" from
Configure | Preferences | Document Classes | <Class> | Font | Script
or
View | Document Properties | Font | Script.

I believe that this is the correspondence between scripts and code pages:

Code: Select all

Western            1252
Greek              1253
Turkish            1254
Central European   1250
Cyrillic           1251

It doesn't seem to support the one code page that matters, namely the UTF-8 page (65001). Any time I try to load a unicode file that contains characters from more than one regional script, it insists on destroying those that don't fit the current script. This "script" setting seems to be treated as an attribute of the display, not the content, so there isn't much justification for having it destroy data. So I end up using plain old Notepad... and waiting ten minutes for a search and replace.

[mromanch]

Have you tried the following:

* open text pad (i.e. don't double-click the file you want to edit)
* go to File -> Open (Ctrl+O)
* change Encoding to "UTF-8"

This has worked for me when editing registry files. If it works for you then you can change the default encoding for any document class in the "Default" section for the class in the preferences dialog.

[alanl17]

I'm afraid selecting the encoding in the file open dialog doesn't work; textpad is a dead duck when it comes to unicode support. Having used textpad for many many years, I feel very disappointed that it has fallen down by this issue, I've tried textpad v5 too and that has the same behaviour.

Textpad just doesn't work with unicode ( & utf-8). I recently had a need to read text files with some Nordic characters in. Having spend some time looking at this I've concluded textpad just isn't up to it.

Luckily, I've got visual studio 2005, which opens the file no bother...and displays the characters correctly. I don't want the use MS VS 2005 because its just bloat ware, but right now I don't see what choice I've got.

[SteveH]

I don't want the use MS VS 2005 because its just bloat ware, but right now I don't see what choice I've got.

There are alternatives available that will display these files similarly to Visual Studio with none of the bloat.