problem about character encoding

If BirdieSync 1.x constantly replaces your girlfriend's phone number with your mother's one, this forum is for you...
dkwo
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Dec 19, 2007 5:03 am

Post by dkwo »

I'm also having the garbled character problem, but in my case it's the titles in schedule items created in mobile device doesn't display correctly under Lightning.

PO:
Japanese character: 社内会議
Unicode hex value: \u793e\u5185\u4f1a\u8b70
Lightning:
Japanese character: 社冁E
Unicode hex value: \u793e\u5181E
BTW, the 4 Japanese character stands for "internal conference" which can be frequently used.

This is really a great tool to sync Thunderbird & Lightning with Windows Mobile device, especially when it comes to Japanese, because the FinchSync doesn't support Furigana (some characters that address the pronounciation of name of people in address book), but yours do. It would be perfect if you would kindly fix this problem.

Device OS: Windows Mobile 5
PC OS: Windows XP SP2
Thunderbird: 2.0.0.9 (20071031)
Lightning: 0.7
Provider for Google Calendar: 0.3.1
BirdieSync: 1.5.4.0/T1.5 (2007/05/20)

ABxxx
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2007 9:01 pm

Re: problem about character encoding

Post by ABxxx »

I would like to buy Birdiesync, but czech characters encoding aren't work well. Mails from PPC are damage in Thunderbird. I'll waiting for new release. I hope that will be correct.

Birdy
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Re: problem about character encoding

Post by Birdy »

Hello,

Thanks for reporting these problems. I will do some tests shortly to investigate on them.

> ABxxx: Could you send a mail to support(at)birdiesync.com with some lines of characters extracted form one of your mails which are not properly synchronized ? Thanks.
Birdy

Birdy
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Re: problem about character encoding

Post by Birdy »

> dkwo

I made a test with the string that you mentioned: 社内会議 I created an appointment in Pocket Outlook with this title but it was properly synchronized in Lightning. But I noticed that you were using BirdieSync 1.5.4.0 and I made the test with the last version of BirdieSync (1.6.4.0). You also mentioned that you were using Thunderbird 2.0.0.9. This is weird because this version of BirdieSync (1.5.4.0) is only compatible with Thunderbird 1.5. Could you confirm the versions of software you mentioned ? Could you try to update your version of BirdieSync to 1.6.4.0 and see if you still have a problem (don't forget to backup your profile before upgrading) ?
Thanks.
Birdy

dkwo
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Dec 19, 2007 5:03 am

Re: problem about Japanese character encoding

Post by dkwo »

Birdy wrote:Could you confirm the versions of software you mentioned ? Could you try to update your version of BirdieSync to 1.6.4.0 and see if you still have a problem (don't forget to backup your profile before upgrading) ?
Thanks.
Hi Birdy,

I'm sorry! I entered wrong version number for BirdieSync, it should be 1.6.4.0 (2007/11/30). And thank you very much for the investigation. For my case (Japanese Windows Mobile 5,) it seems events created in PO that containing Japanese characters in Title and Location fields (Category fields using Japanese character have no problem) displayed character corruption in Lightning. The other way round, nor Address book containing Japanese doesn't have this problem. :)

I can't be very sure for this: Since the native encoding in Japanese versions of Windows is Shift-JIS, I'm suspecting that maybe Windows Mobile uses Shift-JIS for internal encoding, thus cause characters been wrongly handled(considering Lightning should be using UTF-8) Don't know if this helps, but in case you need any reginal specific information.

Except this issue, this combination (Thunderbird + Lightning + Provider for Google Calendar) works amazingly perfect! I can decide what calendar to (or not to) import; with the smart function Category <-> Calendar Linking I can create events for different (or remote) calendars. Before using BirdieSync, I've compared other solutions, such as FinchSync or indipendant utilities that import/restore(instead of sync'ing) Google Calendar, but only BirdieSync works best with Thunder Bird. I was also very impressive that a tool developed by non-Japanese native (probabily? :)) does even support furigana in Address book.

IMHO this is a must-have tool for all Japanese users - especially for those who would like to use PO instead of using seperate Japanese compatible tools for Calendar/Address/Mail. So Birdy, your investigation for this issue is very meaningful for not only me but also the potential Japanese users. Please hanging there!! :)

Device OS: Windows Mobile 5
PC OS: Windows XP SP2
Thunderbird: 2.0.0.9 (20071031)
Lightning: 0.7
Provider for Google Calendar: 0.3.1
BirdieSync: 1.6.4.0 (2007/11/30)

Birdy
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Re: problem about character encoding

Post by Birdy »

> > ABxxx: I sent you a new version for testing.
Birdy

Birdy
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Re: problem about character encoding

Post by Birdy »

> dkwo:

I made many tests with a Japanese Mobile Device (5.0 and 6.0), a Japanese Thunderbird, a local and a Google calendar but I still don't succeed in reproducing your problem.

Here is what I did:
Create in the local or in a Google calendar an event with the title and location "社内会議".
Synchronize it on the mobile device.

Then create a new appointment on the mobile by copying the title and location from the other appointment which was previously synchronized: "社内会議".
Synchronize this appointment from the mobile device to Lightning/Google.
The appointment appears properly synchronized...

If you want me to directly enter the title in Pocket Outlook, could you give the key sequence that I must enter on the mobile device in order to enter "社内会議" ?
Could you describe precisely how you create this appointment in Pocket Outlook and then synchronize it ?
Birdy

ABxxx
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2007 9:01 pm

Re: problem about character encoding

Post by ABxxx »

Birdy wrote:> > ABxxx: I sent you a new version for testing.
I can't try it. The evaluation period is over...

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