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journal
Journal
by
RockDoctor
May 16, 2025 @12:00AM
For those of us who use characters beyond the ASCII, Slash is at best horrible. As Rei once said, "It's ridiculous that I can't spell my name properly here!"
I've been using the AltGr key for years to generate additional characters since I started using Duolingo in my browser. It's so much quicker than pointing and clicking at their selection of accented characters, letters that don't exist in ASCII, etc. But maybe I didn't actually try using the NAMED HTML entities. I definitely tried using a lot of Unicode Code points (&#xNNNN ; or strings to that effect. But not the like of $funnyChar ; .
Or maybe I'm not using the correct "funnyChar" juju.
I've now added a lot of those into my "text editor" add in for my browser. Which I list below, to see how many actually work. This is not comprehensive.
Below should be (tyops excepted) {character, Slash-mangled} &funnyChar ; {deliberately broken, as above) then the correct, unbroken HTML entity.
None of these worked. Mercury ☿ ; Venus ♀ ; Earth ⊕ ; Moon ☽ ; OR ☾ ; Mars ♂ ;
Nor these Jupiter ♃ ; Saturn ♄ ; Uranus ♅ ; OR 饔 ; Neptune ♆ ; Pluto ♇ ; Sol ☉ ; .
à ä ; ä à ë ; ë à ï ; ï à ö ; ö ü ü ; ü à ÿ ; ÿ
Yuml gets dropped. Ã Ä ; Ä Ã Ë ; Ë Ã Ï ; ÏÃ- Ö ; Ö Ãoe Ü ; Ü Å &Yuml ;
à á ; á é é ; é à í ; í à ó ; ó à ú ; ú ý ý ; ý
à Á ; Á Ã É ; É Ã Í ; Í Ã" Ó ; Ó Ãs Ú ; Ú Ã Ý ; Ý
icirc comes out with an ® ; ??! ycirc is dropped à â ; â à ê ; ê î î ; î à ô ; ô à û ; û Å &ycirc ;
Ycirc is dropped à  ;  ÃS Ê ; Ê ÃZ Î ; Î Ã" Ô ; Ô Ã Û ; Û Å &Ycirc ;
ygrave too à à ; à à è ; è à ì ; ì à ò ; ò à ù ; ù á &ygrave ;
Ygrave three à À ; À Ã È ; È ÃOE Ì ; Ì Ã' Ò ; Ò Ã(TM) Ù ; Ù á &Ygrave ;
e, i, u and y are dropped ã ã ; ã á½ &etilde ; Ä© &itilde ; à õ ; õ Å© &utilde ; á &ytilde ;
same omissions as lower case Ãf à ; à ἠ&Etilde ; Ä &Itilde ; Ã Õ ; Õ Å & Utilde ; á &Ytilde ;
Pilcrow and inverted question mark are dropped. Questions WILL NOT be asked on Slashdot.org.ES! Ã¥ å ; å à ç ; ç  ¶ ;  ¿ ;
OE and IJ ligatures dropped. Fuck you, Nederlands. Ã... Å ; Å Ã Ç ; Ç Ã¦ æ ; æ Ã Æ ; Æ Å" &oelig ; Å' &OElig ; Ä &ijlig ; Ä &IJlig ;
thorns and thetas are dropped ÃY ß ; ß Ã ð ; ð þ þ ; Hi, Rei! Î &theta ; à Р; Ð Ãz Þ ; Î &Theta ;
all dropped . ° ; ± &pm ; â" &mp ; ¼ ¼ ; ¼ ½ ½ ; ½ ¾ ¾ ; ¾
most dropped à ø ; ø à &0slash ; âz &infin ; â &prop ; âf &simeq ;
only times and divide Ã-- × ;× âs &Sqrt ; â &int ; â &therefore ; Ã ÷ ; ÷ Â ² ; Â ³ ; Î &delta ; â &because ;
all dropped âZ &phone ; â &diamond ; â- &square ; â- &squaref ;
all dropped â-- &bigcirc ; â... &starf ; Ooops, I missed one! &bigstar ; â &star ; â- &bigtriangleup ;
only pounds, Yen and Euro âY &xlarr ; âY &xharr ; âY &xrarr ;  µ ;  ¢ ; £ £ ; £  &curr ; Â¥ ¥ ; ¥ â &euro ; € â(TM)
nothing beside remains &female ; â(TM) &male ; âoe" &check ; â &permil ; Â ª ; Â º ; âoe-- &cross ; â± &pertenk ;
only copyright ¶ ; â &dagger ; â &Dagger ; â &caret ; â &ctdot ;  § ; © © ; © â" &circledS ; ® ® ;
Phew, that was a PITA. I hope I don't have to do it again. Now, time to save, then preview. And de-tyop.
It's an interestingly patchy performance. The common accents are covered. Interesting that things which might exist (yuml and Yuml) are not handled, are not covered. I don't know if that's HTML or Slash-code. Not covering the inverted question mark is very insulting to Spanish - the second commonest language in America. Little support for mathematics symbols - which moderately surprises me given the asserted nerdish base. Less surprised about the typographical marks. Though supporting Copyright symbol but not the Registered (trademark) symbol. Oh, I didn't try &TM ;, but I think I've checked that previously. Nope. whoever the owners are this week care about copyright, but not Registering or TMs. Or, for that matter, Service Marks. I wonder who chose which symbols to support. Or did they use a pre-existing set from somewhere?
Well, a productive exercise. I can do accents now. I'll dump the rest (which I've got elsewhere anyway.
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