Joe,

What I'd like first of all ...

will be your reward if you invest some time to discuss here: a little tool, operating on HTML source code directly.

Complete description of the simplest version of Grishka3b (without "target _blank"):

1. The only change to any of the pages is that the ones for thread creation and preview are declared UTF-8.
2. Thread creation is rejected if the title contains any characters above 255 (sic!). This excludes cyrillic titles, but allows Gaelic, French, German, etc., regardless of the creator's codepage.


3. Thread titles are stored as they have been hitherto, to facilitate searching/filtering. (When written into an HTML file, they should be "ampersanded", but this feature can be added later).


4. Any message from the preview page is "ampersanded" by the server script upon reception, i.e. doing exactly what the posters are currently asked to do themselves.


5. Any message from the thread page containing only characters up to 127 is treated exactly as it is now.


6. Any message from the thread page containing any characters above 127 is treated as if "preview" had been checked (since the server script does not know how to interpret those characters). The preview page is filled on the assumption that the codepage was ISO 8859-1 (i.e. expanded to Unicode), and a warning message is included.

Summary of advantages:

• No change in the database and its interpretation


• No change of web design


• No change for posters who type English texts or use those ampersands


• Almost no change for posters using western codepages


• No need for the elves to convert any future post


• No more need for those verbose instructions which inhibit some posters and are ignored by others


• No more ranting by Artful Codger ;-)


• Other reforms are unhindered


• The conversion of old messages is a limited task instead of Sisyphean


• More time for music and fun.