Entering weird characters

[uday]

This is how to enter a username containing a weird character in the SUBSTITION dialog (or elsewhere in bbo)

 

http://www.asciitable.com/

 

has a list of the funny characters - look at Extended Ascii Codes

 

Note that each funny char has a 3-digit numeric code.

 

You can use these code and some gyrations with the keyboard to enter any character

 

Lets say you want to enter a ² because there is a username x²+y²

 

Looking at the table, you see that the code for ² is 253

 

To enter this character

 

1) Press the NUMLOCK key to activate the numeric keypad

2) Press and hold down the alt key. Don't release it

3) Press 2 then 5 then 3 ON THE NUMERIC KEYPAD to the right ofthe keyboard

4) Release the ALT key

 

 

I'll try to find a better solution or workaround. In the meantime, this might do the trick

 

Of course, clocked movements survive this because the rounds keep moving anyway; some pairs get a sitout for a round. Unclocked have more problems

[uday]

For now, I have altered the server such that a player with a funny character in his name will be discarded from the tourney as it starts up (ie, registration will work but the pair will be left out of the tourney )

 

Not ideal but i'll take it until i can come up with something better

[uday]

Well, now people with weird usernames are asked to change them (when they login).

 

Someday I will prevent them from logging in altogether. For now, they can't play in tourneys, so they won't be able to inconvenience the directors.

[QQSV]

While some of the funny characters are a bit silly, others (particularly for folks from other countries) may have real relevance (e.g, accented characters for French, or the Scandinavian extra characters at the end of the alphabet), and may be part of their names.

 

I would like to be able to enter some of these characters when I chat, and I cannot easily do so now (the method that Uday suggests works, but it's so inconvenient and unintuitive that I can't bring myself to do it every time I want to type an "é", for instance.) Here is a suggestion for allowing an alternate way to enter these characters that would work for substitutions as well (it is very similar to the method used on linux systems):

 

Define a control character as the so-called "compose" character. After this control character is typed, take the next two characters typed and map them to a funny character. (The two characters can be typed in either order.) Pick the two-character pairs so that the combinations makes sense. (And use the linux compose sequences where possible--they are very reasonable.)

 

Examples (where Comp represents whatever control character we pick):

 

Comp + e + ' = é

Comp + ? + ? = ¿

Comp + a + e = æ

Comp + 2 + 2 = ² (The case at hand)

Comp + n + ~ = ñ

Comp + o + / = ø

 

You get the idea. The pair of characters always leads to a character that is pretty intuitive.

 

This would take care of most of those with special characters.

 

There is another technique that you could use to help the directors make substitutions with special characters: How about allowing the portion of the chat text that contains the name to be selected (i.e., with the mouse)? Then a director could just use the Windows capability to select the name and copy it directly into the final location. That takes care of all possible unicode characters, and would allow people to continue to have names with funny characters (I admit I enjoy seeing them...)

 

Is adding either of these capabilities difficult?

 

--Q

[Rain]

How many "weird" characters must be added? If you add scandenavian ones, how soon before Asian characters must be added? And its no joke adding the 1000+ minimum needed for Chinese, right? ;)

 

 

Rain

[QQSV]

Pretty clearly, there is no sensible way to do the Chinese characters--even if the keystrokes were available, western directors would have no clue about how enter them, because the keystrokes would be non-intutitive (for them.) I suspect that this would be limited to the ASCII Latin extensions (i.e., the characters that fill out the first 256 spaces of Unicode), which include Scandinavian, German, and French, but not (for example) Czech. I would limit it to characters where the compose sequence would be obvious (i.e, where the result character is something like a combination of the two characters that make up its sequence.)

 

Adding some characters such as Czech is conceivable, because most of those odd characters actually look like two ordinary Latin characters. But I don't have strong feelings about it. In any case, if the Windows select capability can be added to the Name field portion of the chat, all names can be easily copied. That takes care not only of all possible odd characters, but also such things as directorial mistypes.

 

--Q

[JRG]

Apart from normally accented characters (people should be able to use real names!), what's the fuss. Personally I think using asterisks, percente signs, at signs, etc., in names (or "handles") is silly. When I first saw it, I thought it was an egoistical attempt to get one's name sorted near the beginning of the list of players in the lobby (or the list of tables in the club).

 

So, how do you pronounce "_gl*y" - just "spell" it out?

 

By the way, you can set input locales under Windows. That gives a "dead key" way of entering accented characters and keys for special characters. That's what I do when I'm using a Windows machine and want Spanish accented characters and punctuation. Setting the input local specifies that the keyboard in use is the one for that part of the world. You can set a hot key sequence that allows cycling through whichever input locales you use (I only use "US" and Costa Rican Spanish.

 

The major problem with this is that the key caps may not be a good indication of the character. I find the Spanish keyboard is not too bad - some keys are simply easy to remember and I used it enough to get most of the rest.

 

Cheers,

John

[csdenmark]

You know better than that Dick. Those chinese and russians who wants to be serious seems to have no problems translating their names into something western-like.

 

Please don't worry about my name: Claus Sønderkøge. I don't like the english interpretation: Claus Soenderkoege. That's the way danes, scandinavians and germans overcome that little problem. 20 years ago we wondered - but no longer!

 

As a curiosity I like to inform you I have a chinese friend with a name like this on Messenger: ¤¤¤¤¤¤. On BBO he uses a quite ordinary name with no problems either to read or to pronounce.

 

The weird characters I have seen most are made by italians and french and some poles too. To set up a nickname as "+" or "*!*" has nothing to do with eastern or any other alphabet. That is simply misconduct.

 

I think Uday will be very right restricting such fooliness.

 

Yours Claus - csdenmark ;)

[hrothgar]

I think that two different issues are being confused here:

 

Issue 1 related to non-ASCII symbols. Human languages have evolved to require a wide variety of characters. A limited subset of these characters are supported on all (or virtually all) keyboards. However, many characters that are specific to a small number of languages are not. For example, most vowels in German can be written with or without an umlaut. These speciality characters present a significant problem for BBO administrators. In partiucular, if I were running a tournment and had the "wrong" keyboard, I might not be able to add or remove a player from a seat simply because I could not spell their name. [Personally, I know how to reset my keyboard from American to "German"/"French"/"Turkish" ..., but I don't have the alternative keyboard layouts memorized.

 

Issue 2 relates to the use of non-standard characters within a name. For example, rather than using the name Hrothgar, I might prefer to use !^Hrothgar^!, while the use of the ^ and ! characters in a name is certainy non-traditional, these charaters are part of standard ASCII and should be found on virtually all keyboards. [Just as a survey, I would be interested to note whether any keyboards did not have either of these two characters.]

 

Obviously, Claus feels that there is something morally wrong with using non-traditional characters in a name {I believe that the precise word used was "misconduct"}. Personally, I prefer to avoid any type of argument based on something as subjective as morals. I see no rational way to differentiate between Claus's assertion that it is misconduct to use non-tradional characters and Sualc's assertion that it is misconduct NOT to use non-traditional characters.

 

While I see a valid technical reason for imposing regulations based on case 1, I see no reason to make limitations in case 2, generally prefering a live and let live philosophy.

[csdenmark]

No wonder we are of different views here too Richard, lol

 

If somebody is asked to change their nickname into a main-stream and uniform way - they ought to do so as quick as possible. They are asked so I think 14 days ago - and several has chosen not to obey a polite request from management. That is disorderly and misconduct.

 

Please look into some of those ID's. Silly nickname consisting of some weird characters - name "Private", E-mail: "Private", Skill-level:"Private". - Rest often empty. Please remember internet is not only for serious people. It is a true playground for children - and most of those I have seen of such silly ID's I think are children.

 

I think Uday has no intensions to restrict anything stated inside ID and as long this is not really harrasments it is OK I think. People stamps themselves - and that's their own choice.

 

And Richard please note - I think dealing with other people is a serious matter. Therefore societies are based on moral standards. Letting such slipping all too much away you will simply loose integrity of individuals.

 

Yours Claus - csdenmark ;)

[Rain]

I have a solution for directors who need to sub weird characters people. Log text, type a message to the person you are going to sub, then copy and paste the name from your chat.txt file.

 

But I still think its unfair to have certain weird symbols in the user names if you ban others because its european or chinese or whatever. For obvious reasons :)

 

I also don't like being called a "silly" child by csdenmark, just because I like putting "private" in my skill level. How is that sillier than egoistically inflating or vastly deflating or wrongly evaluating one's own skill level?

 

Rain Lan

[csdenmark]

I also don't like being called a "silly" child by csdenmark, just because I like putting "private" in my skill level. How is that sillier than egoistically inflating or vastly deflating or wrongly evaluating one's own skill level?

 

Sorry Rain if my contribution can be misunderstood in that way. In no way I have any intensions trying to insult you or others putting up "Private" in skill level or anywhere else. Please accept my apology!

 

I refer to those setting up their nickname as something like "+" and "*!*" and then the rest of their ID consists only of:

Name: Private

E-mail: Private

Skill level: Private

and rest: empty

 

It is the whole composition of the ID I refer to and and stamp a judgement for. It is not a specific field.

 

Yours Claus - csdenmark :)