Re: Any more features?

[Matthias Ettrich <ettrich troll no>]

On Sun, 28 Nov 1999, Paul Warren wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Nov 1999, Paul Warren wrote:
> 
> > Does anyone have any opinions on a UTF _NET_WM_NAME property?  This is not
> > something I understand very well myself...
> 
> Anyone?  Should it be UTF8 or 16?  What is the difference?  Are there any
> disadvantages to adding a _NET_WM_NAME property?

utf8 is an 8 bit format with basically an ascii subset. It was introduced for
compatibility.

utf16 is a 16 bit format. It's used as native encoding format on WindowsNT (and 
in Qt). It requires less conversions, is faster and uses less memory when
representing non-ascii documents. 

The main advantage of utf8 on the other hand is compatibility. It's much easier
to modify 8 bit toolkits/applications to use utf8 rather than to provide real 16
bit unocide strings throughout the whole system.

With regards to legacy toolkits and C applications out there, utf8 looks like
the best choice.

> 
> Should _NET_DESKTOP_NAMES be a unicode property?  It would seem
> inconsistent to do otherwise.

yes, all new text properties should be unicode.


Matthias