Seeing filenames with diacritics {solved}

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mini-jaguar
Posts: 597
Joined: Thu 13 Nov 2008, 13:45

Seeing filenames with diacritics {solved}

#1 Post by mini-jaguar »

I know it's been asked before, but not answered.

So is there a way to see file names with diacritics? Sometimes they will not even copy properly.

Adding the input keyboard for the language also does not help.

Strangely enough, diacritics for songs at the mp3 tag level (but not the actual file name) can been seen by most of the Puppy music players.
Last edited by mini-jaguar on Mon 11 Mar 2013, 09:49, edited 1 time in total.

npierce
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Joined: Tue 29 Dec 2009, 01:40

#2 Post by npierce »

These days most filenames are encoded in UTF-8. Did you tick the box for UTF-8 encoding in quicksetup? If so, the following command should output something like "en_GB.UTF-8":

Code: Select all

echo $LANG
If you don't see ".UTF-8", you should run quicksetup and tick the box. (Save any work you have open so that you are prepared to allow quicksetup to restart X when it asks.)

If you are already using UTF-8, then the problem may be that the filenames may have been created with an older encoding like ISO-8859-1. If so, you could try running quicksetup and unticking the UTF-8 box. (Although you will probably want to do this only temporarily, and return to UTF-8 after you have finished accessing those files.) Ideally, it would probably be best to rename the files using UTF-8.

mini-jaguar
Posts: 597
Joined: Thu 13 Nov 2008, 13:45

#3 Post by mini-jaguar »

There isn't a setting that allows me to see them all at the same time, but some will let me see half of them or around.

But I did find an interesting trick. If I set the language to Russian or Bulgarian, all the file names with diacritics are black like the other files. When they are red they sometimes produce errors when trying to copy, so that is something to be avoided. Otherwise I still get red file names if I set Puppy itself to a language with Latin letters, even file names with common diacritics like German or French.

npierce
Posts: 858
Joined: Tue 29 Dec 2009, 01:40

#4 Post by npierce »

mini-jaguar wrote:There isn't a setting that allows me to see them all at the same time, but some will let me see half of them or around.
OK, it sounds like some of your filenames are encoded with UTF-8, and one or more other encodings are used for some of your other filenames.
mini-jaguar wrote:When they are red they sometimes produce errors when trying to copy, so that is something to be avoided.
I'm assuming that you are talking about ROX-Filer here. Yes, ROX-Filer likes to have filenames encoded in UTF-8. If you hover your mouse pointer over a file without a valid UTF-8 filename, you will probably see this:
ROX-FILER wrote:This filename is not valid UTF-8. You should rename it.
That is good advice from ROX-Filer.

Are the UTF-8 filenames on one filesystem and the non-UTF-8 filenames on another? If so, there might be a mount option that would allow non-UTF-8 filenames to be seen as UTF-8 by Linux, without the need to actually rename them. (But that won't work on a filesystem that contains filenames with various encodings -- those files should be renamed for consistency.)

mini-jaguar
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Joined: Thu 13 Nov 2008, 13:45

#5 Post by mini-jaguar »

npierce wrote:I'm assuming that you are talking about ROX-Filer here. Yes, ROX-Filer likes to have filenames encoded in UTF-8. If you hover your mouse pointer over a file without a valid UTF-8 filename, you will probably see this:
ROX-FILER wrote:This filename is not valid UTF-8. You should rename it.
Uh, no. Never happened. There are probably only one or two UTF-8 filenames, if any, and it certainly doesn't happen on the non-UTF-8 ones.

I found that some other languages will also make the red filenames black and safe for copying, for example German.

mini-jaguar
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Joined: Thu 13 Nov 2008, 13:45

#6 Post by mini-jaguar »

Tried renaming some of them, it works sometimes, but Puppy doesn't seem to allow diacritics for the filenames in all the different languages, only some.

edit: actually never mind, I renamed them. But it took several Puppy versions. Some versions only work in renaming certain languages while for other languages it doesn't work

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Karl Godt
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Location: Kiel,Germany

#7 Post by Karl Godt »

I dont know exactly cos i run rox filer:

Dämmerung were two folders i had on two different fat flash drives that were shown one red and one normal. I was able to move them from these 2GB cards to a 8GB one in the same directory :lol:

Rox advises to rename such "red" folders, and without doing something in the input line and just clicking OK, they become "normal" . Don't know if WindowsOS now complains ..

I am fed up with fat cos when turning pics 90° , the drive gets filled up.

mini-jaguar
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Joined: Thu 13 Nov 2008, 13:45

#8 Post by mini-jaguar »

The red folders are unpredictable. I have had videos with red folders that I can watch in some Puppies while in others it won't work. Same with copying and generally opening these folders, sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.

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