Language support issue

Submitted by synthesis on Tue, 04/24/2012 - 08:33
Forums: 
Soulseek General Discussion

Hi,
I have issues with language support in SoulseekQt.
Whenever I search for music with non-latin names(usually korean), I get no results.
What I found out is that when I browse others' file, the file name(non-latin)does not display correctly, instead showing broken characters, bunch of question marks contained in squares.
What's funny is that when I browse my own file list, the characters show up fine.
I heard soulseekqt client supports unicode, any solutions?
Oh, and I have windows 7 x64 running in my machine.
Any comments will be appreciated, thanks in advance!

Submitted by Nir on Tue, 04/24/2012 - 14:31.

SoulseekQt supports unicode, but the original client doesn't, which means you won't really be able to receive results for and download files with international characters from users who are on the original client. As only 2-3% of our users are using SoulseekQt, this means virtually everyone at this point unfortunately.

Submitted by synthesis on Wed, 04/25/2012 - 01:15.

Original client = Soulseek NS?
SoulseekNS returned results fine though... problems with compatability between the new client and the former one maybe?
Guess I'll have to wait then. Thanks again Nir.

Submitted by Nir on Wed, 04/25/2012 - 17:47.

Yes, in many cases SoulseekNS will send international characters as extended ASCII, which will be interpreted as such by other SoulseekNS client. SoulseekQt will use Unicode instead, which has a better chance of finding an exact match among other SoulseekQt clients, but won't work with other SoulseekNS clients. You highlight a problem I didn't think of. I always hoped the Unicode support in SoulseekQt would motivate whole international groups on Soulseek to switch to SoulseekQt, but losing a working ability to search using extended ASCII is individually more of a motivation not to switch.

Thanks, Nir

Submitted by yarono on Fri, 07/20/2012 - 23:37.

Hey Nir,

I'm a Mac user and i glad the it comes to the mac finally, Now i need your help please to configure it in order to read/write/search in hebrew font which code page i need to use?

Thanks,

Yaron

Submitted by Nir on Sat, 07/21/2012 - 13:42.

Hi Yaron,

You can only use the codepage setting to translate from users of the original client, codepage Windows-1255 should let you see Hebrew search results and chat coming from them. SoulseekQt always uses UTF8 Unicode to send strings with international characters in them however, meaning if you search for something in Hebrew, you'll only get search results from other SoulseekQt users, and if you type something in Hebrew in chat, only SoulseekQt users will be able to see it. I realize this isn't ideal so long as so many more people are still using the original client, but I have to keep Unicode as the default way of communicating strings if it ever has a chance of becoming a standard on the system. If enough people eventually switch to SoulseekQt and Unicode does become a standard, you'll never have to mess with codepages ever again, and be able to see any and all languages at the same time.

Thanks, Nir

Submitted by yarono on Sun, 07/22/2012 - 13:47.

Hey Nir,

Thanks for the response, I tried already the Windows-1255 and the only problem with this is that they can't see my hebrew, they see gibbrish instead of hebrew, Please can you fix it?

Thanks.

Submitted by Nir on Sun, 07/22/2012 - 16:04.

I'm trying to explain why I can't do that. I can't fully support codepages and Unicode at the same time. I'm going to start advertising SoulseekQt in the chatroom entrance message soon, so maybe more international users would be compelled to switch. Sorry I can't be of any more help.