Style Sheet Times New Roman

On 14 Feb, 19:31, "Beauregard T. Shagnasty"
<a.nony.m....TakeThisOut@example.invalid> wrote:

> For looks, yes, it seems to work in all but IE (what else is new?). But
> the point Dave raised, "I'd have no idea how to search for abØcd.",
> using 0&#x0338; still does not allow searches for "AB0CD".

_Should_ a search be for "slashed zero", or should it simply target
"zero" ? Doing it the latter way would also automatically capture
unslashed zeroes, which would seem appropriate in this context.

Assuming the Unicode approach of "annotating a zero with a slash,
using a following combining charcter" then this would require a
modification to the search algorithm, of discarding the combining
characters before comparing strings. That's no big deal to do, for any
language with Unicode support. The rest is easy and obvious.

In the "ham radio" context over the domian of callsigns, there's no
additional semantics implied by a slash. "zero" and "slashed zero" are
equivalent, one is merely the preferred rendering. Any implication the
presence of a slash might have had is already implied by the data
entity beeing in the domain of callsigns.
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Bergamot wrote:

> Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
>> using 0&#x0338; still does not allow searches for "AB0CD".
>
> Then maybe the suggestion I posted using background images is better
> after all.
> http://www.bergamotus.ws/samples/slashed-zero.html

Yep, that works. A call sign can be searched. Best answer posted in this
thread so far. <g>

--
-bts
-Friends don't let friends drive Vista
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Bergamot wrote:
> Toby A Inkster wrote:
>
>> 0&#x0338;
>>
>> Not sure how well that is supported across different browsers, but it
>> works in mine.
>
> IE doesn't seem to like it. Too bad - it would otherwise be the right
> solution, I think.

Most browsers will kindly switch font when they notice that a particular
glyph does not exist in the current font. IE is not very good at that
though. Perhaps explicitly setting the font (to something like "Arial
Unicode" -- comes free with MS Office IIRC, but not with Windows) might
make it work.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.17.14-mm-desktop-9mdvsmp, up 16 days, 9:44.]

Mince & Dumplings
http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2008/02/10/mince-dumplings/
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Bergamot wrote:
> Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
>> using 0&#x0338; still does not allow searches for "AB0CD".
>
> Then maybe the suggestion I posted using background images is better
> after all.
> http://www.bergamotus.ws/samples/slashed-zero.html
>

I hadn't thought of that idea - but I like it.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex.TakeThisOut@attglobal.net
==================
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Andy Dingley wrote:
> On 14 Feb, 19:31, "Beauregard T. Shagnasty"
> <a.nony.m... RemoveThis @example.invalid> wrote:
>
>> For looks, yes, it seems to work in all but IE (what else is new?). But
>> the point Dave raised, "I'd have no idea how to search for abØcd.",
>> using 0&#x0338; still does not allow searches for "AB0CD".
>
> _Should_ a search be for "slashed zero", or should it simply target
> "zero" ? Doing it the latter way would also automatically capture
> unslashed zeroes, which would seem appropriate in this context.
>
> Assuming the Unicode approach of "annotating a zero with a slash,
> using a following combining charcter" then this would require a
> modification to the search algorithm, of discarding the combining
> characters before comparing strings. That's no big deal to do, for any
> language with Unicode support. The rest is easy and obvious.
>
> In the "ham radio" context over the domian of callsigns, there's no
> additional semantics implied by a slash. "zero" and "slashed zero" are
> equivalent, one is merely the preferred rendering. Any implication the
> presence of a slash might have had is already implied by the data
> entity beeing in the domain of callsigns.
>

In the call sign, yes. But that's not the only place hams use slash
zeros. It's just the one we're talking about.

And in the U.S., there is a single digit in the call sign. That is not
true around the world.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex RemoveThis @attglobal.net
==================
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On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:23:47 -0500, Jerry Stuckle
<jstucklex.DeleteThis@attglobal.net> wrote:

>Bergamot wrote:
>> Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
>>> using 0&#x0338; still does not allow searches for "AB0CD".
>>
>> Then maybe the suggestion I posted using background images is better
>> after all.
>> http://www.bergamotus.ws/samples/slashed-zero.html
>>
>
>I hadn't thought of that idea - but I like it.

The suggestion may be a good one, but it really isn't needed
here.

I've written a sort that puts the callsigns in Callbook order.
All they have to do is look them up like you'd look it up in an old
paper copy of Callbook.

OK, so I'll explain the sort that I've applied to them.

A ham radio callsign anywhere in the world (with only one
exception that I've seen so far, the Australian Foundation license) is
formatted as follows: Prefix (one or two alphanumeric characters),
call district (a single numeric character), and suffix (one to three
alphabetic characters).

They are sorted in this order: call district, suffix, prefix.
Since the prefix can be one or two characters, the call
district could either be the second or third character in the
callsign. So you break it down as to how to sort it like this:

1. Check the third character in the callsign to see if it
is numeric. If it is, that is the call district. (for WB4AEJ, it
would be '4'. For W1AW, it would be 'A'. For NX7V, it would be '7'.
For AH0K, it would be '0').

2. If it isn't numeric, check the second character in the
callsign. If it is, that is the call district. If it isn't, it is
not a valid callsign (die()). For W1AW, it is now '1'. So for each
callsign, we now have:

WB4AEJ 4
W1AW 1
NX7V 7
AH0K 0

3. Take every character after the call district. If it
is less than three alphabetic characters, add '#' until you have
three. We now have:

WB4AEJ 4AEJ
W1AW 1AW#
NX7V 7V##
AH0K 0K##

4. Add the prefixes to the end. If there is only one
alphanumeric character, add '#' to the end of it. We now have:

WB4AEJ 4AEJWB
W1AW 1AW#W#
NX7V 7V##NX
AH0K 0K##AH

5. Now, we sort on the 'sort code field that we've
created. We now have:

AH0K 0K##AH
W1AW 1AW#W#
WB4AEJ 4AEJWB
NX7V 7V##NX

Now they can be displayed in Callbook order in a table on
someone's Web page.

Why use the '#' instead of a blank space? If we created those
sort codes in a field with a blank space, the database tends to
truncate them off the end of the field. The character '#' is close
enough in ASCII value to be able to stand in for the space. The
database doesn't truncate '#' from the end. And it is more easily
recognized when the table is being inspected by the naked eye
(troubleshooting, etc).

So, there is no need to search on the callsigns in the form at
all. Displaying the 'Ø' in place of the '0' is only done when it is
displayed on a browser from a Web page. If I want to set up the means
to search a callsign on my database (which I do not plan to implement
anyway), the '0' is in the database, not the 'Ø'. So the mechanism
would be easily usable.

Now I guess I've given you folks a lot more to [pardon the
pun] hash over.

Regards,



Fred
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Fred Atkinson wrote:

> So, there is no need to search on the callsigns in the form at
> all. Displaying the 'Ø' in place of the '0' is only done when it is
> displayed on a browser from a Web page. If I want to set up the means
> to search a callsign on my database (which I do not plan to implement
> anyway), the '0' is in the database, not the 'Ø'. So the mechanism
> would be easily usable.

I think people meant "what if people want to Google for a call sign?"
Google can't see your database -- it can only see what you output on the
web page.

Have you considered just using a plain old '0' and using CSS to suggest a
font with visually distinct glyphs for 'O' and '0'? For example, the
following three fonts should give you pretty good coverage on most
operating systems:

- Consolas (comes free with Windows Vista)
- Bitstream Vera Sans Mono (bundled with most Linux distributions)
- Andale Mono (free with Mac OS X and earlier versions of Windows)

A little CSS magic:

.callsign {
font-family: "Consolas", "Bitstream Vera Sans Mono",
"Andale Mono", monospace;
}

And there -- you have your visually distinct '0'. In Consolas, the '0' has
a slash through it; in the other two fonts, it has a dot in the middle.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.17.14-mm-desktop-9mdvsmp, up 21 days, 16:51.]

Bottled Water
http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2008/02/18/bottled-water/
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