need display hints on asian char sets

[Jimi Sidewaze]

hi,

got a question on chinese web design. i'm an english webbie, but am getting
parts of my site translated into both "simplified" and "original" chinese.

anyone know what fonts or character sets I need installed in a PC to
properly display these?

any hints on HTML coding for max display efficiency in HK, TW, mainland
China, would be excellent!! (like what "lang" codes and charset codes /
utf-8, big5, etc would be necessary..)

thanks for any pointers guys..

Jimi Webb

 

[WindAndWaves]

hi,

got a question on chinese web design. i'm an english webbie, but am getting
parts of my site translated into both "simplified" and "original" chinese.

anyone know what fonts or character sets I need installed in a PC to
properly display these?

your own PC is the last of your worries, it is more important what others have installed.

any hints on HTML coding for max display efficiency in HK, TW, mainland
China, would be excellent!! (like what "lang" codes and charset codes /
utf-8, big5, etc would be necessary..)

One thing i know is that it is better to send the character set definition in the actual http header (using PHP, or htaccess or
something like that) then to use the Meta tag....because otherwise the characters before the Meta tag that specifies the
characterset may be interpreted incorrectly.

utf-8 seems the way to go as it is universal, but apparently it is not fully accepted yet in all languages. I would go to some
chinese websites and see what they use...

thanks for any pointers guys..

Jimi Webb

sorry, that is all the help that I can offer.

 

[Toby Inkster]

any hints on HTML coding for max display efficiency in HK, TW, mainland
China, would be excellent!! (like what "lang" codes and charset codes /
utf-8, big5, etc would be necessary..)

If you're using several languages, especially if you're mixing them on the
same page, then it would be wise to standardise on a Unicode character set
(such as UTF-8 or UTF-16) for all pages.

<p lang="en">Hello world</p> <!-- English -->
<p lang="en-US">Howdy world</p> <!-- Merkin -->
<p lang="fr">Bonjour monde</p> <!-- French -->
<p lang="de">Gutentag Welt</p> <!-- German -->
<p lang="el">Γειάσου κόσμος</p> <!-- Greek -->
<p lang="zh-Hans">你好世界</p> <!-- Chinese (simp) -->
<p lang="zh-Hant">你好世界</p> <!-- Chinese (trad) -->
<p lang="ko">여보세요 세계</p> <!-- Korean -->
<p lang="i-klingon">nuqneH qo'</p> <!-- Klingon -->

Note also that zh-Hans and zh-Hant are somewhat newer language codes. Some
older software may not recognise them, so you may be better off using
zh-CN (mainland Chinese) for simplified Chinese and zh-TW (Taiwanese
Chinese) or zh-HK (Hong Kong Chinese) for traditional.

 

[WindAndWaves]

[............]
<p lang="i-klingon">nuqneH qo'</p> <!-- Klingon -->
[......]

What characterset would be best for Klingon?

 

[aranders]

[............]
<p lang="i-klingon">nuqneH qo'</p> <!-- Klingon -->
[......]

What characterset would be best for Klingon?

Any following the CSUR convention for the Private Use Area, such as
Code2000

Note that Klingon has an ISO-639 language code of "tlh". The
"i-klingon" name should be discontinued.

 

[Jimi Sidewaze]

toby, thanks for the excellent input!

when creating Meta-Tags (ie, keywords, description) and the <title> tag,
should foreign characters be included there? Say, if the Korean equivalent
is,

자원해서
번역을 돕고자 하시는

should this stuff be put in the meta and title tags?

thanks!!!

 

[Toby Inkster]

when creating Meta-Tags (ie, keywords, description) and the <title> tag,
should foreign characters be included there?

If the body of the page is in, say, Korean, then the head should
probably be in Korean too.