Re: Question for users of Thunderbird on buster
On Thu, 11 Jun 2020, D. R. Evans wrote:
Virgo Pärna wrote on 6/11/20 1:27 AM:
On Wed, 10 Jun 2020 14:10:45 -0600, D. R. Evans <doc.evans@gmail.com> wrote:
For example:
if I type the "-" character twice in a row, Thunderbird displays
only one, even though both characters are present in the text
Speculation in the dark: The displayed result might be a em-dash or
en-dash, and not a hyphen.
Alternative speculation: No, the displayed result really *is* a
hyphen. Hitting the hyphen key twice in a row is in fact how one
enters a hyphen under the keyboard layout presently in effect.
if I type the "<" character twice in a row, Thunderbird converts
the two "less than" characters into a single "much less than"
character when it displays them, even though the text actually
contains the two "<" characters
More speculation in the dark: the character you describe as "much less
than" character is a left-guillemet. It is conventional in some
languages to use guillemets the way English uses double quotation
marks.
It sounds to me like the effective keyboard layout is one that imposes
dead-key behavior on certain keys in exchange for easier entry of
certain characters that a standard US keyboard lacks dedicated keys
for.
What happens, if you change the default composition
font. Sounds like those are rendered as ligatures. I'm using
Windows, but when I set monospace font to Cascadia code, I started
getting similar issues.
Oh, that's very interesting. Yep, changing font "fixed" the problem.
It's a puzzle why someone thought would think that this would be a
good way for the rendering engine to work. I can think of a few of
reasons for it NOT to behave this way, and none for why it's a good
idea.
Different requirements call for different keyboard layouts. It sounds
like in Thunderbird, for whatever reason, you have one enabled that
doesn't fit yours.
I wish you luck in sorting it out.
I'll have to dig in and see if there's a way to turn it off. I'll
look at the details of the font as well; I'm not at all sure what
exactly is telling TB "if you see two consecutive "less-than" signs,
then render them as a single "much less than" character. No other
program seems to be doing it, so it seems to be a TB decision
somewhere; but since it seems to be font-dependent, TB must
(presumably) be looking at some characteristic of the font before
deciding to make the substitution. Very strange.
Thanks for the suggestion that it might be dependent on the font.
Doc
--
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12518471 alexk already addressed
your concern: your keys, preferably issued by your org's CA (instead
of being generated by you) should be short-lived, oftentimes for the
duration of your "work shift". The tools listed above support this.
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