Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#81

Post by DagAgren » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:30 AM UTC

rustybolt wrote: post #18

I think that most people find this hard to digest. The committee approves a ton of emojis with a dozen variations each, a gazillion characters that make it possible to make some weird word soup that breaks sane layout, but including one of the most commonly used symbols is somehow out of the question.

Because all of those symbols are used as part of text, while the external link symbol isn't. It is not part of the text itself. If you copied that text, you would not really expect the link symbol to be copied along with it.

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#82

Post by DagAgren » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:31 AM UTC

cabalamat wrote: post #20

> The UTC rejected the proposals to add “external link sign”, most recently in L2/12-169. It is unclear that the entity in question is actually an element of plain text Nor is Pile of Poo, and that's in Unicode. If external Link was added to Unicode, I expect it would be more used than 1000s of characters that are in it.

Why is it not? People use it in plain text millions of times a day.

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#83

Post by ajnin » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:32 AM UTC

akvadrako wrote: post #73

After getting an emoji accepted I submitted a proposal for the external link symbol in 2018, trying to address the committee's concerns from the several earlier proposals. https://doubly.so/pub/External-Link-2018.pdf It was summarily rejected with the nonsense statement (in full): > Thank you for your submission. This was discussed during last week's UTC meeting. I was directed to let you know UTC feels that, as subm…

At this point I think a submission of 8 generic "arrow exiting square from top, top-right, etc." might have a better chance of being accepted as it holds a general meaning of exiting something and is not specific to hypertext as seems to be their objection.

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#84

Post by DagAgren » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:33 AM UTC

etrabroline wrote: post #33

qwerty456127 wrote: post #21

> Furthermore, the existing widespread practice of representing this sign on web pages using images (often specified via CSS styles) would be unlikely to benefit from attempting to encode a character for this image. Obviously enough text-mode browsers would be likely to benefit.

This made my head spin. It's like saying people already using the JIS text encoding would be unlikely to benefit from adding Japanese to Unicode. Absolutely mind blowing.

No, it is saying that Unicode is used to encode what people think of as plain text, and that UI symbols that are not part of the text content are outside the scope of it.

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#85

Post by amelius » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:34 AM UTC

DagAgren wrote: post #80

joatmon-snoo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This made me stop and think because I've never really wondered about what belongs and doesn't belong in Unicode, and then I went looking at what strange corners Unicode has and wow the "Miscellaneous Technical" code block is such a strange thing. * It has APL symbols (checking the Wiki article on APL syntax and the APL standard, it seems that APL programs can be represented entirely in Unicode - which makes sense, bu…

The backspace symbol makes perfect sense. You may very well want to say "Press ⌫ to delete the selected object".

But you may also say "Next to the link you will see [EXTERNAL LINK] which indicates that the link leads to another website."

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#86

Post by DagAgren » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:35 AM UTC

irrational wrote: post #32

> It is unclear that the entity in question is actually an element of plain text... As the author pointed out, emojis seem to clearly violate this excuse. What possible justification do they give for emojis? There is no way [I originally inserted the poop emoji here, but it was stripped out. That kind of reinforces my point.] is an element of plain text.

Why wouldn't it be part of plain text? People type it as part of their text messages constantly. They certainly use it as a part of plain text.

Nobody would type an external link symbol. It would be added by the UI presentation layer. It is not part of plain text, because it is not typed as part of textual content. But the poop emoji is.

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#87

Post by amelius » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:35 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #42

I find myself agreeing with the rejection. As much as I dislike the ridiculous amount of emojis in Unicode, and their increasingly widespread use, they do fit plain text communication, whereas an "external link" symbol does not. My heuristic is something I'll call SMS sniff test : would it make sense to type that symbol into a text message? If it wouldn't, then it doesn't belong in Unicode. "External link" symbol tel…

But a dagger serves a similar purpose.

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#88

Post by DagAgren » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:36 AM UTC

ZiiS wrote: post #12

It is simply factuly incorrect to say that a commonly used sysmbol would not benifit from being included in fonts. How can a committee working in this field posibly fail to understand that?

Unicode does not determine what can or can not be included in fonts. Fonts can include symbols not defined by Unicode if they want.

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#89

Post by DagAgren » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:37 AM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #7

God, they spend so much time on emoji which is much the same. They are becoming a bit of a joke!

Emoji are not at all the same. People type emoji as part of their text. People do not type "external link symbol" as part of their text.

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#90

Post by tialaramex » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:38 AM UTC

joatmon-snoo wrote: post #67

TeMPOraL wrote: post #42

I find myself agreeing with the rejection. As much as I dislike the ridiculous amount of emojis in Unicode, and their increasingly widespread use, they do fit plain text communication, whereas an "external link" symbol does not. My heuristic is something I'll call SMS sniff test : would it make sense to type that symbol into a text message? If it wouldn't, then it doesn't belong in Unicode. "External link" symbol tel…

This made me stop and think because I've never really wondered about what belongs and doesn't belong in Unicode, and then I went looking at what strange corners Unicode has and wow the "Miscellaneous Technical" code block is such a strange thing. * It has APL symbols (checking the Wiki article on APL syntax and the APL standard, it seems that APL programs can be represented entirely in Unicode - which makes sense, bu…

Unicode is intended to replace all previous codes for text, so from the outset and almost by definition it has sought to identify things like APL and encode those because if it didn't you still need an encoding for your old APL programs.