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

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

#131

Post by geocar »

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…

> 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.

I accept that heuristic, and find myself agreeing with it for the purposes of the external link character. Let me try to convince you:

This is a real conversation:

A> Are you familiar with Homebrew? You can get it from brew.sh.

B> Ok. Where is brew.sh?

If we were not limited by plain text, we could use colour and underlining to distinguish that as a domain name. A lot of websites find this poor for accessibility reasons so they use the link character.

Another way to think about this is to imagine the link-character is pronounced "https://" as in:

* Are you familiar with Homebrew? You can get it from https://brew.sh.

* Are you familiar with Homebrew? You can get it from {link character} brew.sh.

Isn't that plain text? I'm not sure how to pronounce it, but there's a lot of emoji I don't know how to pronounce. Do you think this is important?

So if you get that far, how much further is this really?

* Are you familiar with Homebrew? You can get it from brew.sh {link character}.

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

#132

Post by [deleted] »

ant6n wrote: post #71
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…

Plausible sms: „Plz send me the . “

[deleted]

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

#133

Post by pas »

DagAgren wrote: post #109
nabla9 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you copied that text, you would not really expect the link symbol to be copied along with it. Because it's not in Unicode it can't be copied. If it was in unicode symbol I would expect it.

But it's not part of the text, it is a decoration. Even if it was in Unicode, I would not expect it to be part of the copied text.

Isn't this something like a stylistic editorial decision? Basically it could be either way depending on what the author/publisher/editor wants.

On a lot of pages links are hidden as plain text and only show up if someone hovers over them. (Great? Confusing? Bad UX? Sure, but still a choice.)

At the same time someone else might just use underlining, but no different color. And someone might just want to use a symbol.

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

#134

Post by goto11 »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #128
goto11 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah because Wingdings was a preexisting character set and Unicode was designed to be a superset of all existing character sets in use.

Isn’t Wingdings just a font that can work with whatever character set?

Yeah, it was basically a hack to extend the character repertoire in the time of 8-bit character sets. The kind of shenanigans Unicode was designed to replace.

You still see this kind of mischief when Outlook users type a smiley, and it is rendered as a "J" with the wingdings font. Readers of the mail where styling is stripped or who haven't the font installed just sees a confusing "J".

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

#135

Post by andrewzah »

geocar wrote: post #131
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…

> 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. I accept that heuristic, and find myself agreeing with it for the purposes of the external link character. Let me try to convince you: This is a real conversation: A> Are you familiar with Homebrew? You can get it from brew.sh. B> Ok. Where is brew.sh? I…

That sounds like an issue that could be solved by updating the renderer's gtld list with the various new ones that have been coming out instead of adding invisible meta characters.

Phones already do it for .com, .gov, etc, but our cutesy .sh, .dev, .rocks, .xyz, etc will take a bit to catch up.

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

#136

Post by Finnucane »

I think from the consortium's point of view it boils down to whether it makes sense to consider the link symbol separately from the text that makes up the link. They apparently decided it did not, but you could disagree. Of course, it does not really matter if you disagree, because they won't change their mind (unless you repropose it in a way that makes a different argument from the original proposal, which their rejection is basically saying could be considered).

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

#137

Post by mwcampbell »

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…

The use of symbols in text messages is one reason to include them in Unicode, but not the only one. Another is accessibility, particularly for blind people. The more commonly used symbols are in Unicode, the less we have to remind website authors to include alt text, or that the symbols in their custom icon font pose an accessibility problem. Also, co-opting an existing symbol, such as the degrees symbol (which I've observed some websites do for external links), is confusing when using a screen reader.

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

#138

Post by geocar »

andrewzah wrote: post #135
geocar wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I accept that heuristic, and find myself agreeing with it for the purposes of the external link character. Let me try to convince you: This is a real conversation: A> Are you familiar with Homebrew? You can get it from brew.sh. B> Ok. Where is brew.sh? I…

That sounds like an issue that could be solved by updating the renderer's gtld list with the various new ones that have been coming out instead of adding invisible meta characters. Phones already do it for .com, .gov, etc, but our cutesy .sh, .dev, .rocks, .xyz, etc will take a bit to catch up.

> That sounds like an issue that could be solved by updating the renderer's gtld list with the various new ones that have been coming out instead of adding invisible meta characters.

Negative. My renderer is a piece of paper.

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

#139

Post by GuB-42 »

goto11 wrote: post #61
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…

Yeah a lot of arguments are of the form "when Unicode can include the pile-of-poop-emoji, surely it should include ". But the question is not if the icon is practical or silly, the question is if it makes sense as a Unicode character or should be handled at some other level like a GUI control or widget. Should GUI icons, widgets and controls be covered by Unicode? That is a can of worms. I understand the usefulness o…

As for the pile-of-poop emoji there is a very good reason for it to be included in Unicode: it is one of the original emoji, made by Softbank in 1997.

The reason: Softbank and Docomo both used proprietary emoji sets, widely used in Japan for text messages. Not including these in Unicode would have resulted in a choice: be compatible with the rest of the world, or keep using the emojis that became part of their culture. Not satisfactory. So basically, they had to put emoji in Unicode for the Japanese to use it, and excluding Japan is not really an option if you want a universal standard.

It did open an Pandora box though.

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