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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)

#201

U+1F517 https://emojipedia.org/link/ might do this job Anyway I think we can avoid target="_blank" most of the time, you can have a https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WindowEvent... event listener if something needs to be saved before the page location changes

I generally see that one used as "permalink/create share link to the current page".

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

#202
post #199
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't a screen-reader recognize a link even without the symbol? I can see the problem of the screen-reader telling the user that there's some garbage image at the end of the link, but the image really is garbage in that case, since I imagine the screen-reader would make it obvious that there's a link there.

This symbol is for marking external links, distinct from internal links.

Right. And I've come across websites where the alt text for their external-link image is something fairly verbose like "external link opens in new window". Now, imagine if instead, we had a standard symbol, and screen readers could map it to short sound effect that users would come to recognize.

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

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can put a URL into an SMS message, but you can't put an anchor tag (link) which is comprised of [a hidden URL and visible link text]. The latter is the only one of these that benefits from the symbol in question, because the external nature of the hidden URL is disguised. The former doesn't benefit because the external nature of the URL is obvious. Modern SMS readers will linkify the URL, but will set the visible…

> This explanation mirrors the rejection rationale: you don't need a symbol to be a Unicode character if the document is already rich text; No, that's not the rejection rationale. The rejection rationale isn't about having access to image tags or CSS. It's about hypertext (click link, go to another text) vs having text (can't click link, no other text). If that was the rationale, they wouldn't allow emojis in unicode…

Sorry, let me rephrase in the way that I did in another comment: it seems that to be a codepoint, it needs to be useful in plain text scenarios.

Emoji are useful (arguably I guess) in plain text scenarios because they exist to convey additional information about an author's emotion, and that author might use plain text. The external link symbol is not useful in plain text scenarios because it exists to convey additional information about an author's preceeding hypertext, and that author isn't using hypertext.

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

#204
post #139
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cultur…

SoftBank actually put emoji into the Private Use Area of Unicode before they were codified (just as they were in an unused area of Shift-JIS before that). The original iPhone 3GS use the PUA method.

The encoding of emoji was in order to unify Softbank/docomo/au under one set so that iPhones/Androids sold by the different carriers could send emoji among each other without relying on email translators (as had been the technical solution with feature phones until then)

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

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nor is Pile of Poo I really really don't understand this point. We have evidence that people use pile of poo in plaintext today in instant messaging all the time. Isn't this enough evidence that pile of poo belongs to plaintext? I'm not trying to be facetious; it's really puzzling to me. Since every single comment in this thread is about pile of poo, whereas it seems to me the worst possible example since it's such…

It's only possible to use it in a text message because it's a unicode character. If external link was a character, would people use it? I don't know. Do you?

I personally would use it. I'm sure others would too.

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

#206

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…

Let me pass a few things by your sniffer, here. Here's some random characters from the "Math Symbols" page of OSX's character viewer. ⨐⨔⊹⊰⨶⨹⩫⫸⧯⧼ Did you know that Unicode has an entire set of dominos in it? 🀱🀲🀳🀴🀵🀶🀷🀸🀹🀺🀻🀼🀽🀾🀿🁀🁁🁂🁃🁄🁅🁆🁇🁈🁉🁊🁋🁌🁍🁎🁏🁐🁑🁒🁓🁔🁕🁖🁗🁘🁙🁚🁛🁜🁝🁞🁟🁠🁡 Twice: once horizontally, once vertically. 🁣🁤🁥🁦🁧🁨🁩🁪🁫🁬🁭🁮🁰🁱🁲🁳🁴🁵🁶🁷🁸🁹🁺🁻🁼🁽🁾🁿🂀🂁🂂🂃🂄🂅🂆�…

Scripts like Egyptian Hieroglyphs are exactly the purpose of Unicode. But a bunch of other symbols are mostly there because they come from some preexisting character set which Unicode had to include in order to be a viable replacement for legacy character sets.

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

#207

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…

that page lists the NEXT PAGE symbol ⎘ and I wonder if that couldn't do as an "external link" symbol in a pinch, seeing as I've never seen it used as a next page symbol before.

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

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh also I just wanna note that if we go by a previous convention, there is a perfectly good symbol for "this is an external link": back in the days when Geocities was relevant, it was pretty common to see external links marked by a little Earth gif after them, because it was a link to somewhere else on the World! Wide! Web. If your browser feels like displaying Wingdings codepoints, something like this: http://egypt.…

I really like your website btw. Very beautiful.

Thanks!

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

#209
post #174
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what belongs and doesn't belong in Unicode That's simple. The justification for most characters, including the exemplary one you mentioned, is that they were already en code d in some other repertoire. The consortium's task is to collect and uni fy them.

In particular there was a desire to make sure that a round trip from some legacy character set to Unicode and back to the legacy character set wouldn't lose information. So many characters that you would assume to be the same are given multiple code points to make that possible.

Indeed :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22682841

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

#210

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…

I made this thing once upon a time to browse all the symbols http://tingletech.github.io/unicodetoy/
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