IDMS

I think it has been asked before, but I'm yet to see an answer that fully explains it.

I have multiple accounts too and what I find is that I can read the message sent from IDMS-L, but I can't read the copy that gets sent through IDMSVENDOR-L.

It has something to do with the character set used.

If I look at the messages on the IDMS-L archive, most of Gary's (but also some other peoples) messages are garbled. The garbled ones all show a charset of "[color=#1404f9]utf-8[color]" (unicode) whereas the ones that aren't garbled show other charsets such as "[color=#1404f9]us-ascii[color]" or "[color=#1404f9]iso-8859-1[color]".

So it looks to me that this happens when messages are sent unicode - something along the way can't decode it and it remains garbled.

If everyone made sure their charset is not unicode, we'd probably be alright, but it is possible that some people don't have control over that (corporate setting), or simply don't know how to change it.

I do wonder if there is a tweak in the list server somewhere that might fix it (no idea if there if there is, just suggesting that there might be).

Cheers, Steve.

On 1/03/2012 1:39 PM, Chris Hoelscher wrote:

Okay - I am sure this has been asked and answered (I am too lazy in my old age to consult the archives) - but most if not all posts from Gary come across my work email as a seeming random combination of letters - is this something I can correct or is it a problem elsewhere?
(on my home account they come across entirely readable)
thanks - Chris hoelscher

As I have been singled out for this issue in the past I make doggone sure that I set "Plain text" in my Outlook e-mail "Options" before I send. So any issues that the List Server has are just that - issues with dealing with the multitude of formats and standards that exists in the modern world of e-communications.

By my reckoning IDMS-L has outlived its usefulness and people should just switch over to the IUA/EIUA CA Community Message Board - which allows Bolding, [color=#fa0101]Colouring[color], [color=#0109fa]Attachments[color], and all the "usual" things that we have come to expect from 20th century systems - now that it's the 21st century maybe it's not too late to get on board and use more modern tools? Just me [color=#0109fa]$AUD0.02[color] worth.

I mostly seem to have problems with items which I "cross-post" between the Message Board and the List Server - the cross-posting is provided as a "Service" for the benefit of those who do not wish to use the Message Board. I'm happy to cross-post "to" the Message Board and not "back to" IDMS-L if that's the consensus of opinion - it's just that a lot of useful information will be missed by the IDMS-L "only" Community. The "value added" these days is on the CA Communities web site! cool)

Cheers - Gary

Hi, Gary,

You could also have pointed out to them that those $AUD0.02 are worth more than the $USD0.02 these days, but I doubt that would have gone down too well :-)

Ian Hill

I'm not sure you've been singled out Gary, you aren't the only one whose messages get garbled. I know that I have the problem if I try to send to the list from my work account (hence why I'm using this gmail account).

It does seem to happen to a lot of your messages though, but not all. Interestingly this last one came through cleanly (and of course it wasn't a cross post - you might be on to something there).

I rather suspect outlook is to blame here and I'm not really sure there is much you can do about it. I don't think setting "plain text" in outlook is enough to ensure the character set isn't set to unicode (though I would still recommend it be done). Indeed, if I look in the archive at some of your garbled messages I see:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

I think your server gets the final say on the encoding used and it decides it based on the message content (I read this somewhere, but can't confirm it - but it would explain why some messages are unicode and some aren't).

So yes, you are right - these are issues caused by dealing with the multitude of formats and standards out there.

I still think it is strange though that even though the message is garbled in the online archive, the email copy I recieve from IDMS-L isn't and I can read it just fine. However the copy I get from IDMSVENDOR-L is garbled and I can't (I subscribe to both lists and receive copies from both, even though they are usually duplicates of one another). I'm wondering if others are seeing the same (garbled messages from IDMSVENDOR-L only). [color=#0808fd]Perhaps there is something in the IDMS-L -> IDMSVENDOR-L interface?[color]

Cheers,
Steve