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UTF8 to ISO plugin V1.60 for Eudora (11/2006)

(Written in Delphi 4, sourcecode lost several years ago)
Eudora E-Mail client for Windows V4 or better required.

Freeware by Daniel Kuhn
Contact Details

Download from http://www.windharp.de/software/utf8iso.zip
This plugin will not be developed any further, since I stopped using Eudora. I suggest you try thunderbird instead of eudora.


What does it do?

Nowadays more and more e-mails are encoded using the unicode encoding UTF-8. Basically this is an advanced charset, including most symbols existing in the world. For example you can write Japanese and some similiar charsets with unicode.

This plugin checks all incoming messages (and can be invoked manually) for UTF-8 encoding and tries to decode as much as possible. It is naturally limited, because Eudora can only handle the characters in the ISO8859-1 charsets, so for example Japanese characters can't be decoded.

To check if a message is UTF-8 encoded, the plugin looks at the message header "CONTENT-TYPE:" and checks if it contains the strings "CHARSET" and "UTF-8". If those strings are not found, the message stays untouched in the automated mode. In manual mode, this check is turned off to give you the chance to decide yourself if a conversion is needed. Only message parts of the type "text/plain" and optionally "text/html" are processed, so binaries stay untouched. Multiline message headers are supported.


Why is this plugin needed?

The e-mail standard says that all e-mail programs modified 1999 or later must (read "must"!) understand UTF-8 encoded e-mails. The people at Qualcomm didn't manage to make Eudara UTF-8 compliant, though. So e-mails you receive that are in UTF-8 may contain funny characters. Change to a different client? No, Eudora is fine. It is among the best e-mail clients I have ever seen. Except for this bug, that is...


Installation

Very simple. Really. Just copy the UTF8ISO.DLL into your Eudora\Plugins directory. The only thing you need to do now is restart Eudora, the plugin is loaded automatically and starts working once new e-mails are received.


Configuration

Starting in V1.30 this plugin has a configuration menu. You will be able to disable all additional features I add to the plugin for compatibility reasons. You can reach the menu via the Special / Message plugins Settings... menu (see Image 1). Mark the UTF8->ISO entry and click settings (see Image 2).

Settings Menu

Image 1: Setting Menu
Choose Plugin
Image 2: Choose Plugin
Setup Screen


Image 3: Setup Screen

Currently the following options are available (see Image 3):




How to use UTF8ISO

Inbound filtering is fully automated. Therefore no interaction is needed after you installed the plugin (See the above section about configuration about possibilities to configure UTF8ISO's behaviour). You may convert old messages (received before the installation), too. Just open the message and execute Edit / Message-Plugins / UTF8 -> ISO. The result will be shown and you will be asked asked for confirmation when you close the window.

Tip: Due to a bug Eudora introduced in V6, a message converted in the preview pane can not be saved. Because of this, you need to doubleclick the message to open it, engage the editing mode (pencil icon), and start the manual conversion afterwards. Starting in V7.x you need to end the editmode by another click on the pencil icon before closing the mail.


Manual usage
Image4: Manual usage

Features and Limitations


How to uninstall the plugin?

What? Uninstall it? This superb addon? No way...
Okay, it is as easy as the installation: Simply close Eudora and delete the file UTF8ISO.dll (and UTF8ISO.INI if it exists) from your Plugins-folder.


Version history

V1.00 - March 2004

V1.10 - September 2004

V1.20 - October 2004

V1.30 - February 2005

V1.40 - June 2005

V1.50 - March 2006

V1.60 - November 2006


Warranty

You are using this plugin at your own risk. I don't take any responsibility for problems that might occur, like for example data loss or corruption of your database. I don't give any warranty that this plugin will work on your system, too. Short: No warranty whatsoever.


How to report a bug?

Found a bug? I am sorry, but there is most likely nothing I can do about it. The source code is lost and I don't use Eudora anymore. Most problems have been fixable by checking the settings menu.

Cool thing that, may I ... ?

UTF8ISO (c) 2007 - Daniel Kuhn
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