Character Encoding not set as specified

[walterdrink]

Hi,
I can't believe that I am the only one to realize that this is not working, so probably I am doing something wrong:

I am using Notepad++ 8.1.5 (64bit), I have installed the EditorConfig plugin, I have created a .editorconfig file, in my case with this content:

[*]
charset = utf-8
indent_style = space
indent_size = 2

Now when I open another simple text file (no special characters or something) from the same folder, it still is interpreted as ANSI encoding.
When I click on "Show EditorConfig settings for this file" it correctly shows me the content of .editorconfig.

Any ideas what can be wrong?
Walterdrink

[ffes]

You are right that there is no support for charset at this moment. But note that charset is not mentioned as a Supported properties.

That said, you are right that it should do something with the charset. Notepad++ has support for various character sets.

And what should be done with a document that is in for instance Windows-1252 and the .editorconfig says utf-8? Should existing document be converted? Personally I think it should, just like we do with line endings.

[walterdrink]

Thanks for your answer, this helps me to know what I can expect for now.

I agree with you, it should be defined what should be done.
When I have a file that "is in" Windows-1252 (which actually means that it is a file that Notepad++ would detect as Windows-1252 if "Autodetect character encoding" is on) but .editorconfig says utf-8, then I see several options:

1. just take it as Windows-1252 - that does not make sense to me, because then the .editorconfig setting is useless.
2. convert it to utf-8 - could be a reasonable option but could also mess it up in case that the detection was not correct.
3. take the file unconverted but interpret it as utf-8 - might be the safest option but might lead to unexpected results in some cases.
4. let Notepad++ open a dialog where the user can opt for one of the above.

[ffes]

Dutch is my native language, so I don't run into those encoding problems much. I have never had any problems with Notepad++ detecting the encoding of a document. But as said, Dutch doesn't have much special characters, mainly the regular vowels with accents.

Just setting the encoding will just break documents. Learned the hard way 😉

I am really no fan of the dialog, because that become very annoying very soon.

Based on that I would prefer option 2. There are Convert to... menu entries in Encoding menu. I would just utilize those menu entries from code to let Notepad++ do the heavy lifting, when the document type is not the same as in the .editorconfig.

[walterdrink]

I see your point and I agree.
You intend to do the conversion when saving the file, not when opening it, right? So your approach makes sense to me.

[pryrt]

Based on the discussion in the Notepad++ community, there are users in the wild who would like to at least have the charset attribute available to the Notepad++ EditorConfig plugin.

But further, it would be nice if EditorConfig would recognize the -*- encoding: "IBM850" -*- and # encoding=ibm850 first-or-second-line comments inside the files as well... (I don't know whether this is a plugin-specific request, or would need to be at the core library level; and I don't know whether the EditorConfig ever looks that deeply at the file contents; if it looks at the contents, I would think it would be doable; if it just looks at the filename, then maybe this "further" request goes too far.)

[ffes]

Supporting -*- encoding is not related to this plugin. It is different functionality. What you are looking for is support for Emacs File Variables.

Funnily enough, it is a concept I have looked at a while ago. I have written a plugin that supports some basic vim modeline settings (a similar concept for vim). On the Linux CLI I am a vim user and have never used Emacs. But that plugin is "designed" to support multiple file settings formats. Adding support for Emacs File Variables should be possible, but I need someone to provide the right information and is willing to test it.

Note that that plugin is never released and I assume I am the only user. It does not support those encoding settings yet, because I don't have a personal need for it but can be done, just like it needs to be done for this editorconfig plugin. If there is a broader interest in my file settings plugin, I will gladly put some effort in it and release it. But in that case open an issue in that repo and let's not "spam" this issue with it too much.