UTF-8 explained

This is a short explanation of UTF-8—what it is, how it works, and why it’s popular.

Unicode with Python 2 and PyGTK

Playing with Unicode in Python 2 is not fun, and combining this with third-party libraries brings even more headaches. This post explains how Unicode in PyGTK is handled.

Note: This information is only valid for Python 2.x. It will likely change when PyGTK releases support for Python 3.

Calling GTK+ functions: PyGTK accepts str and unicode objects as input. str objects are assumed to be in UTF-8. If you pass a non-UTF-8 str to a GTK+ function, it will work until you try to show it, where you’ll get a “PangoWarning: Invalid UTF-8 string passed to pango_layout_set_text()”.

Handling GTK+ return values: PyGTK functions always return strings as str objects. In most (all?) cases, the strings are encoded in UTF-8. Ideally, Python programs should use unicode strings internally, so it’s wise to convert the output of PyGTK function calls to unicode.

Example:

label1.set_text("Some UTF-8 string")
label1.set_text(u"Some Unicode string")
x = label1.get_text()  # x is an str object containing UTF-8 string
y = unicode(x, 'utf-8')  # y is the unicode version of x

fix-columns-i18n merged

There’s a long-standing internationalisation bug in Exaile that has been nagging me for some time. In localised environments, column names get saved to the settings in translated form. This has annoying consequences.

No more; I’ve merged the fix-columns-i18n branch that I have been working on for a while. There’s just a catch: using existing settings you’ll see no columns at all, which means no cells, which means completely empty playlists. You can simply re-enable them from View → Columns.

Edit (2008-01-29): The remaining bug is fixed now.