[pmwiki-users] UTF-8 in page names

[Petko Yotov]

Thanks for updating the PmWiki.UTF-8 page!

I edited it a little to make it less scary. ;-)

You asked "are there reasons NOT to use UTF-8" and I gave some.

But there are also good reasons to DO use UTF-8 in page names. Easier 
configuration, works out of the box. Easier management of page titles 
(no need to add a (:title ...:) directive). The possibility to have 
distinct pages for differently accented words or expressions, for 
example in a language-topic wiki. Better SEO if your URLs match certain 
search terms.

Also while the URLs may have URL-encoded international characters when 
you copy them, modern browsers display the actual international 
characters in the URL bar, and major search engines understand the 
international URLs and show them decoded in the search results.

I suspect for most people installing a new wiki there will never be a 
problem to have international page names.

Petko

On 10/02/2023 10:55, Hans Bracker wrote:
> Hello Petko,
> 
> thank you for that detailed answer!
> 
> I think it may be good to have this info somewhere in the 
> documentation.
> I am looking at the documentation, but I cannot find such info.
> 
> Page PmWiki.Internationalizations does not mention
> internationalization of page names and titles. UTF-8 character set is
> mentioned briefly, with a link
> to the PmWiki.UTF-8 page.
> 
> Page PmWiki.InitialSetupTasks also briefly mentions (under Other
> common setup tasks) a link to PMWiki.UTF-8
> 
> The  PMWiki.UTF-8 does  not mention the use of  UTF-8 in page names.
> But it does setting up the character set, and also RTL.
> 
> So it seems that page is best suited to give some info on the use of
> UTF-8 in page names. Perhaps as extra heading underneath "Support for
> RTL right-to-left languages. A heading perhapsas
> "Support of UTF-8 in page names and url"
> 
> I am happy to add your answer there. And also give links to the
> relevant Cookbook pages.
> 
> ~Hans