Chinese puzzle

[Dave Cragg]

Hi

My problem is not how to render Chinese text, but how not to.

I received the report from a user of Chinese Windows, but can 
reproduce it here on Win XP by setting "Language for non-Unicode 
programs" to Chinese (under the Advanced tab on "Regional and 
Language Options" Control Panel). This is with MC 2.4.3.

In fields which contain "high-ASCII" characters, these characters 
will pair with the following character and be drawn as a double-byte 
Chinese character. (For example, an opening curly quote followed by a 
"y".) This happens even when the field's font is a Latin font (such 
as Verdana), and also when setting the font of the specific 
characters to a Latin font. (set the textfont of char 1 to -1 of 
field 1 to "Verdana")

I'm familiar with similar behavior in Japanese, but only when the 
underlying font is a Japanese font.  I've confirmed that the same 
thing doesn't happen in Metacard with Japanese when Japanese is set 
as "Language for non-Unicode programs". (Ie. Japanese will display 
when the font is Japanese, and the usual gobbledegook when a Latin 
font is used.)

Does anyone know how to get round this problem short of having 
Chinese OS users set English as "Language for non-Unicode programs" 
(not practical) or removing all high-numbered characters?

Cheers
Dave