For a few years, I have been helping a small non-profit org maintain a niche directory with Links 2. Over time, we have made numerous minor and major hacks. The customized Links 2 integrates well with the rest of the web site.
However, they have made a very sensible decision to bring the website into the 21st century. The next web site update must be XHTML 1.0 Strict (ie: using doctype !DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd") and UTF-8 encoding on all pages except Links 2 admin (where it will be preferred but not required). This is now a non-negotiable contractual necessity, so the site can support multiple languages. It is also the right thing to do.
The customized Links 2 is already fully W3C-compliant with structural markup, so the switch from HTML 4.01 is trivial (I have already done it). But to switch from 8-bit ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8 is decidedly non-trivial (especially when we have to hack forms and search results). Right now, I can see how to start -- but I have no idea how long it might take, so I really don't know if it is worth attempting.
Has anyone else ever done this?
Any experiences to share?
However, they have made a very sensible decision to bring the website into the 21st century. The next web site update must be XHTML 1.0 Strict (ie: using doctype !DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd") and UTF-8 encoding on all pages except Links 2 admin (where it will be preferred but not required). This is now a non-negotiable contractual necessity, so the site can support multiple languages. It is also the right thing to do.
The customized Links 2 is already fully W3C-compliant with structural markup, so the switch from HTML 4.01 is trivial (I have already done it). But to switch from 8-bit ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8 is decidedly non-trivial (especially when we have to hack forms and search results). Right now, I can see how to start -- but I have no idea how long it might take, so I really don't know if it is worth attempting.
Has anyone else ever done this?
Any experiences to share?
UTF-8 in Links 2