The Thai Baht (฿) has always been the most frequently used Bitcoin symbol right?

[Luke-Jr]

My vote is for the Thai Baht. It's clean, elegant and standard.

This isn't a vote; B⃦ has been the standard symbol since the beginning, and there is no good reason to change that. This is just Atlas trying to turn Bitcoin into mere "Silk Road currency".

Except not every implementation of Unicode displays whatever symbol that is.

If they don't, it's a bug.

How long until implementations work for most people? 1 year, 5 years, a decade?

Depends on how long "most people" use broken stuff. It works in all the software I run, at least, excepting only Links.

[1714251384]

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[1714251384]

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[1714251384]

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[Hasimir]

B⃦ sucks extra hard for being 2 chars (we invented new problems for you!)

B⃦ is itself a single character, even if comprised of two codepoints.
It's also the same character the forum is using a webfont to render in BTC.
Using multiple codepoints for a single character is not new.

How many times do you need to see posts from others saying (and even showing) that it isn't displaying for the majority of people as it does for you?

Are you using UTF-16 instead of UTF-8?

Have you successfully rendered this symbol on a system using UTF-8?

Have you viewed this symbol on any system other than your own?

I'm guessing your answers will be: infinity, yes, no and no, respectively.

[deadserious]

The only argument against using ฿ is that it is used for THB aleady.  On the other hand $ is already used for USD, CAD, AUD and NZD.  While ¥ is used for Yen and Yuan.  Currencies sharing symbols is nothing new, that's why we have three letter codes for them as well.

The $ symbol also is used in several countries that use a Peso variant as well.

[Luke-Jr]

B⃦ sucks extra hard for being 2 chars (we invented new problems for you!)

B⃦ is itself a single character, even if comprised of two codepoints.
It's also the same character the forum is using a webfont to render in BTC.
Using multiple codepoints for a single character is not new.

How many times do you need to see posts from others saying (and even showing) that it isn't displaying for the majority of people as it does for you?

Such problems are irrelevant. I'm not suggesting changing anything.

Are you using UTF-16 instead of UTF-8?

No, I only use UTF-8.

Have you successfully rendered this symbol on a system using UTF-8?

Yep, in fact I'm pretty sure these forums use UTF-8 only.

Edit: Actually, looking at the source, I see the forum is choosing ISO-8859-1 encoding, which doesn't work with Unicode at all. This is likely the reason why many people are having technical problems.

Have you viewed this symbol on any system other than your own?

Yep, just pulled it up on a Mac I have lying around and it rendered fine in Lion/Safari.

[Hasimir]

Ok, so now I know why it looks shitty on my and many other systems. The vertical strokes are in different places depending on the program I use. In my chromium browser they are too far right and in gedit they are in addition to far right too short.
Knowing it is actually a double-symbol makes me all the more favor any of the single-symbols that at least should look consistent on all systems that manage to display something:
฿ or Ƀ.

Absolutely agree.

The $ symbol being used for many many currencies should be reason enough to not have a problem recycling the Baht symbol for Bitcoin. Here in Chile they also use $ for Chilean Pesos.

Exactly, so many currency symbols are reused around the world that the arguments against using the baht symbol are basically along the lines of "we wish we had our own recognisable currency symbol."

[Yuhfhrh]

B⃦ sucks extra hard for being 2 chars (we invented new problems for you!)

B⃦ is itself a single character, even if comprised of two codepoints.
It's also the same character the forum is using a webfont to render in BTC.
Using multiple codepoints for a single character is not new.

How many times do you need to see posts from others saying (and even showing) that it isn't displaying for the majority of people as it does for you?

Are you using UTF-16 instead of UTF-8?

Have you successfully rendered this symbol on a system using UTF-8?

Have you viewed this symbol on any system other than your own?

I'm guessing your answers will be: infinity, yes, no and no, respectively.

It isn't showing up for me on my computer or phone either.

[bg002h]

My vote is for the Thai Baht. It's clean, elegant and standard.

This isn't a vote; B⃦ has been the standard symbol since the beginning, and there is no good reason to change that. This is just Atlas trying to turn Bitcoin into mere "Silk Road currency".

Except not every implementation of Unicode displays whatever symbol that is.

If they don't, it's a bug.

How long until implementations work for most people? 1 year, 5 years, a decade?

Depends on how long "most people" use broken stuff. It works in all the software I run, at least, excepting only Links.

I'm betting in 5 years it'll still be broken for about half of folks...

[Hasimir]

[...]

Websites and websites, I want bitcoin symbol in my text files, dammit!

Yep.  I want it in my text files, my (plain text) email, my ODF docs and everywhere else.  I also don't want it broken by a GPG clear signature.

[Hasimir]

Seems to work fine. I just copied a BTC from my broswer into an ANSI encoded text document and it autoresolved to "BTC".

When I copy the image into Emacs it just shows up as a B, webfonts and this forum's CSS only work where that additional configuration is set.

[Luke-Jr]

I made a test page for the BTC symbol in Unicode since this forum forces a non-Unicode encoding.

[Hasimir]

My vote is for the Thai Baht. It's clean, elegant and standard.

This isn't a vote; B⃦ has been the standard symbol since the beginning, and there is no good reason to change that. This is just Atlas trying to turn Bitcoin into mere "Silk Road currency".

Except not every implementation of Unicode displays whatever symbol that is.

If they don't, it's a bug.

If so then it's a bug that affects the majority of systems, programs and users, not to mention the wider world.

The problem is that you've opted for a UTF-16 character instead of a UTF-8 character.  UTF-8 is far more common and accessible.

B⃦ is standard UTF-8, it is not UTF-16.

My system supports Unicode 5.0 or 5.1 with UTF-8 and all my programs are configured to use UTF-8, I can assure you your pet favourite isn't displaying properly.

Once again, I don't see any problem with using the baht symbol for Bitcoin and it has the added advantage of displaying correctly on a wide range of systems.

I'm not addressing whether baht is an acceptable replacement or not; just the reality that it isn't the current standard BTC symbol.

Then the current standard is a woeful choice for one.

I'm throwing my support behind either ฿ or Ƀ.

[bg002h]

Luke -- here's how it renders on Mountain Lion / chrome:

[Luke-Jr]

My system supports Unicode 5.0 or 5.1 with UTF-8 and all my programs are configured to use UTF-8, I can assure you your pet favourite isn't displaying properly.

Obviously not then, at least if you tested with my test page (since the forums don't support Unicode properly). Unicode 5.0 chapter 3 ("Conformance") definitely covers combining characters.

[Hasimir]

B⃦ sucks extra hard for being 2 chars (we invented new problems for you!)

B⃦ is itself a single character, even if comprised of two codepoints.
It's also the same character the forum is using a webfont to render in BTC.
Using multiple codepoints for a single character is not new.

How many times do you need to see posts from others saying (and even showing) that it isn't displaying for the majority of people as it does for you?

Such problems are irrelevant. I'm not suggesting changing anything.

It's hardly irrelevant if people can't see what you mean to show them.

Are you using UTF-16 instead of UTF-8?

No, I only use UTF-8.

Which version?

Have you successfully rendered this symbol on a system using UTF-8?

Yep, in fact I'm pretty sure these forums use UTF-8 only.

Edit: Actually, looking at the source, I see the forum is choosing ISO-8859-1 encoding, which doesn't work with Unicode at all. This is likely the reason why many people are having technical problems.

If that's the case then the Bitcoin wiki has the same problem.

Have you viewed this symbol on any system other than your own?

Yep, just pulled it up on a Mac I have lying around and it rendered fine in Lion/Safari.

Well, on mine it gives me trouble on Firefox, Seamonkey and Safari.

A standard that does not work consistently across multiple platforms doesn't really meet the definition of standard.

[bg002h]

looks the same on safari and chrome on mountain lion.

[Luke-Jr]

Luke -- here's how it renders on Mountain Lion / chrome:

Looks pretty good - except for bold and italic. Wonder why those are messed up for you.

Are you using UTF-16 instead of UTF-8?

No, I only use UTF-8.

Which version?

RFC 3629

Have you successfully rendered this symbol on a system using UTF-8?

Yep, in fact I'm pretty sure these forums use UTF-8 only.

Edit: Actually, looking at the source, I see the forum is choosing ISO-8859-1 encoding, which doesn't work with Unicode at all. This is likely the reason why many people are having technical problems.

If that's the case then the Bitcoin wiki has the same problem.

No, the wiki seems to select UTF-8 properly.

[Hasimir]

I made a test page for the BTC symbol in Unicode since this forum forces a non-Unicode encoding.

This is what I see:

[bg002h]

I made a test page for the BTC symbol in Unicode since this forum forces a non-Unicode encoding.

This is what I see:

what OS and browser?

[Hasimir]

I made a test page for the BTC symbol in Unicode since this forum forces a non-Unicode encoding.

This is what I see:

what OS and browser?

OS X 10.5.8 and Firefox 15.  Seamonkey produced the same result.

Safari, on the other hand, produced this:



I included the top of the browser which shows a different symbol.  That symbol matches what Emacs produces.

[bg002h]

i guess it's a function of the OS more than the broswer then?