Pidgin (GTK) and Unicode Asian/Hebrew character font display issue
Pidgin is the best multi protocol instant messaging software out there. There’s really no reason to use all the other messaging programs separately, unless you’re in need of the more advanced features.
It’s not perfect, though, and there are a few annoyances that keep it from being the ultimate solution. One of the more annoying things has to do with displaying Chinese and Hebrew characters, or any characters for that matter that aren’t English. The default installation would show them as question marks (“???”). Since I’m an Israeli currently living in Taiwan, I face this issue whenever I help another person migrate.
Anyways, the description of the problem is as follows (through ticket #604) :
Under the normal Windows binary of Pidgin, Asian characters are not displayed on the buddy list. When hovering over a screen name however, the contact window that pops up shows the characters just fine. This happens on Windows XP and Vista.
and so the solution is…
you can work around it by changing the default GTK theme. This can be done by running "C:Program FilesCommon FilesGTK2.0bingtkthemeselector.exe" and setting the default theme to something else like "Clearlooks".
So, this applies to all GTK based applications. They should really make a different default GTK theme.
But, that’s not the end of things, blog.portblue.de has more :
Assuming you have Pidgin installed, the first thing you're going to notice will be the relatively small font which is used by default. The problem here is that you can increase the font size (Tools -> Conversation -> Font), but there is one thing Pidgin has in common with Trillian: they don't support dynamic font switching -- i.e. provided you use a font that is designed for Latin text only and you receive a message in Chinese, your chat app automatically switches to a font that can display Chinese characters. Unlike the original MSN messenger, for example, Pidgin and Trillian don't do that. So what you will have to do is, chose a text font that can display Latin text and characters in the language you need. Recommendations are: "Sim Sun" for Simplified Chinese, "MingLiU" for Traditional Chinese, "Mincho" for Japanese, "Batang" or "Guilim" for Korean. […]
Update: The unicode issue persists if the other side is using a non-unicode font. To get Pidgin to ignore font formats, open your Buddy List window and go to Tools --> Preferences --> Conversations and uncheck "Show formatting on incoming messages".
OMG THANK YOU!!! I've been dealing with this problem for the longest time. I dislike all the other multi-im clients out there, but pidgin's lack of chinese character support was unbearable! Thank you so much for this quick fix, even the pidgin support forum could not provide a solution.
Ah, I just noticed that I still can't type or read chinese characters while chatting. It all shows fine now on my buddylist, but not while chatting. I have chinese language support using XP and can type just fine in it in other programs. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks.
If I understand the problem - I think this one is simpler, just change the font used in the options to one that can display Chinese characters. That should take care of things.
Thats awesome. Your solution is the best out of all the ones i researched online. Got it to work right away.
Thanks, it works!
yes changing theme and disable formatting worked like a charm!
if anyone else is annoyed by the backspace BEEP like me read the link here:
http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/3683
Why i see still when somebody answer me in hebrew it's from left to right side ? help me
thanks! worked for me and for a friend too!