Re: Standalone 'info' should recode into display's encoding

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2014 16:44:42 +0100
> From: Patrice Dumas <address@hidden>
> 
> If --disable-encoding is passed, then utf8 quotes are not produced, but
> then ascii transliterations are used for accented characters from
> @-commands too.

Right.

> However, I can't really imagine a situation where you 
> want accented characters in utf8 and not the quotes.

We are talking about Info manuals written in English, not about some
arbitrary text, and not about manuals written in other languages.  In
any Info manual, the quotes and "=>" are used _a_lot_, so having the
Unicode quotes and arrows in an otherwise English manual makes the
manual unreadable in non-UTF locales.  By contrast, having a few
non-ASCII words, such as a few names of contributors, display with
some garbled letters is just a minor nuisance, which does not in any
way hamper the reader's ability to read and understand the bulk of the
manual.

IOW, the issue here is with the sheer quantity of garbled text: beyond
some threshold, these make the manual completely unreadable, see the
example I posted.

> That being said, adding a customization variable like 
> NEVER_OUTPUT_UNICODE_QUOTES
> would be trivial to do.

I would suggest a command-line option, as using that is much easier
than adding a customization file.

Thanks.