Fortunately (or unfortunately) all our installed browsers on all our computers are the latest versions of Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer - and I can't find how to change the encoding of a given page on any of them - on older versions of Firefox it was quite simple (view -> encoding or something like that). Where have the "change page encoding" commands gone off to? What am I overlooking?

I am trying to view this parallel text:
http://mastarpj.nict.go.jp/~mutiyama/ali...dcat-0.htm

but so far I have gotten nothing but gibberish for the Japanese text.

Can anyone help?

In firefox you can press Alt to toggle the menu toolbar.

Thanks for the quick reply.
And it worked!

Any suggestions for Chrome and Internet Explorer?

I am using Chrome (12.0.742.122) -- Wrench, Tools, Encoding: For the page you referenced above, Japanese Shift_JIS works for me.

In Internet Explorer 9, it's Alt key > View > Encoding > More > Japanese (Shift-JIS).

In Firefox 5, if you don't want to press alt, you can also use Firefox button > Web Developer > Character Encoding > More Encodings > East Asian > Japanese (Shift_JIS). Actually that's the preferred way, now that they're hiding the legacy menu and placing things in the orange button.

I don't think it's the preferred way. If they have a preference I'm sure it's for Alt-V-C since it's easier and faster. ^_^

Edit: By the way, MonjaIsshin, you might want to change Auto-Detect to Japanese, East Asian, or Universal (Alt-V, C, A). That page automatically displayed properly for me in Firefox.

I mean preferred because you don't have to remember keyboard shortcuts, and you can explore the new orange button they're so fond of!

It's so horribly orange though! This makes it better

Everyone knows how to do Alt then look at the underlined V and C, don't they? Plus you can permantly toggle the Menu. But that aside, I guess I think of Firefox's menu redesign process as not entirely centered around what they prefer users to do; I can't imagine they sat around and thought that only Web Developers would want to change Character Encodings, when previously it was under a more general View option. I think it was more of a happenstance sort of thing that they don't have a preference for or haven't though about since they probably didn't think a lot about bilingual or language-learning users. And in that sense, I think the default preference goes back to what's easiest for users, i.e. Alt-V or re-enabling the Menu.

What's the keyboard shortcut for that orange button menu, anyway? Not that I ever use it.

@pudding_cat - If you're using Stylish you can make it transparent and also change it from a word to just the small Firefox logo.

Thank you, everybody!

And yes, once I found the command, I put Firefox on Autodetect for Japanese.

Chrome is now also Autodetect, too - now that you've explained where the command is... .

I'll do IE later, when I have more time... .

I agree that the developers probable really didn't really think much about making things convenient for bi-lingual browser use - in fact, I don't think they really thought about the final user's convenience at all - as a non-programming relatively skilled long-time user who has very little time for "learning curves", I have been finding it extremely frustrating that so darned many of the programs I use most often (like every day - Office, browsers) have been ALL changing the entire logic of their systems so much that I feel like I've been thrown back to near-beginner and am having trouble getting my work done! It seems to me that "easing the transition" was not thought about at all... . Sometimes, programers are so involved in what works best in the programming sense that they completely forget what might work better for the final users... .

Anyhow, thanks a lot - at least that's one more little nagging hassle settled... .

@nest0r, I don't know but I think this discussion doesn't make much sense in this context as it's basically only personal preference. Personally, when I'm using Firefox, I prefer using the mouse most of the time, including customized mouse gestures and side buttons to access the features I use the most. Actually I rarely, if ever, use the Alt key; for some reason, it simply doesn't flatter me much the way it works.

nest0r Wrote:@pudding_cat - If you're using Stylish you can make it transparent and also change it from a word to just the small Firefox logo.

That is true but the logo is orange. I like the button transparent as I really don't like orange.