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Special Characters in Request Detailed description (unwanted addition or change)

Dimensions CM 14.5.3 Desktop client

I create a new Request and add a text in the detailed description with some special characters.

Then I open the request via Browser (no matter if Google Chrome or Internet Explorer)

Dimensions adds some more special characters in the detailed description.

examples:

°

§
$

is shown as 

°
–
§
$
â€Ĺľ
“

But if I open again the Detailed description, I don't see the additional special characters, I just see the characters that I have added.

I tried to open the same request then in the Web Client and there I see the additional special characters, I can remove/correct them and after this the are also not visible any more in the browser, when I open the request in the desktop client. And after saving the detailed description in the web client, I now also see the additional/wrong charcters also in the desktop client when editing the detailed description.

And after editing the detailed descriptions once in the web client, I can also edit it now again in the desktop client and the added § or ° will stay as the are.

For me it looks like saving the detailed description in the desktop client and the web client works different. Unfortunately most users use the desktop client and it is a nightmare to have unwanted special characters in the technical description.

Is there any way to avoid the addition/change of this special characters in the desktop client? °C and § are not very unusual characters and the only way I see at the moment is to tell the users: please use DEGREES and CHAPTER instead of ° and §. This does not work in the daily work.

It does not matter if I use the normal notepad.exe or notepad++ for editing the detailed description.

  • Verified Answer

    +1

    Hello Andreas,

    The matter is in assumed encoding differences.

    Since Windows 10 v1903, Notepad started to default the file encoding to UTF-8. As long as it is "UTF-8 without BOM", there is no any sign to Dimensions CM regarding the used encoding and Dimensions CM Client assumes that is ANSI (as before v1903 of Win 10).

    When the description content is being transferred into Dimensions CM Database - that's transcoded into UTF-8 (if that's Oracle or PostgreSQL). However the source file is already in UTF-8, so this double UTF-8 transcoding corrupts the content as you see it.

    The solution can be forcing Notepad to open/save a description edit file in ANSI (as earlier). For that you can specify in the Desktop Client | Tools | Preferences | Editors | Requests | Description:
    "notepad.exe" /a

    Probably the best solution for the future (as a product enhancement) could be providing embedded editor inside of Dimensions CM Desktop Client (like in the Web Client) to not depend on potentially changing Notepad behavior.

    Kind Regards,
    Alex

    --
    Alex Shevchenko
    Sr Development Manager
    Although I work for OpenText, I am speaking for myself and not for OpenText.
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  • 0 in reply to 

    Thank you Alex,

    the solutions seems to work fine.

    Best Regards

    Andreas