MUAs Testing results
Product: Netscape 3.01 for X Windows
URL: http://home.netscape.com/navigator/index.html
Product contact:
Environment: FreeBSD, xrus (Rus, Latin), X-Win32 Utility
Test date: 1998-03, 1998-06-30

1. Results of the test
 
Netscape 3.01 for X Windows
Charset 
ISO 8859-1  
Latin 1
KOI8-R  
Russian
KOI8-U 
Ukrainian
Windows  
Cyrillic CP1251
ISO 8859-2 
Latin 2
ISO 8859-4 
Latin4 
Scandinavian/ Baltic
 
test-1 (Displaying) Pass  Pass Pass Pass      
test-2 (Printing) Pass  Pass Pass Pass      
test-3 
(Replying with non-ASCII A, S)
Pass  Pass Pass Maybe      
test-4 
(Replying with non-ASCII Body)
Pass  Pass Pass Maybe      
test-5  
(Replying Copy& Paste)
Pass  Pass Pass Maybe      
test-6 
(Forwarding)
Pass  Pass Pass Pass      
test-7 
(Typing on kbd)
Pass  Pass Pass Fail (3)      
test-8 
(Exch non-ASCII default) 
             
test-9 
(UTF7/UTF8)
Fail Fail Fail Fail       
Comment:
* Setting Language (of 56) for Browser
(2) You can’t change encoding for Cyrillic text when reading message
(3) Use features of current Keyboard
(4) All sent messages have only charset=iso8859-1
(5) Message list displayed only in Latin1

2. Examination of Multilingual features of Mail User’s Agents
 
Netscape Mail 3.04  SETUPs and First Examination 
  1. Language Settings - No Language Settings
  2. Encoding Setting
Options>General Preference>Fonts>For the Encoding 
    • Cyrillic (KOI8-R)
    • Japanese (jis_x0201)
    • Japanese (jis_x0208-1983)
    • Korean (ks_c_5601-1987)
    • Simplified Chinese (gb_2312-80)
    • User Defined 
    • Western (iso-8859-1)
  1. Changing Document Encoding when Reading/Displaying message 
Options>Document Encodings
    • Western (Latin 1)
    • Central European (ISO)
    • Japanese (Auto-Detect)
    • Japanese (Shift_JIS)
    • Japanese (EUC-JP)
    • Traditional Chinese (Big5)
    • Traditional Chinese (EUTC-TW)
    • Simplified Chinese (GB)
    • Korean (EUC-KR)
    • Korean (ISO-2022-KR)
    • Cyrillic (KOI8-R)
    • Cyrillic (ISO8859-5)
    • Greek (ISO 8859-7)
    • Turkish (ISO 8859-9)
    • User Defined
  1. Mail Send and Post 
Option>Mail and News Preferences>Composition>Mail>Send and Post 
    • Allow 8-bit
    • Mime Compliant (Quoted Prontable)
  1. For the KOI8-R encoding only Fonts that have KOI8-R encoding parameter can be set/selected
  2. CP 1251 and KOI8-U fonts can be installed only for User Defined Encoding
  3. Attache file
    • As is
    • Convert to plain text 
    • Convert to Postscript
 

3. Free form documenting of testing process

Tested MUA - Netscape Mail 3.01
Reference MUA - Netscape Mail 3.01 Gold
Environment: FreeBSD, X-Win32, X-Win32 Util (Keyboard USA Englis), xrus (Jc koi8 map for keyboard)
 
Netscape Mail 3.04 READ 
  1. Understand MIME type QP in Subject only if charset parameter in Subject and Option>Document Encoding coinside (match each other) otherwise display ASCII text of QP
  2. When displaying Forwarded message doesn’t accept charset parameter of original message but use current Option>Document Encoding in Mail Reader
  3. KOI8-R text in message Header and Body are displayed correctly with KOI8-R DocEncoding in message window and diplayed only with Latin 1 in messages list
  4. message in CP 1251 can be read with User Defined Encoding and correcpondent fonts 
  5. Subject in QP MIME encoding is displayed correctly if charset parameter in Subject coinsides with current Encoding in Mail Reader
  6. Characters that are not displayed by current font are saved and transferred and can read in other viewer and/or MUA
  7. When using QP MIME encoding for Header - messages list is displayed in default charset but message body display ASCII text of QP text
Netscape Mail 3.04 COMPOSE 
  1. Message can be typed only in Encoding that was Selected before openning Message Composition windows
    • Text in Subject and Address are displayed only in default (i.e. Latin1) charset
    • Copy/Cut&Paste from/for Header fields are not supported from keyboard and from Edit menu
  1. Can not type in current KOI8-R (when using xrus utilityfor support Russian KOI8-R keyboard)
  • But you can type “in blind” - It’s display problem!
  1. When Reply/Forward some charscters are warned not supported and to be discarded
Netscape Mail 3.04 SEND 
  1. When Sending message Mail Sender is not converted to other default encoding (F.E., KOI8-R) doesn’t use internal encoding table 
  2. When send only one (default) charset type is used charset=iso-8859-1, particularly when senbding in KOI8-R
Suggestion. It is useful to give user possibility to choose default encoding for composition and sending
Netscape Mail 3.04 RECOMMENDATIONS