Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths
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@RaceProUK Ah, I see you also have the [20 random characters] folder in your C: .
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@anonymous234 said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
On a related note, keeping "lists of shame" for software projects should be more common. I've been meaning to make and publish one for video games that fail to support alt tab, screen resolutions, and windowed mode properly.
And ALT-F4. Any program that doesn't interpret a request to close as a request to close and respond appropriately is in a state not easily distinguishable from malware.
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@Jaloopa said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
I agree with @C̴̢̟̮̹͉̲̗̹ͫ̒̓̇ͤͭ͟a̧̤̞̟̖͎̟̿͌ͭͤr̙͕̭ͭͩ͊̀͡t͚̦͚̃̍ͯͪ͑̿̅͠m̝̥̤̫̌̓̏̓̅ͬͮ̒a̩͎̘͚̘̦ͦ̃͟n͕̪͙̮̬͇̍̒ͬ̾̐͐̈͘͝8̵̜̼̺͊̑̌͛̍̎̋͞2̉ͪ̅̄̏̈́̈́̈́͏̡̜͍͍̺̰͚̦͡
One of these days I'll learn how to make these UNICODE Cthulhu words.
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@cartman82 This should help
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@asdf said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
That one doesn't even seem to exist anymore. The only standalone download I could find the last time I looked was an archive.
I meant the one that's bundled with Android Studio, sorry.
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@cartman82 said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@Jaloopa said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
I agree with @C̴̢̟̮̹͉̲̗̹ͫ̒̓̇ͤͭ͟a̧̤̞̟̖͎̟̿͌ͭͤr̙͕̭ͭͩ͊̀͡t͚̦͚̃̍ͯͪ͑̿̅͠m̝̥̤̫̌̓̏̓̅ͬͮ̒a̩͎̘͚̘̦ͦ̃͟n͕̪͙̮̬͇̍̒ͬ̾̐͐̈͘͝8̵̜̼̺͊̑̌͛̍̎̋͞2̉ͪ̅̄̏̈́̈́̈́͏̡̜͍͍̺̰͚̦͡
One of these days I'll learn how to make these UNICODE Cthulhu words.
They are called
D̸͔̗̪̳̯̬̪͟ͅÍ̞͎ͅA̘̺̙̩̺͘͞͝C҉̵͈͓̤̰ͅṞ͎͓͚̲ͅI̴̠͍̖̱̥̙͖ͅT̴͏͎͔̘̠̪͉͞ͅI̙̗̠̫̻̯̭̜͓C̨̡̧͎̙Ş̣̣͈͇̫̕͟
but they're better known as Zalgo.
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@anonymous234 said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
I've been meaning to make and publish one for video games that fail to support alt tab, screen resolutions, and windowed mode properly.
My favourite (genuinely) is full-screen windowed mode. Lets you do Alt+Tab right, yet doesn't waste space on window decorations.
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@dkf To be clear: do you mean with or without the taskbar visible?
(INB4 "yes")
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@dkf Granted, if said program is a game and you don't have a fairly high end video card, you're going to lose some performance using full-screen windowed mode rather than full-screen exclusive mode.
Edit: This was assuming said game was a newish game, too.
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@dkf It's especially useful for games like Elite Dangerous, which has a lot of helpful web-based resources you can keep open on your second monitor, as well as the opportunity to look at them during e.g. long trips from the jump point to the station.
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@RaceProUK said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@Gąska said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@masonwheeler said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
I recall hearing at one point that the reason Microsoft created the "Program Files" folder as the default location for installed programs was specifically to force developers to write software that could properly handle spaces in paths.
And another team at Microsoft created a short name "PROGRA~1", which has neither spaces nor more than 8 characters.
That's for compatibility with DOS*, which couldn't handle spaces, or names longer than 8 characters.
*Early versions; later versions may have gained support?
I know it's supposed to be compatibility shim. But I know a few Windows 98-and-up programs whose install path defaults to "C:\PROGRA~1...".
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@masonwheeler said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@anonymous234 said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
On a related note, keeping "lists of shame" for software projects should be more common. I've been meaning to make and publish one for video games that fail to support alt tab, screen resolutions, and windowed mode properly.
And ALT-F4. Any program that doesn't interpret a request to close as a request to close and respond appropriately is in a state not easily distinguishable from malware.
Any game where Alt+F4 doesn't shut down immediately bypassing autosave is pure evil.
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@powerlord said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@dkf Granted, if said program is a game and you don't have a fairly high end video card, you're going to lose some performance using full-screen windowed mode rather than full-screen exclusive mode.
1999 called, they want their performance tips back.
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@Gąska said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@RaceProUK said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@Gąska said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@masonwheeler said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
I recall hearing at one point that the reason Microsoft created the "Program Files" folder as the default location for installed programs was specifically to force developers to write software that could properly handle spaces in paths.
And another team at Microsoft created a short name "PROGRA~1", which has neither spaces nor more than 8 characters.
That's for compatibility with DOS*, which couldn't handle spaces, or names longer than 8 characters.
*Early versions; later versions may have gained support?
I know it's supposed to be compatibility shim. But I know a few Windows 98-and-up programs whose install path defaults to "C:\PROGRA~1...".
Once upon on time, I had a system that had C:\PROGRA~2 but no ~1.
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@Gąska https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMfZwH39c-s
In case you don't want to watch the video, it's talking about how exclusive mode makes a performance difference in a game released only a few months ago using the Unity engine on older computers.
So yeah, it's still a thing whether you think it should be or not.
It's even more noticeable on high performance games, such as DOOM.
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@RaceProUK said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@Medinoc said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
And then they gave up and renamed it "Programs" because it failed to get through the developers' thick skulls.
No they didn't:
Ah you're right, I got mixed up with Documents and Settings (and the fact some versions of Windows localized it as "Programs" using a desktop.ini file).
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@Gąska said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@masonwheeler said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@anonymous234 said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
On a related note, keeping "lists of shame" for software projects should be more common. I've been meaning to make and publish one for video games that fail to support alt tab, screen resolutions, and windowed mode properly.
And ALT-F4. Any program that doesn't interpret a request to close as a request to close and respond appropriately is in a state not easily distinguishable from malware.
Any game where Alt+F4 doesn't shut down immediately bypassing autosave is pure evil.
Undertale. Actually it might handle sudden power loss by assuming guilty until proven innocent, not sure.
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@Grunnen said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@El_Heffe said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
All the major operating systems have allowed spaces in file and directory names for more than 20 years, and yet, there is still a lot of software that shits itself when it encounters a directory with a space in the name.
How is that even possible?
Because, even though the UNIX file system has supported spaces for decades, you can still screw up too easily, e.g. with bad shell scripts:
$ touch "Program Files" $ find * Program Files $ for x in `find *`; do ls $x; done ls: Access to Program denied: File not found ls: Access to Files denied: File not found $
Edit: Which means that UNIX users still get an itchy feeling with file names containing whitespace and don't use them, which in turn means that UNIX developers can get away with not supporting it.
Edit2: This particular case has in fact been solved by the GNU people:
$ find * -print0 | xargs -0 ls Program Files $
But it is nonstandard and probably isn't possible with other utilities than "find".
find * -exec ls {} +
Stop adding extra code that makes your program buggier without adding anything useful.
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@anonymous234 said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@RaceProUK Ah, I see you also have the [20 random characters] folder in your C: .
I'm pretty sure that's the NVIDIA updater's temp folder that it never bothers to clean up.
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@ben_lubar said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
NVIDIA updater's temp folder that it never bothers to clean up.
AMD is guilty too but they let you choose the path - unfortunately it defaults to
C:\AMD\
making most users assume it's unsafe to delete.
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@LB_ said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@Gąska said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@masonwheeler said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@anonymous234 said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
On a related note, keeping "lists of shame" for software projects should be more common. I've been meaning to make and publish one for video games that fail to support alt tab, screen resolutions, and windowed mode properly.
And ALT-F4. Any program that doesn't interpret a request to close as a request to close and respond appropriately is in a state not easily distinguishable from malware.
Any game where Alt+F4 doesn't shut down immediately bypassing autosave is pure evil.
Undertale. Actually it might handle sudden power loss by assuming guilty until proven innocent, not sure.
Dwarf Fortress also doesn't let you exit through the UI without saving.
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@LB_ said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@Gąska said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@masonwheeler said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@anonymous234 said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
On a related note, keeping "lists of shame" for software projects should be more common. I've been meaning to make and publish one for video games that fail to support alt tab, screen resolutions, and windowed mode properly.
And ALT-F4. Any program that doesn't interpret a request to close as a request to close and respond appropriately is in a state not easily distinguishable from malware.
Any game where Alt+F4 doesn't shut down immediately bypassing autosave is pure evil.
Undertale. Actually it might handle sudden power loss by assuming guilty until proven innocent, not sure.
IIRC everything is saved as soon as it happens, but only some of that is reflected in the save-file presented to the player. But effects do show up in the game, like if you kill
spoiler
and reset,someone
's dialog is a bit different, etc.
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@ben_lubar said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@anonymous234 said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@RaceProUK Ah, I see you also have the [20 random characters] folder in your C: .
I'm pretty sure that's the NVIDIA updater's temp folder that it never bothers to clean up.
There's a file inside it named MPSigStub.exe, signed by Microsoft, set to be unreadable by everyone (even Administrator), and described "Microsoft Malware Protection Signature Update Stub".
So nope. It's more of Microsoft doing the same bullshit other developers do. Although I've also encountered plenty of Nvidia and Intel folders there.
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@hungrier said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@LB_ said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@Gąska said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@masonwheeler said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@anonymous234 said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
On a related note, keeping "lists of shame" for software projects should be more common. I've been meaning to make and publish one for video games that fail to support alt tab, screen resolutions, and windowed mode properly.
And ALT-F4. Any program that doesn't interpret a request to close as a request to close and respond appropriately is in a state not easily distinguishable from malware.
Any game where Alt+F4 doesn't shut down immediately bypassing autosave is pure evil.
Undertale. Actually it might handle sudden power loss by assuming guilty until proven innocent, not sure.
IIRC everything is saved as soon as it happens, but only some of that is reflected in the save-file presented to the player. But effects do show up in the game, like if you kill
spoiler
and reset,someone
's dialog is a bit different, etc.The great thing about your post is that
spoiler
could be absolutely any character in the game and it would be correct.
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@ben_lubar said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@anonymous234 said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@RaceProUK Ah, I see you also have the [20 random characters] folder in your C: .
I'm pretty sure that's the NVIDIA updater's temp folder that it never bothers to clean up.
On a machine with an Intel graphics card only?
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In one sense these are two different problems: spaces are usually of quoting, accents are usually of character encoding transformation. In another, they're both a problem of inputs that don't occur for the authors and thus don't get tested.
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@hungrier By the time I get to playing Undertale I'm pretty sure I'm going to know the entire plot already.
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@anonymous234 I somehow made it until late last year without knowing almost anything about it.
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@Medinoc said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
The hard part is that *n*x expects escaped spaces in command lines
You sure about that?
$ cat test.sh #!/bin/bash echo "\"$1\"" $ ./test.sh "hello there" "hello there" $ ./test.sh hello\ there "hello there" ./test.sh 'hello there' "hello there"
Space escaping looks like a requirement of the shell when you don't bother to enclose your space-containing words in a set of grouping characters. What am I missing?
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@dkf said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
No.
Command lines are a user interface. Programs should be using them to talk to users. Not other programs. (The exception here might be PowerShell, which is legit designed to serve both purposes.)
It's common sense that programs shouldn't be talking to each other over a user interface. The only reason Linux programs need to is because they've gone decades without writing any equivalent to WSH or AppleScript (or whatever Apple calls that now, Automator?), something every other OS has had since the mid-90s.
Even so, they could still do IPC over sockets, or by building applications as shared libraries and linking into those. Developers are just too fucking lazy.
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@Steve_The_Cynic said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
For maximum
cross-platformwankery, consider BlenderFTFY. In order to preserve what sanity I have left, Blender ranks very high on my list of “never use except possibly in life-or-death situations” software.
But one thing it doesn't support is UNC paths. You have to map a drive letter to \\server\share and use that drive letter. But it doesn't have a button to do that mapping, so you have to go to Explorer or the command line or something and do it.
Handy. I wonder if I still have it on my computer, or whether I chucked it into the trash after my last attempt at getting anything useful out of it … Hmm, by the looks of it, the latter, so I can’t see if it does similar ery on macOS.
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@Gurth said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
In order to preserve what sanity I have left, Blender ranks very high on my list of “never use except possibly in life-or-death situations” software.
What, don't tell me you don't like software where keyboard shortcuts do different things depending on what region your mouse is hovering.
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@Zecc Thankfully, I threw it out before I could discover that behaviour. Most 3D software and I don’t get along at the best of times, but Blender has so far taken the cake.
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@ben_lubar said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@Grunnen said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@El_Heffe said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
All the major operating systems have allowed spaces in file and directory names for more than 20 years, and yet, there is still a lot of software that shits itself when it encounters a directory with a space in the name.
How is that even possible?
Because, even though the UNIX file system has supported spaces for decades, you can still screw up too easily, e.g. with bad shell scripts:
$ touch "Program Files" $ find * Program Files $ for x in `find *`; do ls $x; done ls: Access to Program denied: File not found ls: Access to Files denied: File not found $
Edit: Which means that UNIX users still get an itchy feeling with file names containing whitespace and don't use them, which in turn means that UNIX developers can get away with not supporting it.
Edit2: This particular case has in fact been solved by the GNU people:
$ find * -print0 | xargs -0 ls Program Files $
But it is nonstandard and probably isn't possible with other utilities than "find".
find * -exec ls {} +
Stop adding extra code that makes your program buggier without adding anything useful.
IIRC, the find manual itself recommends xargs because it's less buggy than trying to use exec.
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So one of the guys in that XAMPP thread replied and oh boy
Its not a question of Linux or Posix, its Apache and TCPIP which have to work independently from Operating Systems. Obviously you have no idea about the complexity of different file system (i.e. extfs, ntfs, hfs etc.) using different charsets, about URL specifications, about Domain Name restrictions etc. If your file system runs with a different character set than your HTML page and your browser, you are getting big troubles when using special characters, which are part of one character set, but not of the other. That is the problem and therefore it is not recommended to use special characters like (for example) á or ä or ß or or or (many languages are knowing special characters).
Its not question of "Program Files" (i dont know why you mention that), its a question of "Márton". Xampp (i.e. Bitnami) gives a warning if you use spaces in your Pathnames, but if you really know how to deal with spaces in an URL, you may do so. But mostly people like you are coming into this forum because they have troubles with their spaces, even if it CAN work, they are doing it wrong. And if you have to answer the same question one hundred times and more, you will also tell the people simply not to use spaces. Thats the reason, why Xampp does not "support" (its the wrong word, its not recommended actually) spaces in file names. A webserver software cannot be compared with a simply office software which is meant to run locally only. If you dont understand that, dont run a webserver. There are plenty of cheap preconfigured webservers out there, go and pick one of them.
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@hungrier
I am tempted to sign up simply to reply "TDEMSYR".Obviously, file encodings and the complexity of B+-trees are the reason why we cannot choose any valid installation folder, and we have no idea how hard it would be to at least produce a sensible error message if the path does not match a regex. Obviously, the complexity of TCP/IP makes that nearly impossible. Why have I never thought of that?
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@powerlord said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
Granted, if said program is a game and you don't have a fairly high end video card
Not having decent hardware? :p
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@Zecc said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
without the taskbar visible
This (but only when the game is in the foreground). It looks like the game is full screen, but it is actually in a window so switching to other windows is trivial.
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@blakeyrat said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
Command lines are a user interface. Programs should be using them to talk to users. Not other programs. (The exception here might be PowerShell, which is legit designed to serve both purposes.)
Well, that's where we disagree. Arguing that quite a few languages that are used for scripting use of command lines are actually terrible at it… that's different and not something I'd contend. (Make is actually actively awful for anything non-trivial, and bash is only not the worst shell scripting language because there are quite a few that are far worse.) But many is not all.
Even so, they could still do IPC over sockets, or by building applications as shared libraries and linking into those. Developers are just too fucking lazy.
IPC over sockets is used.
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@blakeyrat said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
Command lines are a user interface. Programs should be using them to talk to users.
Who are you, and what have you done to @blakeyrat?
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@dkf said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
Well, that's where we disagree.
Users and computers have different needs. Trying to make a single interface to serve both is a fool's errand.
PowerShell, I have to admit, is an example that might change my mind here.
@dkf said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
IPC over sockets is used.
is it? is it used? Tell me if it is used.
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@wharrgarbl said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
Who are you, and what have you done to @blakeyrat?
?
I've posted that exact same sentiment like 47 times here. Why do you think I'm a body snatcher?
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@blakeyrat said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@dkf said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
IPC over sockets is used.
is it? is it used? Tell me if it is used.
I think X11 and some other things use socket for IPC. I don't think you would approve those monsters, though.
@blakeyrat said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
I've posted that exact same sentiment like 47 times here. Why do you think I'm a body snatcher exactly?
The @blakeyrat I know wouldn't tell programs should use a CLI to talk to users. Context ignored for trolling purposes.
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@wharrgarbl said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
The @blakeyrat I know wouldn't tell programs should use a CLI to talk to users.
They shouldn't.
@wharrgarbl said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
Context ignored for trolling purposes.
Right; I'm being criticized because people are hearing imaginary voices from Jupiter saying I typed stuff that doesn't actually appear on the website. Per usual. Great.
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@blakeyrat said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
Right; I'm being criticized
That wasn't my intention, I apologize.
@blakeyrat said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
because people are hearing imaginary voices from Jupiter saying I typed stuff that doesn't actually appear on the website.
Shoulder-aliens home planet identified?
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@wharrgarbl said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
That wasn't my intention, I apologize.
Bullshit.
Look I'm sorry the real me doesn't match up with the imaginary me inside your skull, but at some point you have to stop and think, "hey maybe I'm the crazy one!". What was your intention exactly? To show the world you frequently have conversations with imaginary people? Mission accomplished I guess.
Here's an idea: if you want to know my opinion on something, just ask me! Instead of making up an opinion, assigning it to me in your imagination, then acting surprised when I don't share it.
Look, another thread that started out promising but now I have to ignore because everybody on this forum is still a fucking asshole all the time. Whee.
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@blakeyrat said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
everybody on this forum is still a fucking asshole all the time.
Welcome back.
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@blakeyrat said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
What was your intention exactly?
I think it's funny when a sentence mean something other than the author wants when out of context.
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@blakeyrat Pro tip: Never take any of fbmac's alts seriously. It's a lot better for your personal well-being; he's always trolling.
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@LB_ said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@Gąska said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@masonwheeler said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
@anonymous234 said in Big list of software that cannot handle spaces or accents in paths:
On a related note, keeping "lists of shame" for software projects should be more common. I've been meaning to make and publish one for video games that fail to support alt tab, screen resolutions, and windowed mode properly.
And ALT-F4. Any program that doesn't interpret a request to close as a request to close and respond appropriately is in a state not easily distinguishable from malware.
Any game where Alt+F4 doesn't shut down immediately bypassing autosave is pure evil.
Undertale. Actually it might handle sudden power loss by assuming guilty until proven innocent, not sure.
As I said, games that do that are evil.