It's not clearer at all for me, especially when some of these characters won't render reliably on several platforms (for instance, the java char isn't showing i

It's not clearer at all for me, especially when some of these characters won't render reliably on several platforms (for instance, the java char isn't showing in this browser right now). Extensions and filenames can be made not to be so central, which I'd consider a more reasonable development over superficial silly hacks like that. This is IDE domain, definitely in 2012 and for years to come. If you want to render your extensions to funny happy Unicode symbols in your specific purpose file manager, then fine by me. Actually storing filenames like that would just make you a number of new enemies.