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You can actually type a bunch of ASCII control characters very easily on a keyboard. Look at an ASCII table with 32 characters per column (I like this one[1]).

You can actually type a bunch of ASCII control characters very easily on a keyboard. Look at an ASCII table with 32 characters per column (I like this one[1]). The key combo for a control character is Ctrl + the letter on the same row as the control character. So: BELL Ctrl-G RECORD SEPARATOR Ctrl-^ UNIT SEPARATOR Ctrl-_ ESCAPE Ctrl-[ You can think of the Ctrl key as clearing the two most-significant bits of the letter's ASCII code. Not all key combos are supported in all environments. Notepad++ doesn't support Ctrl-] (GROUP SEPARATOR) at all, but does support e.g. SHIFT OUT as Ctrl-Shift-N, for instance. The Windows CMD.EXE command line supports many combinations (but not UNIT SEPARATOR, unfortunately), displaying them as e.g. ^[ or ^G in the console. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/ASCII-Table-wide.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/ASCII-Ta...

serial_dev 3y ago
If I need a table or Google to figure out how to type something, that's not "very easily" If you need to train your employees on that, it's not "very easily". "Very easily" is when I can take any family member who's seen a computer in their life, give them a keyboard and they can figure it out on their own without Google in 2 seconds (like csv).
- AdamH12113 3y ago
  What I mean is that a simple key combination is easier to use than an Alt code or having to copy and paste from another document. The ASCII table stuff is just fun trivia. "Press Ctrl-_ to insert a column separator" isn't any harder than "Press Ctrl-S to save" or "Press Ctrl-T to open a new browser tab". It's definitely easier than letting your hypothetical family member reinvent character escapes on their own the moment they encounter an address that has an extra comma in it. :-)
  - sumergomonstro 3y ago
    An editor could easily have an Insert Special Character menu item.

serial_dev 3y ago

If I need a table or Google to figure out how to type something, that's not "very easily" If you need to train your employees on that, it's not "very easily". "Very easily" is when I can take any family member who's seen a computer in their life, give them a keyboard and they can figure it out on their own without Google in 2 seconds (like csv).

AdamH12113 3y ago
What I mean is that a simple key combination is easier to use than an Alt code or having to copy and paste from another document. The ASCII table stuff is just fun trivia. "Press Ctrl-_ to insert a column separator" isn't any harder than "Press Ctrl-S to save" or "Press Ctrl-T to open a new browser tab". It's definitely easier than letting your hypothetical family member reinvent character escapes on their own the moment they encounter an address that has an extra comma in it. :-)
- sumergomonstro 3y ago
  An editor could easily have an Insert Special Character menu item.