UTF16

[JuhaManninen]

That is what people keep saying and I do not want to start challenging that assumption (mainly from lack of time) but lcl is a thin layer on top of existing widget sets how but an idea can be to use the underline widget set's default encoding.

That would require all cross-platform code supporting both encodings explicitly using IFDEFs or some other way.
True, lots of code does not deal with encodings directly, it would be doable. Still I would expect lots of complaints and bug reports with such design.

I didn't know that nor I have any idea what that means for me, is that something that will be part of the 3.0 release?

Yes and part of the LCL UTF-8 hack which changes the default encoding.

What I do or not with my products is not up for discussion, neither is breaking a fully tested with years of fine tuning library just because utf8.

Ok, fair enough.

[marcov]

That would require all cross-platform code supporting both encodings explicitly using IFDEFs or some other way.
True, lots of code does not deal with encodings directly, it would be doable. Still I would expect lots of complaints and bug reports with such design.

And 6 years of discussion which unicode encoding should dominate and how much legacy and Delphi compatibility must be kept is NOT painful? Specially since there is still no end to it?

The whole discussion came about because two different releases would be painful. IMHO it is the lesser of two evils, because the opposition of the disappointed party will never go away. (+ forking risk etc)

[skalogryz]

That is what people keep saying and I do not want to start challenging that assumption (mainly from lack of time) but lcl is a thin layer on top of existing widget sets how but an idea can be to use the underline widget set's default encoding.

LCL is a thick layer. Roughly "emulating WinAPI on top of any possible widgetset". (It has to be a thick one).
Thus "default" encoding is the one LCL is using.

On earlier versions, LCL did try to use "native" encoding, but it end up being UTF8 only.