I have found Leafpad to be, although usupported, really very good and lightweight.
Deserves a better fate ...

I found the solution here:

https://forum.lxde.org/viewtopic.php?t=36196#p47860

In my case, I just opened the launcher: Applications -> Accesories -> right-click on Leafpad to edit.

Changed the command line from leafpad %f to leafpad --codeset UTF-8 %f and saved.

Now, everytime I open a text file, it will save the document with the UTF-8 codeset by default.
It just happens that the hard coded default is ANSI_X3.4-1968, no bug to splat! there.    =^D 

Cheers,

A.

I use FLEDIT. it works greatly and has a good char/utf/... support.

After fixing an issue with my kb configuration, I then came across a problem with Leafpad.

The thing is that if I try to generate/edit/watever a file with the special characters used by my kb and language settuing, I get a pop-up that says:

Can't convert codeset to 'ANSI_X3.4-1968'

The only way I can save the file is doing away with any special characters ie: in the sense that they do not belong to the 'ANSI_X3.4-1968' codeset which is essentialy the same as  (?) US-ANSI.
But my installation is set otherwise.

I believe that my settings are correct:

groucho@devuan:/$ locale -a
C
C.UTF-8
POSIX
en_US.utf8
es_AR
es_AR.iso88591
es_AR.utf8
groucho@devuan:/$ 

groucho@devuan:/$ locale
LANG=es_AR.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=
LC_CTYPE="C"
LC_NUMERIC="C"
LC_TIME="C"
LC_COLLATE="C"
LC_MONETARY="C"
LC_MESSAGES="C"
LC_PAPER="C"
LC_NAME="C"
LC_ADDRESS="C"
LC_TELEPHONE="C"
LC_MEASUREMENT="C"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="C"
LC_ALL=C
groucho@devuan:/$

Edit:
This happens even after uninstalling the en_US.utf8 codeset:

groucho@devuan:~$ locale -a
C
C.UTF-8
POSIX
es_AR
es_AR.iso88591
es_AR.utf8
groucho@devuan:~$ 

If it is not installed, why does Leafpad want to convert the file to that codeset?

Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance,

A.