Re: [discuss] Re: Mixed language text spellchecking question
Cono wrote: No, you just need ONE extra style for each extra language. Read my previous message. What you recommend in that message works only if the document hs _one_ pragraph style. The moment you need two or more paragraph styles, that hve multi-lingual text in them, you need a chrcter style for each language. [Not to mention paragraph, numbering and maybe even page styles that are language specific.] chnge color for on the screen, if you like. That is a good arguement in fvor of using styles. But it has virtually zero applicability on the practical world. xan jonathon -- Does your Office Suite conform to ISO Standards?
Re: [discuss] Re: Mixed language text spellchecking question
Shoshannah wrote: should be able to handle mixed language documents transparently, Set the default Western language to English, and default CTL language to Hebrew. I don't remember if different fonts re required. [I use different fonts, purely becuase I think that David looks better than Lucida Sans Unicode for Hebrew.] That _usually_ automtically switches languages for me. xan jonathon -- Does your Office Suite conform to ISO Standards?
Re: [discuss] Re: Mixed language text spellchecking question
Le vendredi 28 octobre 2005 à 09:13 +, Jonathon Blake a écrit : Cono wrote: No, you just need ONE extra style for each extra language. Read my previous message. What you recommend in that message works only if the document hs _one_ pragraph style. The moment you need two or more paragraph styles, that hve multi-lingual text in them, you need a chrcter style for each language. [Not to mention paragraph, numbering and maybe even page styles that are language specific.] Not to mention as soon as you have one style that does not follow the artificial conventions needed to manage langages via styles, all hell breaks loose. And you're multiplying the styling charge by n where n is the number of languages in your document (helloo technical notices with 10+ intermingled languages to avoid duplicating schemas) chnge color for on the screen, if you like. That is a good arguement in fvor of using styles. But it has virtually zero applicability on the practical world. This is *not* a good argument for using styles. This use case is something like revision marks, you don't use styles to change the display of revision marks. Regards, -- Nicolas Mailhot
Re: [discuss] Re: Mixed language text spellchecking question
Nicolas wrote: - and I may be wrong there, but can you apply multiple character styles to the same word Each character in a word can have a different character style. A character may only have one character style and one paragraph style, though. Separating language from styles would permit : - syncing the language with input method (what this user asked) - displaying the current language so users can actually know what I had a macro that did that.[I don't remember if it just showed the western language, or if it showed the CTL OR CKJ language if either of the latter was being used.] - and a lot of other cool language-management enhancements (language-specific word count, highlighting of a specific language when you want a native speaker to check these parts, etc), which are not possible right now when language is hidden in styles Those are currently doable, if somebody spends the time writing the appropriate macros. If you don't create a very simple style that only specifies language, there is bound to be bad juju interaction with formatting. Create a parallel style for every language. This ends up with a number of styles, but it keeps the formatting straight. [Just don't save your document in RTF.] Also if you go through styles that means users will have to set up what style to apply with what input every time they change documents That is what templates are for. Or just add all 10 000 styles you have created to your default template. Nicolas wrote: From a pure UI POW what most users expect is a dropdown control with a language list in the toolbar (like for styles, but strictly limited to language), and a key accel to quickly switch between the languages Andrew Brown wrote: This could surely be cludged around with an addin. Your proposed kludge is fairly simple: i) Duplicate the current cell/paragraph/character style. ii) Change the language to the new language; iii) Save new character style. and iv) Hope that the user remembers that they have already created a character style with the language that they want to use. [If they don't their style sheet will be littered with styles that they created as one shot uses. Search/Replace can't search for character styles, to clean that mess up.] Nicolas wrote: but I don't feel we are making any sense to the styling camp. Essentially, the choices are: i) Include language as a style attribute; ii) Include style as a language attribute; Both approaches have their good points, and their bad points. xan jonathon -- Does your Office Suite conform to ISO Standards?
Re: [discuss] Re: Mixed language text spellchecking question
Shoshannah Forbes wrote: No, you just need ONE extra style for each extra language. I understood that. Yours suggestion works as is only if you don't need text both to be in the other language AND use a different custom character style. However, since I already use custom character styles, and you can't have multiple character styles for the same text, I need to make two copies of each of my custom character styles, one for each language. Sorry, I missed that point. Obviously because I do not use many character-styles in on document. At any rate, all this is a workaround/hack. In the age of Unicode, applications like OpenOffice.org should be able to handle mixed language documents transparently, with minimal user intervention and without the need to mix content and presentation like this style hack does. It is not that I disagree, that it can be improved. For the work I do however, using the styles for language is OK. Cor -- -- | you need it - je hebt het nodig | | | | OpenOffice.org | | | | Cor Nouws, http://www.nouenoff.nl | -- - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Mixed language text spellchecking question
Le vendredi 28 octobre 2005 à 10:27 +, Jonathon Blake a écrit : Nicolas wrote: - and I may be wrong there, but can you apply multiple character styles to the same word Each character in a word can have a different character style. A character may only have one character style and one paragraph style, though. As I suspected. This means if you use character styles for language, you can't use them for anything else without endlessly deriving character styles based on language. Which as Shoshannah wrote is a major PITA, and she's only working with dual language documents. ... If you don't create a very simple style that only specifies language, there is bound to be bad juju interaction with formatting. Create a parallel style for every language. This ends up with a number of styles, but it keeps the formatting straight. [Just don't save your document in RTF.] This is what people are complaining about. That's a step most of them have no use for, and it's incredibly time consuming Also if you go through styles that means users will have to set up what style to apply with what input every time they change documents That is what templates are for. Or just add all 10 000 styles you have created to your default template. Can't. Professional translators for example work on already existing documents which already have a style set (which does not include languages BTW because the original writer cared little about those bits). Usually they do contract work for many different clients which all use different conventions, so if language conventions are not enforced at the tool level that means restarting from zero every time. Nicolas wrote: From a pure UI POW what most users expect is a dropdown control with a language list in the toolbar (like for styles, but strictly limited to language), and a key accel to quickly switch between the languages Andrew Brown wrote: This could surely be cludged around with an addin. Your proposed kludge is fairly simple: i) Duplicate the current cell/paragraph/character style. ii) Change the language to the new language; iii) Save new character style. and iv) Hope that the user remembers that they have already created a character style with the language that they want to use. [If they don't their style sheet will be littered with styles that they created as one shot uses. Search/Replace can't search for character styles, to clean that mess up.] This supposes the original document is properly styled, when you are not the original author just a poor translator you have to work with what people give you. You're not paid to re-do the styling of the whole document just to be able to use OO.o language facilities. Nicolas wrote: but I don't feel we are making any sense to the styling camp. Essentially, the choices are: i) Include language as a style attribute; ii) Include style as a language attribute; iii) Completely separate styles and language, allow something like if(russian) in styles for the few people that need language-based conditional formatting. That's the only justification for language-in-styles nowadays and there's absolutely no reason it must be implemented by having styles set language. Regards, -- Nicolas Mailhot
Re: [discuss] Re: Mixed language text spellchecking question
Nicolas Mailhot wrote: Le jeudi 27 octobre 2005 à 14:12 +, Andrew Brown a écrit : This could surely be cludged around with an addin. I know and you know that the underlying mechanism would still be styled, but no one else would :-) If only it was that simple :( If you don't also neuter the UI that enables setting language in styles, you'll have collisions between styling and your new langage control, with users asking why the styles are suddenly changing the language they specified when typing their text. I do agree that a better cludge than the current cludge is possible, but till it's uncludged it'll have cludgy side-effects. I do recognize the idea of Andrew. And as far as I understand it, it won't conflict with the style feature. Sometimes it is like you do want to keep people away of the effort to learn about styles, Nicolas. For me there's no misundertanding about styles and what the language does with it. And so many more things about styles are valuable to know. For ease of work, to prevent format-mess, ... BTW, and not so unimportant ;-) we've been drifting far far away from the question of the OP: he/she had some troubles with spell checking of different languages in one doc. Because of minunderstanding, or because of a bug? Greetings, Cor -- -- | you need it - je hebt het nodig | | | | OpenOffice.org | | | | Cor Nouws, http://www.nouenoff.nl | -- - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Mixed language text spellchecking question
Le jeudi 27 octobre 2005 à 21:10 +0200, cono a écrit : Nicolas Mailhot wrote: Le jeudi 27 octobre 2005 à 14:12 +, Andrew Brown a écrit : This could surely be cludged around with an addin. I know and you know that the underlying mechanism would still be styled, but no one else would :-) If only it was that simple :( If you don't also neuter the UI that enables setting language in styles, you'll have collisions between styling and your new langage control, with users asking why the styles are suddenly changing the language they specified when typing their text. I do agree that a better cludge than the current cludge is possible, but till it's uncludged it'll have cludgy side-effects. I do recognize the idea of Andrew. And as far as I understand it, it won't conflict with the style feature. Sometimes it is like you do want to keep people away of the effort to learn about styles, Nicolas. For me there's no misundertanding about styles and what the language does with it. And so many more things about styles are valuable to know. For ease of work, to prevent format-mess, ... I'm not opposed to styles. Far from it. But I was exposed to the concepts behind styles way before I was exposed to SO/OO.o, so for me OO.o styles are just one implementation of this concept. And I'm able to recognise the shortcomings of this implementation when I meet them. If you get past the styles are cool stage you quickly find ways the current implementation could be enhanced. BTW, and not so unimportant ;-) we've been drifting far far away from the question of the OP: he/she had some troubles with spell checking of different languages in one doc. Because of minunderstanding, or because of a bug? Actually, we've not strayed so far. The user had trouble with spell checking of different languages in one doc because the language implementation in OO.o is utterly alien to him. The enhancements he proposed are made problematic by this very same implementation. If I had to guess OO.o language handling happened this way: 1. marketing person tells developer team they have to handle multiple languages in documents 2. developer team asks if language is some sort of text attribute (people working with human languages go to different universities than people working with computers, so they're not sure) 3. marketing person answers yes of course (he got other things to do) 4. no one does any usability study 5. developer team puts language in the style structure with the other text attributes 6. a user discovers langage in styles enables some sort of langage-based formatting 7. everyone cheers and congratulates one another on the decision to put langage in styles The problem being langage is a text attribute all right but it's an immutable attribute. It's ok to change the styles of bits of text when restructuring a document but langage must pretty much be left alone during these operations (OO.o can't translate text on the fly). So any normal human being not formatted by the way OO.o handles language is confused by the current interface (as any usability study will show). This user was no exception. And sure when you understand the way OO.o does styles you can sort of make it work but you have to fight the tool all the way. It's not behaving the way it should. I spent ~20 years in the same flat as a professional translator and I know pretty well what these people expect. Their requirements are way higher than those of students wanting to put a few latin quotes in their work assignments. And they're not the same people that do professional formatting. Asking them to use the same controls is a big mistake. The whole point of styles is to separate presentation from content and here you put content elements in the presentation layer (actually there should also be a document structure layer, but that's another problem) Regards, -- Nicolas Mailhot
Re: [discuss] Re: Mixed language text spellchecking question
On 27/10/2005, at 22:09, Nicolas Mailhot wrote: And they're not the same people that do professional formatting. Asking them to use the same controls is a big mistake. The whole point of styles is to separate presentation from content and here you put content elements in the presentation layer +1 I find that putting the language information in styles in a real pain, as then I have to have double sets of styles, and switch between them constantly (most of my documents are mixed Hebrew/ English, usually with mixed paragraphs). After all, the whole idea of styles is to deal *less* with formatting, not more as it is now when languages are managed by styles. --- Shoshannah Forbes http://www.xslf.com - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Mixed language text spellchecking question
Hi Shoshannah, all, Shoshannah Forbes wrote: On 27/10/2005, at 22:09, Nicolas Mailhot wrote: And they're not the same people that do professional formatting. Asking them to use the same controls is a big mistake. The whole point of styles is to separate presentation from content and here you put content elements in the presentation layer +1 I find that putting the language information in styles in a real pain, as then I have to have double sets of styles, and switch between them constantly (most of my documents are mixed Hebrew/ English, usually with mixed paragraphs). After all, the whole idea of styles is to deal *less* with formatting, not more as it is now when languages are managed by styles. You can just make a new character-style, based on the default. Only change the language attribute. You can apply that style to any word, regardless in which paragraph-style it is written. Want to remove the language-atribute? Select word/paragraph/ .. and choose Format|Default. Might not be ideal, but not so diffucult as well. Is it? Regards, Cor -- -- | you need it - je hebt het nodig | | | | OpenOffice.org | | | | Cor Nouws, http://www.nouenoff.nl | -- - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Mixed language text spellchecking question
On 27/10/2005, at 23:36, cono wrote: You can just make a new character-style, based on the default. Only change the language attribute. You can apply that style to any word, regardless in which paragraph- style it is written. Want to remove the language-atribute? Select word/paragraph/ .. and choose Format|Default. Might not be ideal, but not so diffucult as well. Is it? I know this trick- but it doesn't make it less of a pain, since I find myself having to stop typing constantly in order to change styles (as most paragraphs tend to be mixed languages without a continues chunk being one language or another). Not to mention that it doubles the number of character styles that I have (since I have to create two copies of each- one for Hebrew and one for English). For me, the idea solution would be for OOo to detect when I change keyboard layout to another language, and track that information. --- Shoshannah Forbes http://www.xslf.com - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Mixed language text spellchecking question
Shoshannah Forbes wrote: On 27/10/2005, at 23:36, cono wrote: You can just make a new character-style, based on the default. Only change the language attribute. You can apply that style to any word, regardless in which paragraph- style it is written. Want to remove the language-atribute? Select word/paragraph/ .. and choose Format|Default. Might not be ideal, but not so diffucult as well. Is it? I know this trick- but it doesn't make it less of a pain, since I find myself having to stop typing constantly in order to change styles (as most paragraphs tend to be mixed languages without a continues chunk being one language or another). Not to mention that it doubles the number of character styles that I have (since I have to create two copies of each- one for Hebrew and one for English). No, you just need ONE extra style for each extra language. Read my previous message. Assing is to key-combinations (if necessary with help of a macro) and there you are! Cor -- -- | you need it - je hebt het nodig | | | | OpenOffice.org | | | | Cor Nouws, http://www.nouenoff.nl | -- - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Mixed language text spellchecking question
cono wrote: Shoshannah Forbes wrote: On 27/10/2005, at 23:36, cono wrote: You can just make a new character-style, based on the default. Only change the language attribute. You can apply that style to any word, regardless in which paragraph- style it is written. Want to remove the language-atribute? Select word/paragraph/ .. and choose Format|Default. Might not be ideal, but not so diffucult as well. Is it? I know this trick- but it doesn't make it less of a pain, since I find myself having to stop typing constantly in order to change styles (as most paragraphs tend to be mixed languages without a continues chunk being one language or another). Not to mention that it doubles the number of character styles that I have (since I have to create two copies of each- one for Hebrew and one for English). No, you just need ONE extra style for each extra language. Read my previous message. Assing is to key-combinations (if necessary with help of a macro) and there you are! Even more you can make your character style language X another color for on the screen, if you like. Before printing only have to change the color of the style, few clicks, ... Cor -- -- | you need it - je hebt het nodig | | | | OpenOffice.org | | | | Cor Nouws, http://www.nouenoff.nl | -- - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
