Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 1034
Selecting the language for spell check should be more intuitive
Last modified: 2013-08-07 14:42:49 UTC
Currently to select the language used for spell checking (and hyphenation and thesaurus) in Writer there are three possibilities: 1) Changing the default language (tools/options...) 2) Use styles 3) Select the text and choose Format/Character/Font Number 1 is not good if you want to be able to write in several languages but keep your own language as the default. For the beginner that leaves number 3 (since a beginner wont have a clue what a style is). It is my experience that beginners never find this; what they *do* find is the language list box in the spell check dialog, which does not help them since it only affects the current word. What is needed is a more intuitive way to specify the language. I propose to solve it the same way as manual page breaks (In principle these are part of the paragraph formatting, but there is another way to insert them: Using Insert/Manual pagebreak). Thus there should be a menuentry Tools/Language opening a dialog box containing: A language listbox A checkbox "Apply to selection only" An OK, Cancel and Help button Choosing OK should change the language by applying hard character formatting to the entire document. If the checkbox is checked only the selection should affected. This does not change any functionality, but gives another way to use already existing functionality. Besides being intuitive it is also more similar to other wordprocessors (word, wordperfect).
I would prefer the possibility to have the language selection as a drop down listbox in a toolbar like the font selection or the paragraph style selection. This also would have the advantage that I always can see which language is assigned to the text where the curser is. (In MS Word 2000, both is done; I can have the language as a drop down listbox in a toolbar, and it is always displayed in the status bar).
Reassigned to Falko.
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changing QA contact from bugs@ to issues@
Maybe an entry for switching the language should be added to the context-menu that is available via right-mouse-button click within the writer. Other character attributes likes font, size, etc. are already listed there too.
If we go with the context-menu (or any other) the languages listed in the sub-menu should only be those that are actually/currently supported by the linguistic (should be only about 4 to 6 instead of 150+ possible languages).
Adding language selection in the context menu is a very good idea - maybe it's even so simple, that it could be added already for StarOffice 6.0? But if you implement it you shouldn't forget the two original proposals: My proposal to group language selection with the language tools (which is the most intuitive solution) and Christoph Singers proposal to add it to the text object bar and/or the status bar (which satisfies the needs of a multilingual document). The context menu doesn't satisfy these goals completely.
Why does language go under the font selectin tab, anyway? IMO this is not very logical. A separate tab for language properties (language, whether to spell check or not, hyphenation settings etc) would be more logical. I also like the idea of having language selection in the context menu, in a dropdown box and on the status bar. It's really very useful when writing multiple language documents.
We need an additional entry that allows the user to easily change the language setting of the current input. A good place would be "Tools - Language - Set language" This function would be the same as using the character setting.
Patches to add language pulldown to toolbar to fix this in Issue 23518
reassigning & adding keywords according to new RFE process - sophie
It's time to consolidate all the issues about language selection, guessing etc. As this one seems to be the oldest one it deserves to be the one that we take as the mother of all "language" issues. :-) I will follow up here pretty soon.
*** Issue 16536 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 20710 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment from Eike taken from issue 20710: I want to support fl's comment from OCT 16 2003. There should be a reliable way to choose the language of a paragraph, no dependency on OOO's guessing of the correct language. More ideas about the language setting: - A paragraph's language setting should be visible in the GUI like e.g. the font. - The language setting should be carried over to the next paragraph after pressing the return key. - The language setting should not go away when changing something else like the background colour. (I think it currently does.) But the language setting should revert to the document's standard value when selecting the "standard" entry in the RMB menu.
*** Issue 22600 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
I will try to create a concept from the RFEs around language settings. issue 39992 that is about language detection will also add to it.
So this is the first result of my research. Besides the things discussed in issue 1035 that I still consider to be open I suggest to do the following: (1) Integrate our new "language guessing" component (issue 73173) to improve the treatment of misspelled words; details have to be defined. (2) Add a status bar control that shows the language of the current selection. Doubleclicking this control will open a dialog whose content has to be defined. It should contain at least a listbox to select what the user sees as the "document language" (technically this is the language of the default paragraph style). Other content is open for discussion. (3) The context menu on the status bar control will contain entries that are comparable to what we have in the context menu of misspelled words. In a way that has to be described in closer detail you can change the language of the current word (that's the word where the cursor is in), the current selection (if an expanded selection exists), perhaps also the language of the current sentence or paragraph. I'm still checking other issues for some nice ideas that are worth mentioning so that they will not be forgotten when we create the spec. Does that make sense? I would like to implement this for OOo2.3.
Please consider also the MS Office feature that changes automatically the language when you switch the keyboard language. For example someone writes an english text with an english keyboard, and then switches keyboard to greek. The following text is automatically handled as greek.
This is covered by issue 1035.
(Asking here because this one is named "mother of all language issues") Mathias, what are the plans in respect to functionality described in 1035? Am I correct in hoping that it is planned for 2.3 too? THANK YOU very much, if so. Thanks a lot for taking care of all this language functionality! With very best regards, Kirill Palagin. P.S. Hopefully this would apply to all OO components, not just word processor.
I still see issue 1035 as a separate issue as this one here is about changing language settings after the fact while issue 1035 is something about changing it before/while typing. I didn't make up my mind about issue 1035. Anyway, *if* we decided to implement the proposed enhancement we would do it for 2.3 if possible (until now I don't know how easy it will be to implement a keyboard switch nofification on the different platforms). Anything else just doesn't make sense.
I meanwhile found issue 20123 and I think it also can be overcome by slightly extending my proposal. We also should have a "language of document is..." entry in the spell checking dialog. Here's an additional comment from TL and FL from this issue: FL/TL: Just some remarks from us: - No spelling if language is "None" seems to be a problem and is set after some document imports - Loading CJK document should activate CJK support for current document - No Warning if current used language is not installed/activated
I feel very happy this issue is finally taken care of. Thanks to everybody that implement that much needed functionality !
What is needed is note merely a simple and intuitive option for changing the language the orthography of which is to be checked, but also a an option for modifying the keyboard settings used. In Word, this can be done by means of drop-down menus from tool bar boxes which allow one to choose the language whose spelling is to be checked and the language to which the keyboard input is to be set, respectively. It would be nice to have these simple options in OO.o Writer....
I think switching the keyboard is a job of the operating system, isn't it? IMHO this doesn't belong into an application. As you could already read here I agree with you wrt. the easy control of language settings. But my preference is a status bar control - the toolbars are overcrowded already while the status bar has some space left.
I can see situations where you might want to have the operating system in your native language, but, be writing a document in a different language, so, I can see reasons for wanting the ability to switch the keyboard only within the application, separate from the OS keyboard layout in this case. Generally, I would agree that the OS should handle it in most cases. However, with this application, I can see reasons an application override could be useful.
What is needed is not merely a simple and intuitive option for changing the language the orthography of which is to be checked, but also a an option for modifying the keyboard settings used. In Word, this can be done by means of drop-down menus from tool bar boxes which allow one to choose the language whose spelling is to be checked and the language to which the keyboard input is to be set, respectively. It would be nice to have these simple options in OO.o Writer.... Henri
I regularly use different languages and keyboards. More easy/intuitive use and switching would be welcome. I support Eike's comments under issue 20710 (see above) Not sure what would be the best overall solution...
*** Issue 75244 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 75351 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
There is another important fact to consider when dealing with languages. Although I speak fluently 4 languages (and some others less fluently), when I write a document, I use at most 3 different languages. I believe, that users that will use more than 4 languages simultaneously are the absolute exception. Therefore, I propose to add an option to define "Used Languages" in a document. This will facilitate: - automatic language detection (see also my comments for issue 1035) - possibility to easily and rapidly switch between a very limited number of languages, instead of having to choose between a list of hundred languages ( - also, less crowded menu/status bar, IF only 2-3 languages will be displayed/listed)
add spec link owner to Thomas Lange CWS is langstatusbar
same owner as 77208
Most important for multi-lingual users who are familiar with Windows. Making it possible to change from one language to another in the toolbar or, eg, as is done in SCIM, would save them a lot of frustration, surely a desireable outcome ?... Henri
cd: Accepted.
*** Issue 82484 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
cd->fl: What do you think? From my point of view the language status bar feature also solves this problem.
fl->CD,TL: Yes, I also think that the new lang status bar feature solves most of what has been stated in this issue. So please add this issue to the CWS. Thank you!
Fixed in CWS langstatusbar according to spec. For the spec see issue 77208.
SBA: Verified in CWS langstatusbar.
SBA: OK in OOH_m7. Closed.