From: Gabriel Gerhardsson (mr.g@home.se)
Date: Tue Oct 22 2002 - 06:21:59 EDT
On Tue, 2002-10-22 at 11:05, Andrew Dunbar wrote:
> --- Gabriel Gerhardsson <mr.g@home.se> wrote:
> > On Tue, 2002-10-22 at 04:05, Andrew Dunbar wrote:
> > > --- Gabriel Gerhardsson <mr.g@home.se> wrote:
> >
> > On
> > > Mon, 2002-10-21 at 02:21, Andrew Dunbar wrote:
> > > > > --- phearbear <phearbear@home.se> wrote:
> > > > > I was just thinking about this too. Or
> > > > > something like it. How about showing a
> > > > > disabled/ghosted version of the icon when a
> > > > > dictionary exists but is not currently
> > > > > installed?
> > > >
> > > > Right now the list of available dictionaries is
> > > > downloaded from www.abisource.com when needed,
> > > > so that information isn't available to us before
> > > > we do that.
> > >
> > > That can't be right. The information for ispell
> > > used to be in ispell_checker.cpp and Dom recently
> > > moved it out into a separate XML file. This is
> > > all the information we need. I think it's much
> > > more useful to show an icon if a dictionary
> > > *exists* rather than being available on some
> > > internet server. This is usually going to be the
> > > same for both anyway and we then don't have to
> > > make the broken assumption that everybody
> > > using AbiWord has a full-time internet connection.
> >
> > I clearly see your point, and I thought the same way
> > a while there. But what made me suggest what I did
> > was this:
> > The listed dictionaries in
> > ispell_dictionary_list.xml does not guarantee that
> > we have a dictionary-file for all those entries.
>
> It should. Dictionary names are arbitrary by definit-
> ion with ispell. The only way we know what the file-
> name is, is by finding one in the wild. We definite-
> ly shouldn't be adding entries to this list when no
> such files exist. If there are some there now they
> should be commented out IMHO.
Ok.
> > * Now and then we may add entries in advance, before
> > a dictionary is made available.
>
> This is an edge case and we can either not add them in
> advance or we can put up with them being out of synch
> and put a note somewhere for users to see.
>
> > * Many dictionaries is only available for little-
> endian.
>
> Really? I was working on a fix for this and had it
> half done so that either endian system could load
> either endian hash file. It was suggested that this
> was of little use so I put it on the back burner.
> Maybe I should dig it out and finish it off...
> In any case we can extend the xml file to know which
> dictionary exists in which endian. At compile time or
> run time we decide which endian we are and show or not
> show the icons with this full information.
This would be very nice.
> > > > When that list have been downloaded (during a
> > > > dictionary download) it's cached in the abi
> > > > $HOME directory, so then we're free to use it
> (of
> > > > course, it may not be totally accurate, not
> > > > being the latest version and all). A simple
> > > > workaround would be a menu-option somewhere
> > > > "Download updated dictionary-list".
> > >
> > > I'd recommend putting the focus on "supported"
> > > rather than "downloadable". Otherwise an icon
> > > alone isn't enough and is completely pointless for
> > > non-internet-connected AbiWord users.
> >
> > My thought was that the "downloadable" dictionaries
> > equals the "supported". How do you define this?
>
> For ispell, if there is a hash file known to work with
> AbiWord and which has been entered in the xml file.
> We can always note that being supported doesn't always
> mean downloadable. For instance Yiddish is supported
> but our friend hasn't yet released the dictionary to
> be usable by everybody else.
True.
> > I don't want to shut non-internet-users out. I was
> > just thinking out loud of how we currently can get
> > the list of currently available dictionaries.
> > Granted, it's currently pretty much internet-only
> > material. So another solution, better suited for
> > non-internet-users, would be to ship the latest
> > version of the abispell-list with AbiWord
> > releases.
>
> Well as I say, the xml file Dom created should *be*
> the list.
> I don't have an objection to giving connected users
> more accurate information. That's a good idea. But
> we should start out with the information that's
> available all the time online or offline and it should
> have the same meaning.
Yep.
> > That way my solution above would work, and in case
> > someone wants an updated list, he can order AbiWord
> > to download it (or it may be done implicit during a
> > dictionary download).
> > So, my main point is that the list that we currently
> > ship in ispell_dictionary_list.xml can contain more
> > than the available dictionaries,
>
> We should fix this and make a note in the cases where
> it makes sense to leave it broken such as Yiddish.
>
> > while abispell-list contains exactly the currently
> > available dictionaries.
>
> Why not add an attribute to the xml file instead of
> maintaining two separate files for very closely
> related
> things.
This would make me happy :)
As we're still in development this is the time to rearrange things. If
we would merge these two xml-files to one, we would have all the
information (that we've talked about above) needed at install. The user
would also be able to update the xml-file and
* Get access to new dictionaries (that wasn't in the list before, at
all).
* Get access to updated dictionaries (if we for example make a en-AU
specific dictionary).
> > That said, in this area I of course bow before your
> > will whatever you decide. I'm not a linguist nor a
> > HCI expert :) I just wanted you to understand my
> > view.
>
> Hey no need to boost my ego like that (: I just feel
> that AbiWord is not primarily an internet app and most
> AbiWord users at least outside the USA won't have
> full-
> time internet connections so we should pursue a mostly
> non-internet solution. Making it a bit better when we
> do have internet access is a nice enhancement though.
I totally agree. The hashdownloader was meant as a enhancements, a bonus
for internet-connected users. It was not meant to require
internet-access for AbiWord users.
> Also think of cases where I use AbiWord at home and
> can come here to the internet to download spelling
> dictionaries when I find out via the new icon that one
> exists. Or what about when AbiWord plus all the
> dictionaries come on a CD but only English is
> installed
> by default. The user will know to find the other one
> on her CD. It also makes sense for Linux distros to
> have one language in the base RPM and the others
> available somewhere else.
True.
> Also, we should support pspell builds just as well as
> ispell builds if this is possible. At least try to
> make the code at the highest level possible instead of
> designing the whole thing around ispell. This is
> probably what you've done but I haven't inspected the
> code.
If we're talking about the hashdownloader here, I suggested that but met
resistance. So I settled with ispell support. The code is not very
ispell centric tho. It has hooks in the ispell code to start a download
and it uses some other things from ispell_checker.cpp, but it wouldn't
be hard to make it work for pspell too.
Tho I have very limited time atm, in a couple of weeks I'll probably
have much more, for a few days at least.
Take care
/Gabriel
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