Hi Ilya,
Please see comment below.
On Fri, 8 Oct 2004, Ilya Konstantinov wrote:
> Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
>
> >Linux box using twm window manager and a keyboard mapping that I
> >downloaded from Pango org and then hacked?
> >
> >
> On most Linux boxes, there's IME which hints the language
> out-of-the-box, whether configured
> in XF86Config (as "us,il" XkbLayout) or thru GNOME/KDE's keyboard
> switcher. Technically,
> it involves subscribing to Xkb layout/mapping switching events and
> checking the current Xkb
> group name for known names (Israelian, Arabic etc.).
There's no IME on my Linux distribution. I dont' use Gnome and I don't use
KDE and I don't see why OOo should be dependent on either Gnome or KDE.
OOo should be self-sufficient.
> If a user's Israeli keyboard's Hebrew group calls itself "Afrikaans", we
> wouldn't detect it,
> but that classifies as a broken configuration anyway. Besides, we *can*
> detect it if we inspect the
> mapping itself (ie. look for Hebrew characters among the characters
> which the mapping generates).
This is not a good heuristic. It means that when I write mathematical
papers in English, OOo might think that they are Hebrew because I use
ALEPH to indicate a countable infinity.
>
> I have sample code for both cases (and you can find similar code in Gtk+
> 2.x and Mozilla CVS).
>
> >Do we really need to change the OOo file format for this? I don't beloeve
> >so.
> >
> >
> Don't we already save language markup for the speller's sake? This
> information could be
No.
> represented as language markup, and the IME method above would be used
> to assist
> in proper language markup (so we'll gain a benefit in the speller as well).
There's no IME and the speller has it's own heuristic for guessing Hebrew
words.
> > Not necessary. No "enhancements" to the standard needed. Just let the user
> >
> >decide by pressing a shortcut key for LRO, and then PDO when returning to
> >RTL text flow within an RTL para.
> >
> >
> You propose we replace a solution that does what the user intends in
> most cases without a single
> extra key press, with a system that requires the user to be actively
> involved?
> From Human Interface Guidelines perspective, that sounds like a step in
> the wrong direction?
No, it's a step in the right direction because it does not try to guess
what the user intended. It lets the user indicate it explicitly. Remember
that we are talking about short sequences like English book titles
(LTR) inside of Hebrew paragraphs (RTL), Hebrew Bible verses (RTL) inside
of English (LTR) paragraphs.
>
> >There's no IME information on my computer. Why try to second guess the
> >user? There will always be some cases when we guess wrong and that's super
> >annoying when you intended one thing and the software "corrects" you.
> >
> >
> If your keymapping is an xmodmap one, you must live in the stone age :)
> I believe you could upgrade to modern keymapping in no time.
I don't live in the stone age, I just don't use desktop systems like Gnome
or KDE, and I don't want OOo to be dependent on those systems.
Remember that there are a several hundres folks out there at the Technion
who need Hebrew OpenOffice on their "stone age" X stations and can't get
it. There are also a lot of non-Jewish Bible scholars who contact me to
help them get OOo working in Hebrew on their non-Hebrew OS's. So we should
be doing everything to avoid tying OOo language support to the OS.
- yba
>
>
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