David wrote: > I can't say I'm a big fan of hidden commands. Where in the GUI would I > discover this functionality? As a user, I expect that to be a function > available either through the menubar or a toolbar button on the > Characters palette.
Fully agree with that. As a basic rule for GUIs, each function should be available at least in a menu, without exception. Thus, insertCharByName should definitely make its way into one of XXE's menus, after having existed hidden for a long time in the rich list of XXE's commands (available under "Tools | Execute command"). Making it available on the Characters palette would be a desirable plus, of course. > Hussein Shafie wrote: >> Please type "Esc n" and you'll be able to pick a character by its >> commonly used entity name (e.g. mdash). David wrote: > That said, this > http://www.unicode.org/charts/charindex.html > is the lookup table I want to use. Being able to insert a character via its DocBook entity name often helps, but it's just not the same as finding a Unicode character through its true, unique, standardized, talking, can't-do-without Unicode character name (and maybe character property etc.) I second the RFE to augment XXE with a function that accesses the Unicode names database (in search or in browse mode) in order to offer character entry via Unicode character names. A possible route towards implementation could perhaps consider Java(TM) libraries like those from the ICU project [1], and in particular methods like getCharFromExtendedName [2]. [1] http://site.icu-project.org/ [2] http://www.docjar.com/docs/api/com/ibm/icu/lang/UCharacter.html#getCharFromExtendedName%28String%29 To shorten waiting time a bit, I would like to contribute a little helper for those users interested in lookup (and entry) of Unicode characters in XXE via Unicode names. This macro provides a Web-based search for Unicode character names (or substrings/regular expression patterns matching them). The characters found are displayed in your browser and can easily be copied to the clipboard and inserted into XXE. Here's how to install and use it: 1) Put the following lines into your *.xxe configuration file (take care to edit the <property> definition appropriately if already present): <property name="WebSearch.searchers"><![CDATA[ UniView Character Names Search http://people.w3.org/rishida/scripts/uniview/?utf8=true&search=${searched} ]]></property> <command name="webSearchForUnicodeCharByName"> <macro> <sequence> <command name="prompt" parameter="'UniView web service - Unicode character lookup' 'Search for Unicode characters whose name matches:'"/> <command name="webSearch" parameter="[UniView Character Names Search] %_"/> </sequence> </macro> </command> <binding> <keyPressed code="F12" /> <command name="webSearchForUnicodeCharByName"/> </binding> 2) Restart XXE, and open any document that uses the above configuration. 3) Pressing F12 opens a dialog and asks for the character name (or pattern) to search for, then queries Richard Ishida's marvellous UniView web service (Unicode character database) and displays a list of matching characters, linked to further information including the character shown in a very big font size. From there, it is easy to copy and insert into XXE. (Hint: In the query URL, "utf8=true" assures that the glyphs are rendered as real characters, allowing to copy and transfer them to XXE. Otherwise, they are displayed as graphics, which can help you recognize the character if your browser is unable to display the real character. Enabling UniView's option "Use graphics" is equivalent to omitting "utf8=true".) See the UniView Help & User Guide [3] if you want to know more about this Web service. Section "You can tailor the program by..." [4] is very instructive when you want to control the queries through URL parameters. [3] http://people.w3.org/rishida/scripts/uniview/help.php [4] http://people.w3.org/rishida/scripts/uniview/help.php#tailor Have fun, Yves P.S.: I wonder how to include line feeds into the message parameter of the prompt command so that the message displays with a bit more vertical space. -- XMLmind XML Editor Support List [email protected] http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support
