[scribus] spellcheck and issues rising

[John Beardmore]

On 19/05/2012 21:24, Craig Bradney wrote:
> On 5/19/12 9:37 PM, John Beardmore wrote:
>> On 19/05/2012 19:54, Jean Ghali wrote:
>>> Le 19/05/2012 20:41, John Beardmore a écrit :

>>>> Does 'resolved' mean it will work under windows ?
>>>
>>> Yes, also... Contrary to aspell, hunspell is fully supported on Windows.
>>
>> Yeeeee Haaaa !
>>
>> After all these years !!   (User since 1.3.3.9)
>>
>> One of the bleats I've had from people who are probably just too idle to learn Scribus is that 'it
>> doesn't even have a spelling checker' !
>
> Which was incorrect, at least, it did, but just not on Windows :)

:)

Or Macs very easily by the sound of it. Did it work on OS/2 ?  Might it 
be fairer to say that it only worked on Linux ?


>> I think this was pretty much the last key feature that was missing. Plenty of bugs to fix and many
>> wonderful things can still be added of course, but thank you so much for sorting this !
>>
>> Is there a windows installer for 1.4.2 yet ?
>
> No because we haven't released 1.4.2 yet.

No -  I just asked because there have been windows builds of some SVNs 
in the past, and very useful they were too.


>> Is Hunspell the same spell checker as Open Office uses ?  If so, will it share the same dictionaries ?
>
> Yes, it uses the same dictionary format. I am working on a downloader so people don't have to
> install OO.org/LO to get the dictionaries though, as I have no intention of including them in SVN.

So if you already have LO installed, will it find all it needs without 
additional download ?


> Scribus looks for them already in default locations on Linux, Windows and OSX. The spell checker
> functionality currently covers the aspell functionality

Having never got aspell to work, I don't know what this adds.


> (and fixes quite a few bugs) and adds
> checking to Story Editor.

Excellent news, though I do sometimes find that when I invoke the story 
editor, it immediately alters the appearance of the story I'm working on.

This is a real PITA, and has almost made me abandon the story editor. It 
seems not to alter the assignment of paragraph styles, but the text is 
displayed incorrectly.

If I change a paragraph in the story editor, that paragraph seems to 
display correctly on closing the story editor, but the others will 
retain their new found and unexpected format.

I can force it back to the assigned paragraph styles by highlighting 
paragraphs, then using 'Properties->Text->Style Settings->Remove Direct 
Paragraph Style Formatting', but as the unexpectedly transformed text is 
often bigger than the original, this can take a few goes as you can't 
highlight the whole story at once.

Is this reformatting of text on opening the story editor a known
bug ?  I'm seeing it under windows 7 at the moment, but I think I saw 
this a couple of years ago under XP too, so I assume it's been around 
long enough to be well documented by now ?

If it's necessary to spell check in the story editor, could a work 
around be identified for this formatting bug please ?  For me, it is one 
of the more tiring Scribus problems, and again, doesn't make it easy to 
get other people to take Scribus seriously.


Setting aside spell checking, I could abandon the story editor, if it 
were it not for difficulties copying text when not in the story editor. 
Outside the story editor, <Alt>EC only seems to be able to take one 
paragraph at a time, regardless of what you highlight. Is this designed 
behaviour, or a 'new feature' ?  I don't recall Scribus having this 
issue in 1.3.3.x

In the absence of a spell checker, I've taken to copying (using 
<ALT>EC), chunks of text into Libra Office Writer to spell check. If you 
have to invoke the story editor to be able to copy large chunks of text, 
and invoking the story editor means you have to go back and do the 
'Properties->...->Remove Direct Paragraph Style Formatting' thing often, 
again, it makes using Scribus far more irritating (and less productive / 
credible to newcomers) than it need be.

I don't mean to grumble, THIS IS GREAT SOFTWARE, but I'm now doing a 
second 75 page sustainability audit write up this week in Scribus, and 
being bitten by the same ergonomic problems repeatedly is getting to me.


Cheers, J/.
-- 
John Beardmore,MSc EDM (Open),B.A. Chem (Oxon),CMIOSH,CEnv,MIEMA,MEI
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