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NeoOffice :: View topic - The Queen's English and the wiki's Activating Dictionaries
The Queen's English and the wiki's Activating Dictionaries
 
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sardisson
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 03, 2005 11:25 pm    Post subject: The Queen's English and the wiki's Activating Dictionaries

Can I get a few residents of the British Isles and speakers of the Queen's English to have a look at the British English section of Activating Dictionaries and let me know what's up? The section as written doesn't sound correct to me--and doesn't match my recent test.
  • Add British English to my Languages list in Intl System Prefs and set it top-most

  • Launch Neo/J (with a fresh profile to remove any traces of my Americanism)

  • Zip code field is missing from the User Data section, as expected.

  • In Language Settings: Languages, "Default language for documents" (Western) is set to "English (US)" *this seems like a Neo/J bug; if British English (or one of the other English variants that Neo/J has a dictionary for) is topmost in the System Prefs, Neo/J should select that language when setting up default prefs in this section*

  • Switching the above setting to "English (UK)" seemed to make it recognize British spellings in that and subsequent documents (as expected).

Does this match everyone else's experience?

In other words, can the bulk of the "British English" section in the wiki be removed and edited to read "Set British English to topmost. Upon opening Neo/J, set the Default language (Western)" to "English (UK)" and live happily ever after"?

(and hopefully Patrick can fix the bug and we can delete the entire section in 1.2 Smile)

And just to clarify--I'm not trying to discourage new contributors to the wiki or "attack" said contributors or anything...the section just struck me as odd compared to what I've experienced with other languages. I (and I hope we) just want the most accurate information up there and the simplest, most Mac-friendly work-arounds where needed. Smile

Smokey

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Glenner
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Posts: 241
Location: Scotland

PostPosted: Tue Oct 04, 2005 12:18 am    Post subject:

Smokey, that's correct. N/J fails to pick up British English as the default but when English (UK) is specified it works for all future documents. I always specify English (UK) under Options - Language Settings - Languages - Locale Setting. I seem to remember that otherwise $ signs are inserted instead of £ when number autoformat is used. BUT contrary to your experience the ZIPCode field is still in the User Data screen.

Martin
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JKT
The Anomaly
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Joined: Sep 18, 2003
Posts: 434
Location: London, UK

PostPosted: Tue Oct 04, 2005 7:39 am    Post subject:

I have corrected the wiki entry to reflect how to do it and what to do if you didn't have British English as your system language. I'd appreciate it if you could both read it through - especially as I am unsure of the last part about needing to reinstall and/or remove the ~/Library/NeoOfficeJ-1.1 folder!

P.S. I also get Zip/City in the User Data.

Edit: I have also changed it so that it reflects other non-US locales for English such as Australia and Canada as I assume they will have the same problem.

Edit 2: I've also added a section to the Installation Issues page that may help pre-empt some of these issues... it'll need proofing too. Thanks.

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Glenner
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 04, 2005 10:33 am    Post subject:

Thanks for this. Can I suggest a few changes? But feel free to use whatever you prefer.

Non-US English Language Settings
For all English speakers N/J installs the US English version by default. If you wish to use non-US English make sure you have your preferred version of English at the top of the list of languages in OS X System Preferences>International>Language (click the Edit List... button to add it if need be). Even with your preferred version of English at the top of the list, NeoOffice/J may still default to US English. If so, after launching NeoOffice/J, open Preferences>Language Settings>Languages and choose for example English (UK) from the Locale setting menu. This will auto-populate the Default currency as GBP £ English (UK) and the Default language for documents>Western as English (UK).
If you have already installed NeoOffice/J, and the language settings are defaulted to US English and won't change for example to UK English you can fix this by re-installing NeoOffice/J after you have set the System Language to British English in System Preferences>International>Language (click the Edit List... button to add it if need be). You may also need to remove your ~/Library/NeoOfficeJ-1.1 folder as well, to reset your preferences to the defaults.
Note: The above is applicable to other English versions (e.g. Australian English, Canadian English, etc, for which NeoOffice/J has a language setting - substitute your language/currency in the appropriate sections).
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sardisson
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 04, 2005 11:00 am    Post subject:

Thanks, guys, for the info and the edits. I've proofed the sections and tweaked here and there and applied the style guide.

It sounds like the Neo/J bug, then, is not recognizing/setting a British locale when British English is the topmost language in the System Prefs? Could one of you file a bug on that? It may not be fixable (and poor Patrick has plenty on his plate at the moment), but it would be good to see if Neo/J can do the right thing when a specific, non-US, English is topmost.

Edit: Aargh, JKT, you just overwrote all the style-guide fixes Smile

Smokey

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JKT
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Joined: Sep 18, 2003
Posts: 434
Location: London, UK

PostPosted: Tue Oct 04, 2005 11:08 am    Post subject:

Hi Smokey... sorry but after doing a comparison, I overwrote your edit Embarassed with a new version which is based on Glenner's comments. I didn't think it was necessary to add the bit you had about disclosure rectangles (mainly because it made that section too difficult to follow and if we need to do it for NOJ, we need to do it for the MacOS prefs too!) - IMO, if people need that much hand-holding then we need a separate section on how to use NOJs preferences, but feel free to change it again if you wish. The main change is to shift the focus from British English to cover all non-US English variants. I also altered the references to US English to read English (US) as this is how it appears in the NOJ prefs.

Can you go over it again to apply the style guide, whatever that is! Wink

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Please visit The Land Gallery at http://www.thelandgallery.com for nature-inspired British Fine Art
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JKT
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Posts: 434
Location: London, UK

PostPosted: Tue Oct 04, 2005 11:16 am    Post subject:

Also, I can't honestly say whether or not NOJ does pick up the language preferences for British English as it is too long ago since I first installed it. It is quite possible that Shropshire Lad simply didn't have British English as his default language which may explain his problems.

I would have to uninstall and re-install NOJ to see if it is an issue and I don't have time at the moment.

P.S. I am going to be unable to get online for a week from Thursday, so if any issues arise that need my attention during that time, you'll have to wait until I get back. Sad

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Please visit The Land Gallery at http://www.thelandgallery.com for nature-inspired British Fine Art
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sardisson
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:02 pm    Post subject:

Yeah, I had already edited before Glenner's suggestions and didn't see them until after my post here reloaded the thread Smile I think the text is much better; you just ignored the style guide Wink I'll fix that, though.

Thanks again.

JKT wrote:
Also, I can't honestly say whether or not NOJ does pick up the language preferences for British English as it is too long ago since I first installed it. It is quite possible that Shropshire Lad simply didn't have British English as his default language which may explain his problems.

I would have to uninstall and re-install NOJ to see if it is an issue and I don't have time at the moment.

It didn't when I put British English first and started with fresh prefs, but I didn't fuss with the other parts of the locale stuff to get a real British locale.... Confused

JKT wrote:
P.S. I am going to be unable to get online for a week from Thursday, so if any issues arise that need my attention during that time, you'll have to wait until I get back. Sad

Not your Mac back in the shop again (or something real-life much worse), I hope....

Smokey

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JKT
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Posts: 434
Location: London, UK

PostPosted: Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:25 pm    Post subject:

sardisson wrote:

Not your Mac back in the shop again (or something real-life much worse), I hope....

Smokey

Thankfully, not my Mac, no, but travel to somewhere out in the sticks with no net access. Wink

I'll try testing the British locale thing when I get back (or, better yet, while I'm away... I'll still have my Mac with me - better remember to copy the NeoOffice/J installers on to it before I do though!). Wink

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Please visit The Land Gallery at http://www.thelandgallery.com for nature-inspired British Fine Art
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Glenner
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Joined: Feb 03, 2004
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 04, 2005 11:24 pm    Post subject:

JKT wrote:
Also, I can't honestly say whether or not NOJ does pick up the language preferences for British English ....


I reinstalled NOJ this morning and can confirm it definitely fails to pick up the British locale. It activates US English by default.

Martin
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JKT
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Posts: 434
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 3:42 pm    Post subject:

I've posted bug 1039 with this issue. That's it from me for a week... see you next Thurs/Friday. Wink
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sardisson
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 4:01 pm    Post subject:

Thanks, guys! And safe travels to you, JKT. Smile

Smokey

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Glenner
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Joined: Feb 03, 2004
Posts: 241
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 12:40 am    Post subject:

I have been playing around a bit with system languages and N/J installers. This is what I found.

System language: British English, German (in that order) activated. N/J installers behave as follows: Introduction and Readme in English. At the Licence screen, however, German is picked and the installation continues with that language. All N/J installers behave like that except Openstep's NeoLight installer.Question

If, however, system languages are English, British English, German (in that order) the installation is carried out in English.

I was just wondering why Ed's installer is different and whether this has any impact on N/J's activation of the default languages.
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sardisson
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 3:43 am    Post subject:

When you have British English and then German, what does this Terminal command say?
Code:
defaults read NSGlobalDomain AppleLanguages
Also, what version of Mac OS X was originally installed on your Mac?

Glenner wrote:
I was just wondering why Ed's installer is different and whether this has any impact on N/J's activation of the default languages.

The "installers" shouldn't be any different--it's the same Installer app, just different packages--and there should be little difference between them. Well, come to think of it, the Neo/J installers include localized .lproj folders, I believe, to allow the installation UI widgets to display in the default language (but not translated readmes or licenses), and Ed's probably does not (though I've not checked this).

Edit: The only reason you'd be getting German in a British English/German setup is if the first code were bad/invalid or if, not finding an en_UK.lproj folder, Mac OS X or Installer.app were falling back on German rather than looking for the generic English (en) first.

Hmm, on that note, what happens if you add an en_UK.lproj folder to Neo/J's Contents/Resources folder and then start up with a fresh profile? (This may be inconclusive, as there still might be missing code that Patrick needs to implement to get the language selection working right.)

Smokey

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Glenner
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Joined: Feb 03, 2004
Posts: 241
Location: Scotland

PostPosted: Fri Oct 07, 2005 6:17 am    Post subject:

sardisson wrote:
When you have British English and then German, what does this Terminal command say?
Code:
defaults read NSGlobalDomain AppleLanguages

It displays the system languages correctly
sardisson wrote:
Also, what version of Mac OS X was originally installed on your Mac?

10.4 (installed from scratch)
Glenner wrote:
I was just wondering why Ed's installer is different and whether this has any impact on N/J's activation of the default languages.

sardisson wrote:
The "installers" shouldn't be any different--it's the same Installer app, just different packages--and there should be little difference between them. Well, come to think of it, the Neo/J installers include localized .lproj folders, I believe, to allow the installation UI widgets to display in the default language (but not translated readmes or licenses), and Ed's probably does not (though I've not checked this).

Yes, you are right. Ed's installer does not check for default language. It is only English.

sardisson wrote:
Edit: The only reason you'd be getting German in a British English/German setup is if the first code were bad/invalid or if, not finding an en_UK.lproj folder, Mac OS X or Installer.app were falling back on German rather than looking for the generic English (en) first.

That is not the reason either. I disabled German as a system language altogether now and the N/J installer picks English up no problem. Or it may have defaulted to US English? But then, would the terminal command not have shown this?

sardisson wrote:
Hmm, on that note, what happens if you add an en_UK.lproj folder to Neo/J's Contents/Resources folder and then start up with a fresh profile? (This may be inconclusive, as there still might be missing code that Patrick needs to implement to get the language selection working right.)

There are two en folders in there: en.lproj and en_US.lproj. I tested behaviour with additional folders en_GB.lproj and en_UK.lproj. But this does not result in any change.
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