Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 104133
External dictionary directory is not settable
Last modified: 2014-02-24 17:55:24 UTC
This is both DEFECT and a polite request for ENHANCEMENT. External dictionary directory is not settable. By external dictionary directory I mean Hunspell SpellChecker files directory – where is the dictionary.lst and all *.dic, *.idx and *.aff files for all relevant languages It should be settable by both UI and configuration file. In UI it should be in Options → Paths. There are already all kinds of paths so why not hunspell dictionary directory. Yes, I am aware of dictionaries installable as extension. However I consider it a fall back option only, for systems not providing a system wide spell checker. It is very stupid for every application to have its own dictionary as and extension. This stuff is for sharing. And there days spell checkers are considered a standard among all text processing interactive applications. And I'm very glad for that. Most linux distribution use OOo builds with pre-set shared external directories shared at least with Firefox. But potential is much greater. Unfortunately distributions can use different paths for shared directories. This was not unfortunately standardized yet. You cannot provide truly cross distribution linux build without enabling users to set the path. Novell: /usr/share/hunspell /usr/share/hyphen /usr/share/mythes Mandriva: /usr/share/dict/ooo I heard about build configuration options: --with-external-dict-dir --with-external-hyph-dir --with-external-thes-dir But where is the run time configurability!? Thank you Jan Uhlir
Vanilla OpenOffice is using dictionary extensions since OOo 3.0. Here dictionary extensions will either be located in the shared tree or in the user tree of the installation. For Windows see bootstrap.ini for the configured pathes. Still sticking to flat style dictionaries is usually a specialty of various Linux/Unix distributions who want to share those dictionaries with other programs. (The path can be set on compile time) Thus I tend to say that this is an issue of those distributions. TL->SBA,CMC: Your comments?
Yes, distros want to share the same dictionaries between OOo, Firefox, GNOME, etc and simply provide a single dictionary package per language rather than have multiple copies of them about the place. IMO distros are happy with the support that's there in general. OOo, and e.g. enchant, have compile time control over where to look, but neither have runtime control over it. Adding runtime control is desirable for the particular reporter IIRC because they want to have build a single OOo version that uses system dictionaries that works on all distros where the "system" dictionaries are in fairly random locations depending on distro. Personally I feel that the compile time defaults of /usr/share/hunspell (picked because that's where the command line tool hunspell searches first) /usr/share/hyphen /usr/share/mythes are the best locations, and that distros should be instead convinced to move to those locations instead as a de-facto standard. (though my own uses /usr/share/myspell instead of /usr/share/hunspell as we picked the default location hunspell searched for back before it changed to searching in /usr/share/hunspell before /usr/share/myspell) If someone wants to implement making them configurable settings inside OOo, I wouldn't stand in there way, but its not something I have a compelling need to myself implement given the need to do that all over the rest of the dictionary using stack in e.g. enchant, firefox and so on
Thank you CMC. Nice summary. One big YES, that what I meant. Well, just 2 comments: As far as I know myspell and hunspell dictionary formats differs, perhaps a little but they are not the same. Hunspell can use myspell dictionaries. What distribution use are however still myspell dictionaries; mandriva distribute only myspell dictionaries. So perhaps storing myspell dic file to /usr/share/hunspell is not a perfect idea. Distro maintainers can object, they would rather stick with /usr/share/myspell for myspell dictionaries. Can someone clarify on this? Thank you. I thing that having path settable IS important thing. The way to cross distro standard is a long distance run :( Make it user configurable is the right answer for any truly cross-distro build application. OOo should lead by example example, not try to find excuses that Firefox does not have it configurable too. It was stated in go-oo mailing list that it dictionary path WAS settable in 2.x. Can you clarify on this? If it is true, it mean it was possible and now it is not, a big step back. Any step from configurable to hard coded is a step back. But otherwise yes, this is not big issue - as far as you can solve it by symbolic link or in worst case by user level extension - P3 level is just fine for this issue.