Trouble installing SCIM m17n in Puppy 3.01

[RR Koothady]

I am heartened by Enrico's efforts.

Sipping Peter Semiletov's TEA - yes Swarup, that would be great in this windy monsoon weather - but rubbing the magic pot has happened! and it has got us a very friendly Geany!

While you are preparing TEA for all of us David, will you rub your magic pot once again and let in the new Geany out in our court yard? So that till the TEA comes down from the mountains and valleys, we will happily be playing with the ever friendly Geany!

Ramesh

[Irihapeti]

Ramesh:
I'm delighted that poedit is working for you. A number of other programs haven't worked on different computers - I was almost dreading logging in and finding that it hadn't worked.

In fact, it was quite straightforward to compile in Puppy 2.17. Once I'd decided not to do battle with Enchant, that is.

And a general question:
If I'm going to be uploading pets, I think I'd prefer a more permanent location, and one where I can set up an automated (overnight) transfer instead of staring at a browser window. What do I need to do in order to set that up?

Irihapeti

[Aitch]

So that till the TEA comes down from the mountains and valleys, we will happily be playing with the ever friendly Geany!

I love a good cup of Indian Tea - it's magic

[muggins]

A tip from Peter Semiletov got me through my tea compiling block, but...surprisingly, it still doesn't recognise my aspell. I've sent him another query regarding this.

Swarup mentioned he's contacted the aspell developers regarding text editors that support using aspell, what I'd be curious about is whether there's any easy way to modify the dictionary.

Also, I think Ramesh mentioned that OOffice doesn't recognise his aspell. This link indicates that OOfice uses Myspell as a dictionary.

I'll try out Enrico's latest version tonight & also upload.

Irihapeti,

perhaps you could pm Eric Caneri & see whether he has any space for you to store stuff. Then you can use Gftp to upload files overnight.

[Irihapeti]

I've reuploaded poedit and updated the URL in the message above. I realised after I'd done the first upload that there was a patch to the Berkeley DB files which I hadn't applied (all right, I forgot) . It sounded pretty unlikely to be an issue with using it with poedit, but thought I'd better play safe.

Irihapeti

[Swarup]

Swarup mentioned he's contacted the aspell developers regarding text editors that support using aspell, what I'd be curious about is whether there's any easy way to modify the dictionary.

When you say "modify the dictionary", perhaps you could tell me something more as to exactly what is needed here. Are you referring to how the user would modify the dictionary, i.e. how to make it part of the GUI to do so? Or to how to go in behind the scenes to do so. Perhaps if you write your question here for me, then I could post it to the Aspell users list.

Also, I think Ramesh mentioned that OOffice doesn't recognise his aspell. This link indicates that OOfice uses Myspell as a dictionary.

Yes--sorry I missed Rameshji's mentioning this, or I would have also told as such. I've known for a long time that OOo doesn't use Aspell. For Hindi at least, it uses "Hunspell". (I could never get it to work though, even in Ubuntu.) I don't know whether Hunspell and Myspell are the same thing....

I just got a reply from the Aspell users list. I had requested a text editor which is not distro or DE dependent the way Gedit is with Gnome, and Kate is with KDE, and also which works fully (i.e. not only half-way, re right-click options, and new word add) with Aspell. I also listed some other needed conditions. Here is the reply:

> Actually, I have found that SCIM works in most anything. It doesn't
> require any special "plugin" or anything. That is, one doesn't have to
> "enable" the text editor to use it. It is its own application which one
> activates from outside the text editor and which puts own toolbar for
> language/script selection in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.
> And it will run in *any* program based on GTK or qt3/qt4 (and not only
> those).
>

That's great!

Gvim is desktop-neutral, checks the spelling while you type, and has a
right-click menu with spelling suggestions. Heck, it even works that way
in the CLI interface! But then, it's Vim, with all the pros and cons.

As a GNOME and former KDE user, I'm not sure I can remember a better
suggestion

Katoob and Leafpad use Enchant and don't depend on XFCE or GNOME, but I
don't know their spell check features.

It sounds like Gvim would be another real option for us.

Of course, let's see how Geany and TEA work first. But I have a feeling Gvim would be very easy to set up. It is DE-independent, and I have seen in several places that it works well with Aspell. So it should work great out of the box.

There is one other issue, and that is speed. A lot of Indic users have older computers, and using Aspell is a continous demand on the procesor to check each and every word against the dictionary as typing goes on. Enrico had indicated to me that his code is not the fastest way to get the job done. Let's see how well it works, and we can take it from there. Enrico is also interested I think, to improve it as needed. But a text editor having a well-established relation with Aspell like Gvim or TEA, may also be more efficient.

[muggins]

Swarup,

I've just uploaded tea-17.6.3 .pets in this thread.

Regarding editing aspell, I'm just talking about the functionality that you mentioned gedit has, which currently geany doesn't. I've never used gedit, but I thought you were saying that you could use it to add/alter words. Is this changing the aspell dictionary?

I've also compiled Enrico's latest svn release of geany, & will upload later.

cheers

[muggins]

I've just uploaded latest svn geany, aspell & enchant .pets for pup2, pup3 & pup4.

For Pup2:

geany-0.15r2733-p2.pet
aspell-0.60.6-p2.pet
enchant-1.4.2-p2.pet

FOr Pup3:

geany-0.15r2733-p3.pet
aspell-0.60.6-p3.pet
enchant-1.4.2-p3.pet

For pup4:

geany-0.15r2733-p4.pet
aspell-0.60.6-p4.pet
enchant-1.4.2-p4.pet



The locale files, here, are common to any version.

[Swarup]

Great work, David!
I'm not at home now, and so can't install TEA and Geany yet. I will when I get home.

So re the Geany install, I just have to do the install of the three .pets for pup3-- Geany, enchant, and aspell-- according to the instructions you gave the last time round. And do I also need to install the "locale files" to which you refer? Last time I don't recall your making mention of these "locale files"?

Regarding editing aspell, I'm just talking about the functionality that you mentioned gedit has, which currently geany doesn't. I've never used gedit, but I thought you were saying that you could use it to add/alter words. Is this changing the aspell dictionary?

Oh, I see. Yes that's right, Gedit has that functionality to update the dictionary by adding words. And I've asked about this on the Aspell list. Gvim they told me also has this functionality. And the latest version of Geany which you just arranged should also have it now. Did you get a chance to see if it has it or not? I'll check myself when I get home later.

[Swarup]

duplicate post

[Nathan F]

I compiled a recent Geany svn snapshot for Puppy4 along with aspell, enchant, and the spellcheck plugin. I meant to have this uploaded ages ago but kept running into problems and time issues. Anyway, packages are here. You need not install the _dev or _nls packages unless you need to compile against them or need the translation files.

I thought I would weigh in on something real quick. I just want to mention priorities. Getting scim working was definately a top priority. Another top priority should be doing the work of translating applications and the Puppy menu into other languages, but that is being neglected somewhat I think. Having a spellchecker in your favorite text editor is great, but in my opinion falls somewhere farther down the list of priorities. Especially when it now has a working spellchecker but we just want one with more features. I would suggest shiftinng the focus to aaaeerrnoth for a while and revisit this after Enrico has had some time to get other work done.

I hope this is recieved in the spirit which I sent it in, no offense was intended.

Nathan

[Irihapeti]

Nathan F:
I think you have a good point about priorities.

Scim isn't fully working yet. OK, I've managed to get all the immodules working in Puppy 2.17 and 4.00, but the qt3 immodule for Puppy 3.01 is still outstanding, and I've not yet had any clarity about how I can solve the 3.01 compiling problems. (I have a separate thread about that, here.)

Unless we decide to ignore qt3 support and concentrate on qt4 only, I think this is important to solve. At least, we need to make a decision about whether qt3 support is needed.

For my part, I need to work out which qt libraries and plugins are needed, and how to configure the /etc/profile file. I have a rat's nest in said file at the moment, and huge qt directories which would be impractical and unnecessary in a .iso for distribution.

my $.02 worth
Irihapeti

[Swarup]

I wrote Jeremy Bowman the following note regarding Portabase and qt4 a few days ago

We are working in Puppy Linux to create a multilingual version of the distro, and there are several other important applications which we wanted to use which are made to work with qt4. And we want very much to include Portabase as the default database app in the distro. We've been trying to get it to run with qt4 but so far no success. What has your experience been with qt4? Will Portabase and qt4 work together?

Just now got the following reply from him:

There isn't a version that works with Qt 4 yet; it's basically written for Qt 2, with accommodations made to work with Qt 3 in the desktop versions. I started a Qt 4 port a while ago, but was trying to keep the code compatible with Qt 2 so it would still run on my Zaurus...and basically gave up on it because it was too much work due to massive differences in the Qt API across those versions.

I hope to continue development in Qt 4 once a decent PDA platform capable of running it becomes available, but that hasn't happened yet (the Zaurus is no longer in production and wasn't really being updated for years, Qt 4 for the Nokia internet tablets won't be ready until later this year, and I don't consider Windows Mobile-based devices "decent"). However, I could just update the existing code to use Qt 4 so I can make updated desktop releases without introducing any new features; this would retain the ability to move files across systems without difficulty, but take advantage of improvements in desktop Qt quality and OS integration (and serve as a springboard for future development once a suitable PDA does become available).

I'll try to get that done in the next month or so...it should be a much easier (and more fun) task than what I was attempting before. There's a lot of cruft in the code that's only there because Qt 2 was a much more primitive API, it'll be nice to clear some of that out.

Jeremy

[Swarup]

Just to share some thoughts about your suggestion, Nathan. I must preface this by saying I have the deepest appreciation for the help you give to the multilingual effort as well as indeed to the development of Puppy overall. I do not joke when I say that your practical knowledge of how to make things happen in the Puppy world and your ability to help folks out of a hole when they're stuck, is really invaluable. And I myself have such poor skills in computer code that I can only gaze at the abilities of people like you in awe. On this point of priorities, please permit me to suggest that, as far as I have understood, the focus of this particular thread has been on user functionality in the local language rather than on making the UI appear in the local language. Being able to function successfully i.e. to do one's work in the local language may, in my view, be an even higher priority than making the UI display in the local language. And there are certain fundamental tools required for working in any language. Perhaps the most basic is that of being able to write in that language. For that, SCIM is critical. Work on this has been in large part successful; some important aspects of it however are still being addressed. For example, scim's ability to interact with essential applications based on qt3/4. Another essential aspect regards the ability of users to create finished documents in their own language. To produce a finished document in any language, a spellchecker is essential. To think of writing a finished 20-page document in English without a spellchecker is unthinkable. And it is the same in any language. But in contrast to the English spellchecker which contains most of the words one would need (with certain specialized exceptions), the dictionaries for many other languages are still extremely deficient. To the extent that, using that language's spellchecker basically only means have a structure in place which allows one to gradually add over months, all the hundreds and perhaps thousands of words one needs for basic functionality. Which is to say that the "add new word" feature is critical. For these languages, in the absence of the "add new word" feature, the spellchecker is useless. And the search for a text editor which supports this feature is similarly critical. I would view the endeavor to secure such a functional text editor and spellchecker not at all as frivolous, but essential to any distro making the claim to multilinguality.

As to the question of speed with which a text editor and spellchecker function, this is also highly related to functionality in a world where many of the potential users of non-English languages are using older computers. And the full-bodied variety of subjects which have been raised on this thread regarding Scribus, Poedit, Recoll, Portabase, and other applications, are similarly central to this very question of functionality. Providing the basic tools which allow the user of another language to actually do their work in their local language. Having the UI display in their language is a welcome benefit to be sure, although perhaps an optional one. But the actual work being done in the language, in my view, absolutely requires scim and its application in the variety of applications which have been discussed on the thread thus far.

I would close in expressing my deep gratitude to all on this thread who have worked together to make this happen-- Ramesh, Irihapeti, Aitch, David, and Nathan. It has indeed been an exciting and inspiring process to witness. One in which I myself could but make requests rather than being able to contribute to the actual development itself. But the outcome of the work on this thread has I feel been extremely fruitful, tremendously valuable. Emerging here is a true multilingual Puppy-- offering services of which people the world over with all different generations of computers can avail themselves. Big computers, small computers, new computers, old computers. And one great indication of the attraction of the work being done here, is the fact that there have been 17,337 views! A number which climbs rapidly daily, faster than virtually any other existing thread in the Puppy support forum. And the wondrous fruits of this thread are still unfolding, with new results coming virtually every day. I would push for us to continue moving ahead. And I hope that everyone on this thread including Nathan, will continue to help. Each of your contributions are incredibly valuable, incredibly worthwhile. The result is turning into a fast, multilingual linux distro the likes of which the world may have never seen.

[RR Koothady]

Dear Friends!

A very nice experience to compare spell check tools of TEA and the latest GEANY-"Quillan" that Enrico had provided us and compiled by David yesterday.

I have successfully installed both in Puppy 3.01 but have received errors while installing tamil dictionary and enchant in Puppy 4. Hence the results I am placing it here are from Puppy 3.01 only.

Enrico has worked hard, and his work shines brilliantly. Right clicking over the red-underlined word brings a pop-up panel that suggests the alternative words as well as includes a menu for adding the word to the Dictionary. It is easy to use. My initial impression is this design is OK and can be maintained. What is now necessary is to test the application extensively for its speed and the suggested functions.

TEA installs fast. It identifies the loaded dictionary also. But, personally, I am not very comfortable with its spell check tab design. What one has to do in TEA to spell check goes something like this: Open the Text document. In the menu bar, you see a tab called Functions. Click. You see Spell Checker Languages. If you have installed aspell and your language dictionary, it will be listed under this tab. select it. Then you see 3 more tabs below the Spell Checker Languages tab. Enable the tab called Spell check. Possibly mis-spelt words get underlined in red. Right Clicking over these underlined words does not raise a pop up panel containing the alternative words! to get this panel you will have to click a tab called suggest a Word. Then if you want to add the word to your dictionary, right clicking does not help. Instead you will have to press a tab called Add to Dictionary -listed under the Functions Menu! The design is, at least to me,is very cumbersome.

So, with these first impressions, I am more inclined to vote for Geany than TEA - at present.

Please see the screen shots.

Ramesh

[Swarup]

Rameshji:

Great work! Thanks for the spellchecker descriptions and screenshots. From what you describe, it sounds like the Geany spellchecker is indeed preferable. I shall try and install them now myself and see how well they function.

By the way, are what David refers to as "locale files" needed for the Geany install? I don't recall seeing those the first time round.

Swarup

[Nathan F]

I will update my svn snapshots and recompile Geany and it's spellchecker for Puppy4. Looks like the needed functionality is essentially there.

Let me clarify a little bit. I do understand the need for a spellchecker, and the need to be able to easily update the dictionaries associated with your given language. I would think that it is more essential to have that functionality in a word processor than a text editor, as most people do not use a text editor to prepare documents but to edit code. Of course then there is the exception of writing web pages, which is best done using an editor like Geany or Bluefish.

And I did mention that scim is top of the list. I agree that being able to input text using your native language is essential.

As someone who spends a great deal of time using a text editor for working on code let me just express my preference for Geany. I would go so far as to call it extreme prejudice at this point. The only code I edit with anything else is html/php for which I use Bluefish. I'm not a fan of creating a Puppy variant with Tea in place of Geany. Geany just has so many features that make it invaluable for coding, and every new release shows major improvements and new features.

And yes, I will continue to help. Although, as you may have noticed, my job keeps me from providing daily input and my contributions tend to be a little sporadic.

Nathan

[RR Koothady]

Dear Nathan

Thank you very much for compiling Geany (June 22 version) for us.

I installed it after installing enchant and aspell you have uploaded. I get the following error - in Puppy 4.

The Enchant library couldn't be initialised (Unknown Error).

I get the same error message when installing David muggin's Geany (June 29 version) [in Puppy 4] too.

About your suggestions on language support:

As for work towards translating UI, your observation is absolutely correct. Not much discussion has occurred on this issue in this thread. However, some significant progress has been made in this area also.

1. Translating UI demands 4 works actually.
a) Identifying and installing locale files that will run in Puppy. This was a problem till a few months ago for Puppy in general , as no locale file available in other distros could be used with success in Puppy. However, this was solved by Mark Ulrich, when he brought int Puppy locale fies for many languages from slackware 12.
b) Identifying and Translating the right Windows Manager : All WM and Filer Systems do not render non Latin fonts correctly. Currently puppy uses jwm as its default WM. However, this WM fails to render Indic language fonts correctly. The immediate other option that was before us was ICEWM, which has a major following since mid 2007 here. But that too does not render the Indic fonts correctly.So the next option was Xfce. Xfce WM has entered Puppy only in late 2007. Dragon, Nop, DCE were the Puplets that were released with Xfce WM since then. We have found Xfce rendering Indic fonts correctly. Enlightment, Fluxbox, Gnome, KDE entering into Puppy slowly in the last few months. Mark has even made a ready to use GUI for switching among the Windows Managers - 3 days back. So we are aware and are updating ourselves in this front too.
Xfce, Gnome and KDE has been translated into most languages in many other distros. We have found them useful. however,we have also found them incomplete. Hence the need to translate the untranslated strings. That's where we had found 'no string translatr' available in Puppy. Irihapeti of this thread had compiled poedit successfully 2 days back to solve this issue once and for all in Puppy.
c) Translating applications: We have shortlisted the applications that we use more commonly and have checked whether they could be localised.
d) Translating Puppy base itself. Russpup developers along with Mark have made some headway here. You are making a great effort toward this. We are much delighted about this. This effort means - changing Puppy's Genes from the current 'mono-lingual' into 'multi-lingual' ones. In this front, yes, this thread remains a silent witness till this date. I am 100 percent sure that It will change with your active participation here.


Ramesh

[Nathan F]

Code: Select all

The Enchant library couldn't be initialised (Unknown Error).

You need at least one aspell dictionary installed or it will give that error and crashes. Sorry but I forgot to mention that.

Nathan

[Swarup]

I am trying to install the Aspell-Geany spellchecker as per David's earlier directions. Please excuse my utter ignorance in these matters. I got an error at the ./configure stage, and don't know what to do. Here is what I followed:

1) Download & install the Aspell .pet I've linked to.
2 ) Ditto with the Enchant .pet.
3 ) Then the Geany .pet.
4 ) Download dictionary you want from here & extract it somewhere.
5 ) Just run ./configure & the script should find aspell.
6 ) make
7 ) make install

Everything went find until step (5). I presumed that the ./configure command is to be run in the directory of the specific dictionary. Here is my terminal output:

Code: Select all

# cd /root/my-documents/aspell6-hi-0.02-0
# ./configure
Finding Dictionary file location ... ./configure: line 75: aspell: command not found

Finding Data file location ... ./configure: line 79: aspell: command not found

# 

I'm sure I made some silly mistake. Can someone tell me what it is? Thank you!!

Now, one point: I didn't install the "geany-0.15-locales-i486.pet" yet, as the instructions made no mention of it. Is this something I needed to do? If so, at what stage is it supposed to be installed?