Trouble installing SCIM m17n in Puppy 3.01

[Swarup]

Nathan:

...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.

Very true. The problem is that Aspell doesn't work with OOo Writer, and SCIM(m17n) doesn't work with Abiword. So those who use m17n don't have any word processor in which both their language input method and their spellchecker work. That leaves us for now with a text editor. As a redeeming point, text editors do at least have certain advantages regarding speed and simplicity, over the word processors. So we take comfort in that.

[Nathan F]

Ah, I see. Forgive me for not reading all the way through the thread and finding that out for myself. That is a very serious flaw with Abiword that is going to have to be addressed. As for OOo writer, is there a problem with the included spellchecker? I wouldn't know, since I only ever use it in English and then only rarely. Again please forgive my ignorance on the subject. Any idea if Koffice has any of these issues?

Also, I have updated my Geany .pets to the latest svn revision (latest as of a couple hours ago). They are in the same location I linked to in my earlier post. This is the version of the spellchecker that brings up the right click menu with suggested words and the option of adding to the dictionary.

Nathan

[muggins]

Swarup,

the locale files are important for programs to display in your local language. Unfortunately, neither tea or geany have any Indian locales, probably because, as you mentioned previously, English is a second language in India. Another factor being that it's up to people conversant in the language to translate these, which is why Ramesh is probably so happy at having a working poedit. (As an aside, where are all of our Indian programmers? They can't all be working for Msoft & silicon valley!)

Ramesh,

it's odd that enchant isn't working for you. Have you installed this one? If you enter enchant in a console, do you get any errors? I'll try, later, rebooting into a fresh pup4, and see whether I have any probs.

[muggins]

Swarup,

regarding problems installing the aspell dictionary, did you install the aspell .pet before trying to install the dictionary. If you enter aspell in a console, what response do you get?

[RR Koothady]

Dear Nathan,

Thanks for the Geany update.

May I make a small correction with what Swarup has said on SCIM support to word processors?

Actually, SCIM (m17n and scim-bridge) works with Abiword. That is you will be able to type in Hindi or Malayalam in it directly using SCIM. However, Abiword fails to render Indic fonts correctly and there are many bugs related with this. Aspell works with Abiword, but what is its use when the fonts are not rendered properly by it? So, at the present juncture, Abiword remains of less use to us (I mean for the Indic users at least).

Oo works with SCIM (bth m17n and scim-bridge). But it does not use Aspell. It uses myspell and Hunspell (based on myspell). We are yet to try these two spell checkers.

KWord is now available independent of the KDE WM for puppy as an SFS file. However, we need to compile SKIM to make it work. We are yet to attempt this. I do not know whether KWord or any other component of KOffice will work with SKIM without the presence of KDE WM - that is in JWM or in Xfce. This is something that remains to be explored.

So, we are left with Text Editors. They are small and fast. And, to make a book we do not need a Word Processor. A Text Editor + a Page Making Application (Scribus, Passepartout) would be the right and ideal combination for the job.

On this, we have discussed in this thread - even the politics behind the policy that promotes Word Processors... We finally thought, because of these discussions and of course Praxis, "Text Editors + Page Making Application" would be our priority. (We, however have not dropped Word Processors all together. Only that, our concentration on them have decreased as for now.)

When we defined this objective to find an ideal Text Editor + Page Making application, we had stumbled upon twin issues. Text Editors did not have a convenient spell check plugin and that Scribus was qt based. At that time (that is 20 days back) we did not have a SCIM with qt compatibility. Irihapeti and David muggins set out for solving this puzzle. This was solved a few days back, and we now have qt-4 compatible Scribus for Puppy-2, 3 and also 4. As a sidetrack, Irihapeti had compiled and tested Passepartout - the GTK based Page Making application, but it never came close to Scribus and so we bid goodbye for this application. It was because of this effort, much experience has now been accumulated in compiling apps with qt-4 toolkit in Puppy. However, we are having trouble in compiling apps with qt-3 toolkit, especially for Puppy 3. It is here, we request your august presence.

With Scribus issue settled almost, we are now concentrating on the other side of the coin - namely - getting a spell check enabled Text Editor. The rest you know.

Ramesh

..................................

David: I have installed enchant. I get the following response when I type enchant in the console (Please see the screen shot):

In Puppy 4, I am unable to install aspell tamil dictionary. I get the following error (however, this error does not occur in Puppy 3) :

[RR Koothady]

As an aside, where are all of our Indian programmers? They can't all be working for Msoft & silicon valley!

David!

They are - 99% . They have left us - the commoners - and have forced us to find our own way.

You have touched a very deep raw wound Buddy. My heart aches....

Ramesh

[Irihapeti]

Then let us take heart from the fact that the "commoners" seem to doing remarkably well without them.

[Swarup]

David:

regarding problems installing the aspell dictionary, did you install the aspell .pet before trying to install the dictionary. If you enter aspell in a console, what response do you get?

Yes, I installed the aspell.pet before trying to install the dictionary. Absolutely. I followed all the steps you gave carefully. The odd thing is that if I enter "aspell" in a console, I get the following output:

Code: Select all

# aspell
bash: aspell: command not found
# 

And if I go back to the aspell.pet and click again to install it, then I get the message:

Welcome! You have chosen package aspell-0.60.6
WARNING: Package 'aspell' is already installed!

So now what do I do? Should I click "install" to reinstall it, even though it says it is already there? I never quite know what to do in this situation in Puppy, in which a package is installed but not working for some reason. There is no command for uninstalling it, and I don't know whether to try re-installing it over a pre-existing install of the same package. Is there any harm in trying?

Swarup

add: I just tried doing the install of aspell.pet again. Again it gave me the same message that it has successfully installed. And again when I type "aspell" in the console, it tells me "bash: aspell: command not found". I did download the "aspell" you said to download for pup3. What else could the problem be?

note: at the download site for aspell (the one you gave for use in this install with pup3) there was the window for selecting to download the aspell.pet, and then there was also some folder on the screen that said something like "pup3". I didn't know what that folder was, and didn't touch it. I just downloaded the aspell. Was I supposed to do something with that "pup3" folder?

[Aitch]

[quote="Irihapeti"]Ruia taitea, kia tū k

[muggins]

Swarup,

I can only imagine that the .pet is getting corrupted during download. But if that was the case you would receive an error trying to install it. Try renaming the .pet to aspell-0.60.6.tgz, extract it to a temporary location, then copy across the contained aspell-0.60.6/usr directory to /.

It's funny that you're having probs with pup3, whereas Ramesh with the pup4 version.

Ramesh,

to install the aspell dictionary, because it requires ./configure, make & make install, you have to have the devx file for your pupversion. Otherwise, pm me the link to the dictionary you want & I'll gzip it for you.

[Nathan F]

Ramesh -

Thanks for the excellent summary and getting me up to date. I can see a little better now how best to help. I'll work on the following (for pup4) -

• Making easy to intall packages for various aspell dictionaries (requests welcome)
  Time permitting I'll try to get SKIM working
  I can try my hand at compiling qt3 apps that others are having trouble with. Again, requests welcome.

Regarding Kword, there should be no problem running it or any other KDE application using another WM. There is still a lot of overhead just with the KDE libraries and other libs that Koffice requires, so it is not a good solution to include in a Puppy style live cd, but it should be possible to create a usable package in either .pet format or as a squashfile, or perhaps both.

I am not all that knowledgeable with C/gtk+ programming so I can't do much about the problems with Abiword, but my suggestion is that someone search the Abiword bugtracker to see if the bugs you see have already been reported, and if not then to report them there. Their bugtracker is at http://bugzilla.abisource.com/. This needs to be brought to their attention if it is not already. I assume that the fonts in question are rendering OK in other gtk+ applications?

Nathan

[RR Koothady]

Dear Swarupji,

Sorry for this delayed input. I am uploading the Hindi aspell-enchant pre-installed Geany SFS file (3.391 MB) for your perusal:

Link: http://rapidshare.com/files/126131089/G ... 1.sfs.html

Place it in the drive where your xxxx.2fs file remains. Go to Menu ---- System ---- Boot Manager configure boot up --- Click Choose which extra sfs... Load Geany sfs ----- Uncheck "Ignore above user selection..." Reboot. You will find Geany listed at --- Menu ---- Document.

Once inside Geany --- Tools --- Plug in manager -- check Spell Check ---- Preferences --- Choose hi

You are now ready for a spectacular journey.

Thanks to David and Nathan F and of course to our dear Enrico!

May I now post a Hindi Spell Check screen shot using this sfs?

You may inform Gora Mohanty. She will be happy to see our progress.

Ramesh

[RR Koothady]

Dear Irihapeti and Aitch,

The magic potion that you had given me has cured my the deep seated wound instantaneously and I am now heart ache free. Your services are highly satisfying and health giving. Thank You very much.

David,

What a fool I was! You had correctly pointed out the absence of devx_400.sfs. I downloaded it and both your and Nathan's Geany compilations work perfectly in Puppy 4 also. Thank You.

Dear Nathan

What a wonderful day!

A million welcome and thanks from all of us here to you Master, for joining us in this thread!

Ramesh

[Aitch]

It's that Geany (gini/genie - run a spellcheck for me, would you )

I only posted him yesterday & look what is happening

He works in mysterious ways, it is said


Even Lobster has had a prescence

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=30858

Thank you, Master

seconded

Aitch

[Irihapeti]

Nathan F:

I know you have said that you would help compile qt3 packages for Pup4. However, I'd like to make a request for Pup3 if that's possible.

I have a thread here:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=30773
in which I outline problems I'm having getting stuff to compile in Pup3. I'd like to get this solved if possible.

As one of the keys to qt3 scim support appears to be having a version compiled on the OS in question, I believe it's important to have a (immodule-patched) version of qt3 compiled on Pup3, plus the immodule to go with it.

However, if the general consensus is that we drop qt3 support and concentrate on qt4, I'm happy to go with that. Do we have that consensus yet, though?

A suggestion I have is to begin assembling a list of qt3 applications that are important. Once we have some specifics, we can then look at whether they will port easily or at least have other acceptable alternatives.

Irihapeti

[Swarup]

Rameshji:

You always save me when I need it most! Thank you!

I installed the .sfs as you instructed, and sure enough, the spellchecker appears there in tools -> plugin manager. I selected the "hi" dictionary in preferences, and checked the box for "check spelling as you type". Yet alas! For some reason it is not checking the spelling as I type. In order to get the red underlining for misspelled words to appear, after typing something I have to go back to the tools drop-down menu, within which the last option is "Spell Check". Upon selecting that, there are three options (hi, ta, tr) and if I select "hi", then it checks all I have typed thus far. But even then, it does not go on to check what I will type from then on. Until I go back to the tools drop-down menu and again select "spell check -> hi". And when it spell checks, then it opens the message window at the bottom of the screen and puts options there for each error. If I right click on the mistakenly spelled word, it does give the list of words options there at the end of which is the option to add the word to the dictionary.

So everything seems to be there except that the feature to spellcheck as I type is not functioning.

I assume you found this spellcheck-as-you-type to be working? If so, could the reason mine is not, be because I had already done part of the install using David's directions in this same pup_save? I can try installing it in a fresh pup_save and see if it works any better.

Swarup

add: Just created a fresh pup_save and tried it there, but it does the same thing. That is, no spellchecking as you type.

And if you manually request it to spellcheck what you've done, then it underlines in red and opens the messages window to offer suggestions.

[Swarup]

However, if the general consensus is that we drop qt3 support and concentrate on qt4, I'm happy to go with that. Do we have that consensus yet, though?

As far as I know, Portabase is not yet working with qt4. Only qt3. Although Jeremy wrote that he hopes to set it up with qt4 this month, but it is not yet done.

[RR Koothady]

Irihapeti

I personally feel that this is not on issue that may be decided based on consensus.I think it is dependent on whether we will be able to port some important applications to qt-4. If we can not port these apps to qt-4, we simply do not have the choice to abandon qt-3, do we?

Swarupji,

That's a wonderful result to share with our dear Enrico. By the way, did you enable the "Check spelling while typing" in the preferences" dialog appearing while you check the "Spell Check" under the Plug in tab? Describe what happens actually, and what exactly is expected or required. Share this with us and then pass it onto Enrico. I think this is the last step and Enrico will solve it once and for all.

One other word: Did you check "Add to Dictionary"? Is it working? Describe that also.

We are in the testing phase and so no need to panic.

Best

Ramesh

[Swarup]

Rameshji:

I have one main question: does the realtime "spell-check while typing" (continous spellchecker [csc]) feature work on your computer? Somehow I got the sense from the way you described your findings yesterday, that it is working on your computer. And if that is the case, then it sounds like the problem is in my computer and not with Enrico's code. So this a critical matter, that whether the csc is working on some of our computers, or whether it is working on no one's computer.

...did you enable the "Check spelling while typing" in the preferences" dialog appearing while you check the "Spell Check" under the Plug in tab?

Yes.

Describe what happens actually, and what exactly is expected or required. Share this with us and then pass it onto Enrico.

After doing all the required steps as you gave them, when I type in Hindi, nothing happens when I write an intentionally wrongly spelled word or even when I write a totally made-up word. There is no indication whatsoever that the spellchecker is acitve. What is expected is that upon completing any wrongly spelled word, the word will immediately and spontaneously develop a red line under it. But that is not happening.

I should not have to request the spellchecker to check. It should do so automatically, on its own.

One other word: Did you check "Add to Dictionary"? Is it working? Describe that also.

I am not in the Puppy partition at the moment. Will go there shortly and test it as you suggest.

[Irihapeti]

Irihapeti

I personally feel that this is not on issue that may be decided based on consensus.I think it is dependent on whether we will be able to port some important applications to qt-4. If we can not port these apps to qt-4, we simply do not have the choice to abandon qt-3, do we?

My mistake - "consensus" was a poor choice of word. Perhaps "professional assessment" is nearer the mark. What I meant was: do we have enough information to decide on a best way forward?

To make a sensible decision we need to know which qt programs are affected. Swarup has already mentioned Portabase as having no qt4 version yet. What other programs does anyone wish to add to the list?

Irihapeti