Feature request: Learning soft hyphen

Feature requests, and in-depth discussions of features and the way Mellel works

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Would you like a “learning hyphen” as described below?

No, Mellel hyphenates just fine for me.
2
9%
No, I’m happy with the current interface.
5
22%
Yes.
16
70%
 
Total votes: 23

zoul
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Feature request: Learning soft hyphen

Post by zoul »

Quite frequently I find myself adding new hyphenation points to the dictionary, which currently requires opening the preferences, pressing the Add button and entering the whole hyphenation pattern. I would like to have a better way to add new hyphenation points to the dictionary, a “learning soft hyphen”. This hyphen would work just as the ordinary soft hyphen does (= break the word if necessary), but would also add the hyphenated word to the user hyphenation dictionary.

Example: Let’s say I have the word “nejoblibenejsi” and Mellel fails to hyphenate it. I put the cursor right after the “nej” prefix, press some keyboard shortcut (or select Insert>Special characters>Hyphen & Dash>Learning hyphen) and the pattern “nej-oblibenejsi” would be added to the user dictionary.

The learning hyphen would have to be smart enough to join the patterns created from the same word – if I use the learning hyphen to insert the “nej-oblibenejsi” and subsequently use it to break “nejoblibe-nejsi”, the “nej-oblibe-nejsi” pattern would show up in the list instead of the two previous patterns.

This would probably work together with the current interface, but has the advantage of not having to leave the keyboard.
macsailor
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Post by macsailor »

Maybe this could be done by selecting the word that you would like to hyphenate and apply the action with the help of a »learning soft hyphen« palette at the right side of the screen.

Or maybe this could be done by using a new contextual menu directly within the text in the document?
Peter Edwardsson
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zoul
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Post by zoul »

I’d like to be able to do it without leaving the keyboard, which means no palettes and no menus (or palettes and menus BUT with a good keyboard shortcut right out of the box).
macsailor
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Post by macsailor »

zoul wrote:I’d like to be able to do it without leaving the keyboard, which means no palettes and no menus (or palettes and menus BUT with a good keyboard shortcut right out of the box).
Let's be generous. Why not let the users choose between several options (keyboard, menus and palettes) and use whatever is most fitting to accomplish the task for the time being?

I do not believe in an one-party system, not even while using a word processor. :)
Peter Edwardsson
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zoul
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Post by zoul »

macsailor wrote:Let's be generous. Why not let the users choose between several options (keyboard, menus and palettes) and use whatever is most fitting to accomplish the task for the time being?
Sure sure sure, I just wanted to stress that this would have to be accessible by keyboard shortcut to do what I want :)
macsailor
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Post by macsailor »

I agree with you, that sometimes (or maybe most times) it's quicker to use keyboard shortcuts than using palettes or menus.

If I have not totally forgotten, I used to use keyboard shortcuts a lot while using WordPerfect for Mac in the early 90s.
Peter Edwardsson
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Mart°n
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Re: Feature request: Learning soft hyphen

Post by Mart°n »

zoul wrote:Quite frequently I find myself adding new hyphenation points to the dictionary, which currently requires opening the preferences, pressing the Add button and entering the whole hyphenation pattern. I would like to have a better way to add new hyphenation points to the dictionary, a “learning soft hyphen”.
Could you give an example what “frequently” means in numbers?
I agree, that adding a hyphenation rule is a quite complex task at the moment but I’m not sure, if it jusifies a extra option in Mellel. It would be (IMHO) better to invest some time (and I think of more than just one person) to improve the hypenation dictionaries so that all users could benefit from that work and you don’t have to add hyphenation rules when you write. That’s also the reason why there are hyphenation dictionaries. Mellel should do the work and not every single user.

Adding a learning-soft-hyphen looks like adding a interface (and even a menu entry with a shortcut is a interface) for a workaround.
zoul
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Re: Feature request: Learning soft hyphen

Post by zoul »

Mart°n wrote:Could you give an example what “frequently” means in numbers?
So frequently that the current interface gets in my way. (Sorry, no numbers. Usually it’s once or twice a page? Rough estimate.)
Mart°n wrote:It would be (IMHO) better to invest some time (and I think of more than just one person) to improve the hypenation dictionaries so that all users could benefit from that work and you don’t have to add hyphenation rules when you write.
You’re right, but will that work? I guess that creating or updating the hyphenation dictionary is harder than simply inserting a pattern into the user hyphenation list.
Mart°n wrote:Adding a learning-soft-hyphen looks like adding a interface (and even a menu entry with a shortcut is a interface) for a workaround.
There’s already an interface for what I want, I just want it to be faster. A better hyphenation dictionary would be better, but it would also require much more time and effort – in the meantime the learning hyphen would be handy.
Mart°n
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Re: Feature request: Learning soft hyphen

Post by Mart°n »

zoul wrote:
Mart°n wrote:It would be (IMHO) better to invest some time (and I think of more than just one person) to improve the hypenation dictionaries so that all users could benefit from that work and you don’t have to add hyphenation rules when you write.
You’re right, but will that work? I guess that creating or updating the hyphenation dictionary is harder than simply inserting a pattern into the user hyphenation list.
Updating the dictionary may or will be harder, but as the work may be shared among some people, it maybe won’t hurt that much. There’s a point when the dictionaries are good enought for most people (I wouldn’t use the word perfect) so that custom hyphenation rules aren’t necessary anymore.
zoul wrote:
Mart°n wrote:Adding a learning-soft-hyphen looks like adding a interface (and even a menu entry with a shortcut is a interface) for a workaround.
There’s already an interface for what I want, I just want it to be faster. A better hyphenation dictionary would be better, but it would also require much more time and effort – in the meantime the learning hyphen would be handy.
I think you’re right and only disagree on the “much more time and effort”. If you take not only your time but the time of all Mellel users using the same hyphenation dictionary, I think it’s a real waste of time to not improve them but let all users create the missing hyphenation rules by themselves.

In addition to a way to create hyphenation rules more easily (via the learing hyphen or an other way) I would like to see a Submit button within the hypenation preferences, so that all users could submit their rules to the redlers where they could be reviewed and added to the next version of Mellel so that the dictionaries improve over time.
A new version of Mellel should then check if some of the manually entered rules are part of the new dictionary and delete them from the User Dictionary.
Ori Redler
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Re: Feature request: Learning soft hyphen

Post by Ori Redler »

zoul wrote:Quite frequently I find myself adding new hyphenation points to the dictionary, which currently requires opening the preferences, pressing the Add button and entering the whole hyphenation pattern. I would like to have a better way to add new hyphenation points to the dictionary, a “learning soft hyphen”. This hyphen would work just as the ordinary soft hyphen does (= break the word if necessary), but would also add the hyphenated word to the user hyphenation dictionary.

Example: Let’s say I have the word “nejoblibenejsi” and Mellel fails to hyphenate it. I put the cursor right after the “nej” prefix, press some keyboard shortcut (or select Insert>Special characters>Hyphen & Dash>Learning hyphen) and the pattern “nej-oblibenejsi” would be added to the user dictionary.

The learning hyphen would have to be smart enough to join the patterns created from the same word – if I use the learning hyphen to insert the “nej-oblibenejsi” and subsequently use it to break “nejoblibe-nejsi”, the “nej-oblibe-nejsi” pattern would show up in the list instead of the two previous patterns.

This would probably work together with the current interface, but has the advantage of not having to leave the keyboard.
Do you mean that once, twice, thrice you enter a soft hyphen Mellel will wise up and learn the pattern? That does not seem to be something Mellel could ever do. The personal hyphenation dictionary is just a list of exceptions.
Ori Redler from RedleX
Mart°n
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Re: Feature request: Learning soft hyphen

Post by Mart°n »

Ori Redler wrote: Do you mean that once, twice, thrice you enter a soft hyphen Mellel will wise up and learn the pattern?
I think he doesn’t have meant that. As I understand it, the “learning soft hyphen” is a new hyphen added to the current one.
Insert › Special Characters › Hyphen & Dash › Learning Soft Hyphen (Command + Shift + hyphen)
Only if you use those new hyphen (which isn’t currently there), the hyphenated word will be added as a new entry to the Hyphenation User Dictionary.

The user dictionary itself should then be smart enough to combine all the added rules, as he has explained. If the word pull-over and the word pullo-ver are entered into the dictionary (either manually or via the learning hyphen option), they should be combined to pull-o-ver automatically.
zoul
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Post by zoul »

Thanks, Mart°n, that’s exactly it.
Mart°n wrote:Updating the dictionary may or will be harder, but as the work may be shared among some people, it maybe won’t hurt that much. There’s a point when the dictionaries are good enought for most people (I wouldn’t use the word perfect) so that custom hyphenation rules aren’t necessary anymore.
I think that making a general hyphenation rule is different from simply inserting a pattern into the user hyphenation list. In Czech one word can have many variants that cannot be represented by a single pattern – “he does not listen” is “neposlouchá”, but “they do not listen” is “neposlouchají”. Recording all variants of the word would take time. (I am not at all saying this would not be possible, I am just trying to figure how much feasible it would be.)

And more, what about the languages with little users? I’m using Mellel to write Czech translations, which means that (1) I am using a language that is not used by many users and therefore would take LONG to get a decent dictionary for it by volunteering and (2) I am using words that most of the other czech users probably do not.

(Please note that I am not favoring my solution to Yours – I agree that having better dictionaries would be a better solution. But in the meantime the learning hyphen would help me a lot :)
sophiahussain

Post by sophiahussain »

is it okay if I put up an animated avatar on my profile?
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