Re: [libreoffice-users] Feature Request - Categories for special characters

On Sat, 16 Nov 2013 17:35:05 +0000
jonathon <toki.kantoor@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/15/2013 10:17 PM, Paul wrote:
>
> > That still doesn't make any sense. What is this theoretical 2000
> > page maximum?
>
> Unicode allows for  1,114,112 different glyphs, excluding variants.
> with variants, you are looking at roughly 1,750,000 glyphs.
And so... how does this relate to 2000 pages? Or are you saying this
would all fit on about 2000 pages? And if so, what's the 25000 pages
about?

> > And why would the glyph's position be known?
>
> Taking, thorn, for example, with the current setup, one knows to look
> in the Runic range.
You might, but that doesn't mean everybody does. Especially when it is
some half-remembered symbol from university physics you are looking
for. Or one seen in some article that you are trying to duplicate.

> when the sub-range is at the whim of a programmer, it could be
> literally anywhere.
Sure, but the assumption is that it is easier to find a glyph by usage
than by name. Say for example U+2126 ("Ω"). Looks a lot like an ohm to
me. But I found it under "Letterlike Symbols". How on earth would I
know to look under "Letterlike Symbols" if I was writing a quick
document about some wiring, and needed to note the wire's resistance.
Surely it would make more sense to look under "Electrical Symbols"?

> > And why would a filter on the special characters mean that you
> > suddenly need to search through 25000 pages? You would need to
> > search through *less* characters, not more, because you have
> > filtered the list to only show a subset.
>
> The claim is that the  current filters are inadequate. Thus, the need
> to dummy it down, so that it is less efficient, more time consuming,
> and awkward to use.
Why on earth would I want to make it *more* complex if it is too
dificult as it is? I can see you clearly don't understand the
suggestion.

> But because less glyphs are displayed, Joe Sixpack thinks it is
> easier to use.
Exactly. So useful for Joe Sixpack, if not for you.

See, it's like this. Currently, you can choose a font, and once you've
done that, you get a list of subsections. The full list of characters
is displayed, but the subsections dropdown allows you to move around in
that quickly *if* you know which subsection your glyph is in. If you
don't, you have a large list to scroll through.

What I'm proposing is another dropdown, let's call it "filters", that
would allow you to display only the glyphs that belong in that filter.
And someone could design a set of filters, let's say an xml file for
each filter, giving the filter name and the list of unicode characters
that belong in that filter. Somewhere LO looks in a folder for all
these xml files, and populates the filter dropdown with the names of
all the filters. By default "All" is selected, so you see all the
characters in the Special Characters dialog, just as now. If you don't
want to use filters, don't change anything, and it will work just the
same. If you know, however, that you need the ohm symbol, but don't
know where to find it, you can change the filter dropdown to
"Electrical Symbols", and the subsection dropdown will go blank, and
the list of characters will only show those characters that are defined
in the xml file as belonging to electrical symbols, making ohm easier to
find. And if the font you have chosen doesn't have the ohm sign, it
just won't be in the list of characters in the dialog, at least not
until you change font. Or better yet it will have a red cross in that
box to show the font doesn't include that symbol. And if your font is
webdings or whatever, and the character for ohm doesn't look like an
ohm, then you will get a pumpkin, or whatever, instead of an ohm.

This way there is minimal change to the dialog, no difference in usage
if you don't want a difference in usage, and an easy to use filter
system if you want it. And filters are easy to add. Just drop in a new
xml file into the correct folder under the LO installation. LO could by
default come with some common ones, and anybody could make their own
and share them. If the LO ones do what you need, no worries, if not, go
look for some custom ones that are more complete than the LO ones, or
cover other categories, or roll your own.

Now does that really sound like it would be *more* complex? Would it
make the number of pages go from 2000 to 25000? Would it leave you at
the whim of the programmer?

I don't think so.

Paul

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