[ooo-build] Openoffice does not share "learned words" with GNOME (libenchant)

[Sitsofe Wheeler]

This would probably require porting OOo to libenchant, I have asked about it on <email address hidden>.

===

Description:

A word "learned" in GNOME during a spellcheck is not automatically ignored in Openoffice.org and vice versea.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Start gedit (by going to Applications -> Accessories -> Text Editor).
2. Type in Sitsofe
3. Go to Tools -> Autocheck Spelling
4. Notice how Sitsofe is underlined in red. Press the right mouse button over it.
5. Go to Spelling Suggestions... -> Add . The red underline should disappear.
6. Close gedit (if a dialog pops up asking if you wish to save changes say Close without Saving).
7. Repeat steps 1 - 3. This time Sitsofe should not be underlined in red. Close gedit again.
8. Start oowriter (Office -> OpenOffice.org2 Writer).
9. Once it is started, type Sitsofe . If it is not selected, push the button ABC with the red underline.

Expected Results:
Sitsofe not to be underlined in red.

Actual Results:
Sitsofe is underlined in red.

Additional information:
I do not mind too much that OOo and GNOME use separate dictionaries for looking typical words but it is a crying shame that words added to either dictionary are not automatically picked up by the other program. I just hope GNOME and KDE share their added words...

[Hidde Brugmans (hcbrugmans-deactivatedaccount)]

This is really a part of the much wider problem that openoffice does barely integrate with gnome at all.

Openoffice has it's own system for dictionaries, languages etc.
I wonder if it's even possible to change this?

[Sitsofe Wheeler (sitsofe)]

I'm not asking for OpenOffice to abandon myspell, rather for OpenOffice to default to using GNOME's aspell learned words as its default learned words dictionary. This should be feasible (but not easy)...

[Lionel Dricot (ploum-deactivatedaccount)]

I suggest that you file this bug in the OpenOffice bug tracker and post here a link to the bug.

I think that Abiword will replace OpenOffice well before this bug will be fixed ;-)

[Paul Dufresne (paulduf)]

Hi! Although I agree with you that
from a user standpoint, this is really
a bug. But I am quite convinced that
from the programmer view, this is
a bit hard to implement, because
of the different spell checkings
implementations.

Actually, I was not even able to have
my gedit have an english or french
dictionary installed (I tried to install
aspell, ispell, with iamerican and ifrench).

So I looked for the GNOME Gedit page
at: http://www.gnome.org/projects/gedit/
and the associated bugs, and found
this bug that have a patch to have
gedit spell checker use Enchant, that
wish to integrate the different spell
checkers technology:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=316031

Unfortunately, the spell checker is
a plugin in Gedit, and, reading this
message, I see that they are totally changing their internal technology
for plugins (don't know how much
advance this is). See:
http://live.gnome.org/Gedit_2fNewMdi

So, briefly, I permit myself to change
the severity of this bug from normal
to wishlist. I indeed wish
that adding a word in one editor's
dictionary, an other editor's dictionary would find it too (for the same language).
it.

[Sitsofe Wheeler (sitsofe)]

Sounds like the Fedora folks are trying to solve this problem by making program's use one set of dictionaries:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureDictionary

[Sitsofe Wheeler (sitsofe)]

Still here in Gutsy. I tested between Evolution, Gedit and OOo. Evolution and Gedit seem to share learned words but OOo does not.

Version information:
Ubuntu Gutsy
evolution 2.11.91-0ubuntu1
openoffice.org 2.3.0~src680m224-1ubuntu2
gedit 2.19.91-0ubuntu1

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

There is potential to change libenchant to default to hunspell which would correct this problem since OOo uses hunspell.

[Sitsofe Wheeler (sitsofe)]

I've just noticed that there is a blueprint on this https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/consolidate-spell-checkers/ ...

[Sitsofe Wheeler (sitsofe)]

Still here in Hardy (gedit / oowriter).

Version information:
Ubuntu hardy (development branch)
openoffice.org-writer 1:2.4.0~rc2-1ubuntu3
gedit 2.22.0-0ubuntu1

[Sitsofe Wheeler (sitsofe)]

Still here in Karmic (gedit / oowriter).

Version information:
Ubuntu 9.10 (karmic)
openoffice.org-writer 1:3.1.1-5ubuntu1
gedit 2.28.0-0ubuntu2

I have a feeling this problem has been solved in Fedora...

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

Sitsofe, If it has actually been solved in Fedora please let me know as I will need to find out what patches they have that they haven't contributed back to upstream (or ooo-build) yet.

[Sitsofe Wheeler (sitsofe)]

It certainly does look like its been solved in Fedora (at some point in 2008) if you look at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureDictionary . The change sounds like it is quite pervasive across the distribution too (so it didn't just fix OOo).

[Sitsofe Wheeler (sitsofe)]

Having just tested my previous comment this does not appear to be the case. While many applications are sharing the spell checking engines, they do not appear to be sharing learned words (certainly OOo and gedit were not sharing their learned words and a quick grep showed the learned words were going to different files).

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

Ok, yea I knew about their dictionary integration and didn't see how that could have possibly helped share learned words from OOo, but thanks for verifying that for me.

[Sitsofe Wheeler (sitsofe)]

OK further experimentation on Fedora 12 says that abiword, Gnote and Evolution will all share their learned words with each other (~/.config/enchant/en_GB.dic). gedit will also use the aforementioned learned word file but seems to have a bug where it will overwrite that file with only words gedit has learned. vim uses its own learned words file which has to be manually configured. Empathy will not use any learned words file and cannot add to any learned words file. OpenOffice uses its own learned words file. Firefox uses its own learned words file.

On a Slackware 13.0 I notice pidgin puts its learned words in the same place as abiword et al. Inkscape put learned words into ~/.aspell.en.pws .

[Björn Michaelsen (bjoern-michaelsen)]

[This is an automated message.]
There are no new official OpenOffice.org releases in Ubuntu packaging anymore => Won't Fix

If the problem persists, please mark this bug as "also affects project Libreoffice" or "also affects distribution Libreoffice (Ubuntu)" if that has not happened already.

Please leave references to upstream OpenOffice.org bugs in place to allow cross pollination.