Spell checking more than one language in Firefox

[Lex Ross]

Binary package hint: firefox

After upgrading to Ubuntu 10.10 x64 with Firefox 3.6.10 I lost Firefox capability to spell check for multiple languages in text forms. This is very annoying as I use two or three different languages in a single form when composing emails for example, and also switch between tabs/firefox windows to fill out forms in different languages, and now I have to switch between dictionaries back and forth. Never was an issue before.

There is a need to set up multiple dictionaries/languages to be used at once for seamless spell check on a text form. Am I missing something?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: firefox 3.6.10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-22.34-generic 2.6.35.4
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-22-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Oct 18 21:59:46 2010
FirefoxPackages:
 firefox 3.6.10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu3
 firefox-gnome-support 3.6.10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu3
 firefox-branding 3.6.10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu3
 abroswer N/A
 abrowser-branding N/A
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100429)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=ru_RU.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox

[André Pirard (a.pirard)]

I flagged your report as "affecting me".
I had a similar report of mine ready to post but it's different enough for being a separate Bug #669141.
Yours affects only Firefox and mine all spelling-checking applications.
It may bring you some light.

I have a question for you.
What is/was the procedure to have Firefox check several languages? (What do you click etc...)
Is multi-checking available for other programs?

[Sodki (henrique-rodrigues)]

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.12) Gecko/20101027 Ubuntu/10.10 (maverick) Firefox/3.6.12
Build Identifier:

Thunderbird's spell checker only allows a single language to be selected at a time. On the other hand, Evolution has an elegant way to allow the user to select multiple languages for spell-checking:

1. In Evolution's options, we have a list of all the installed dictionaries. We then select which dictionaries we want, using checkboxes;
2. When we are composing an e-mail using spell-check, Evolution uses all the selected dictionaries to find a match for words;
3. When we right-click on a marked word, we get a menu for each of the selected languages, each with their own suggestions.

This would be a simple, yet great addition to Thunderbird, since many of us users are multilingual and use terms in another language (mostly English) in our normal writing.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Configure Thunderbird to use Portuguese spell-checking
2. Write an e-mail in Portuguese with some English words

Actual Results:
See the English words marked by the spell-checker

Expected Results:
1. Configure Thunderbird to use Portuguese and English spell-checking
2. Write an e-mail in Portuguese with some English words
3. See that all the words are recognized by the spell-checker

[Jo-hermans (jo-hermans)]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 69687 ***

[Reply2discussion (reply2discussion)]

I don't think this is a duplicate of bug 69687.
If to read 69687 the goal of that bug is to support multiple
spell dictionaries but not at the same time.

Support of two or more spell dictionaries at the same time
is addressed in this bug.
Please consider reopening of this bug.

Furthermore, this is a new feature proposal for all Mozilla applications
supporting spelling checks.

[Sodki (henrique-rodrigues)]

I think you're right, so I'll reopen it.

[Jo-hermans (jo-hermans)]

Do whatever you want, but so far all similar bugs were duped to that one. De-duping will not help you get this fixed, if you're not able to support multiple dictionaries ta the same time. The exact mechanism how this would work (sequential dictionary testing, auto-detect, the lang-attribute or whatever method is used) is something else.

[Yotam Benshalom (benshalom)]

As a professional translator who works with many languages, I join this request. I do not want Thunderbird to claim that a text is incorrect when its own spell checkers should know that it s.

[André Pirard (a.pirard)]

Please note that many people consider multilingual spelling a key feature of a spell checker.
Please note that only Evolution allows check marking several languages.

[André Pirard (a.pirard)]

Check this for checking several languages simultaneously
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=660506

[André Pirard (a.pirard)]

It looks like most problems that users report with repeatedly choosing ONE spell checking language would be satisfactorily solved if the user could once for all setup SEVERAL dictionaries to be used SIMULTANEOUSLY for the languages he can write, among those installed on his system. That is especially needed for e-mail since many people write them in several languages (and that's the way Evolution does it).
It seems fairly simple to do, see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=676500

[Vseerror (vseerror)]

(In reply to 2t2 from comment #2)
> I don't think this is a duplicate of bug 69687.
> If to read 69687 the goal of that bug is to support multiple
> spell dictionaries but not at the same time.

I don't see how this is not a dupe of bug 69687.

Bug 69687 IS most certainly all about "at the same time".
For all mozilla apps, not just thunderbird or just firefox.
Are there other arguments to not dupe to 69687?

Furthermore, the key discussion is or probably will be occurring there (though there is relevant activity in bug 676500)

[Acelists (acelists)]

Dupe against 481884 that is more specific than bug 69687? See bug 481884 comment 10 for why not dupe against 69687.

[manouchk (manouchk)]

I'm affected to. I heard that midori also can have multilingual correction. Trying it maybe.

[Jacob Hjort Bundgaard (kimsey0)]

This has been implemented in Google Chrome as described in https://plus.google.com/u/0/+FrancoisBeaufort/posts/5d56cbKjhLG. The code can be seen at https://codereview.chromium.org/1300213002.

[Ben-bucksch (ben-bucksch)]

Problem:
I routinely write emails in 3 different languages. They are all mixed: one email in English, another in German, and some in French. In some cases, I even write 2 different languages to the same person, depending on who else is or was involved in the thread, or depending on the subject.

Importance:
The problem arises for all users who speak several languages. E.g. they speak their local language with their friends, and English with international correspondents. In other words, this bug is important for all international communication (unless your native language happens to be English).

Non-solutions:
I cannot specify the language for each email. That costs too much time, and I'll rather ignore the spell-checker altogether.

Solution:
The only solution is to once - as a configuration - select a number of languages that I know how to write, and then to allow all words in these languages.

This is what Android keyboard does as well.

Out of scope:
If we can automatically detect the language that the user writes, that would be nice, but that would be another bug, an enhancement on top of this bug here.

Etiquette:
*****************************************************
*** Comments from end-users are not allowed here. ***
*****************************************************
These should be posted in bug 69687 instead, as they would be distracting here. Thanks for your understanding. This is an engineering implementation bug. But if you are waiting for this feature and want it to be implemented fast, please vote for this bug here.

[Dawid M. (dawid.mlyn)]

Just to add my two cents and share some user experience... Constant-manual-language-switching is getting so annoying, that I started to consider either turning spell checks off completely in Firefox, or switching to Chrome. I was trying to deal with it, until I was using mainly Polish and English (+ some Spanish or German from time to time). But 3 years ago I met my future wife from Slovakia, and this year we got married. Switching between 3 languages is really tedious work... Plus I'm still learning Slovak, and she is learning Polish, so in communication between us we mix all 3 languages quite frequently if not constantly... ;]

[Gingerbread-man-2 (gingerbread-man-2)]

How does this differ from bug 481884 that you haven't touched since 2014?

(In reply to Ben Bucksch (:BenB) from comment #0)
> If we can automatically detect the language that the user writes, that would
> be nice, but that would be another bug

Bug 1203024

> *** Comments from end-users are not allowed here. ***

You can ask someone with the right privileges to restrict comments.

[Gingerbread-man-2 (gingerbread-man-2)]

*** Bug 481884 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Gingerbread-man-2 (gingerbread-man-2)]

*** Bug 557621 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Gingerbread-man-2 (gingerbread-man-2)]

*** Bug 693831 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Alexander Popov (alexwayfer)]

> Duplicate of this bug: 481884

Is the older bug duplicate newer? Okay...

[Jmathies (jmathies)]

*** Bug 481884 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Alexander Popov (alexwayfer)]

Is it duplicate of https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69687?

[Jacob Hjort Bundgaard (kimsey0)]

(In reply to Alexander Popov from comment #11)
> Is it duplicate of https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69687?

This bug is not a duplicate of what's in the description of bug 69687, but the content of this bug has also been proposed in the comments of bug 69687, most recent in bug 69687 comment 162.

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Requested for all Mozilla applications back in 2010 with little progress, See linked bug report which is currently showing as an unconfirmed enhancement.

[Marko (marses)]

Is this supported in the latest version or not yet? I would also like to put in a request that this be added it might seem uncommon in the English speaking world, but in many many countries, writing emails in multiple languages happens regularly, and in those countries, the thunderbird single-language spellcheck simply isn't adequate.

Also, what's the point of labelling this as a duplicate and arguing about it if neither this nor the duplicate are getting addressed 9 years later? It sounds more like an attempt to brush it under the carpet than anything else.

[Jacob Hjort Bundgaard (kimsey0)]

I ended up making an extension that tries to detect the language used in each input field, then switches the spell checking to the correct language for that field: https://addons.mozilla.org/da/firefox/addon/automatic-spelling-language/

However, this isn't quite the same as spell checking in multiple languages at the same time, so I still hope this bug gets addressed.

[Ben-bucksch (ben-bucksch)]

Chrome has option "All your languages" (combined): https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=8845416
Chrome puts different language suggestions together: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=9075388

So, Chrome fixed exactly this bug here, in the same way as suggested here.

This is arguably the correct solution. I often mix words from other languages in a sentence.
This is also the easiest solution, because you don't need a complicated and error-prone language detection. You simply make the dictionary the super set of all the languages (typically 2 or 3) that the user selected.

[Martijn-pepping (martijn-pepping)]

My current work-around is adding ~100K of the most common words from my native dictionary to the 'persdict.dat' file (within your Firefox profile folder). Works OK without any noticeable performance penalty, but I (and probably many others) would definitely love to see multi-language spell checking in Firefox. This is a feature Chrome has since 47.

[Vespacarlo (vespacarlo)]

Hello, I'd like to work on this bug. I've already developed a possible solution and would like some feedback.

Can someone assign this bug to me and guide me through the patch process?

[Ben-bucksch (ben-bucksch)]

Carlo: Happy to do that! I've assigned the bug to you.
In case you stop working on it, without the fix actually landing in the code tree, please unassign the bug again.
If you have a patch, be sure to ask for review while you attach the patch. The dropdrown should normally suggest appropriate reviewers.
I've also sent you a welcome message with some additional help.

[Emilio (emiliocobos)]

You can ask any question related to patch submission / etc in https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#introduction:mozilla.org

There are other links in the topic of that channel which you may find helpful.

[Mozilla-org--g (mozilla-org--g)]

(In reply to Jacob Bundgaard from comment #14)
> I ended up making an extension that tries to detect the language used in each input field, then switches the spell checking to the correct language for that field: https://addons.mozilla.org/da/firefox/addon/automatic-spelling-language/
>
> However, this isn't quite the same as spell checking in multiple languages at the same time, so I still hope this bug gets addressed.

This addon is only for Firefox, so not a solution for Thunderbird, right?

This 10 years old improvement proposal is still UNCONFIRMED, or the status field was not updated?
Is there a general consensus that it would make sense to implement this enhancement and is it clear how to do it?

I saw several tickets dealing with this same issue. This one here is the master ticket?

[Jacob Hjort Bundgaard (kimsey0)]

(In reply to m from comment #15)
> This addon is only for Firefox, so not a solution for Thunderbird, right?

I don't use Thunderbird, but it isn't a lot of code, so someone could probably port it: https://github.com/kimsey0/FirefoxAutoDict

[Bugzilla-v (bugzilla-v)]

Hi, I'd just like to add my vote to please fix this issue. Technically it's a feature request, but it's a feature that is sorely missed by many, many people around the world.

Actually, Chrome's solution to this is quite elegant: the spellcheck language is set not by a radio button, but by check boxes, and apparently, the browser simply "combines" all selected languages when spellchecking (rather than spellchecking only in the 1 selected language).

[Vespacarlo (vespacarlo)]

(In reply to cOgnaut from comment #13)

> Actually, Chrome's solution to this is quite elegant: the spellcheck language is set not by a radio button, but by check boxes, and apparently, the browser simply "combines" all selected languages when spellchecking (rather than spellchecking only in the 1 selected language).

This is what I implemented, but I have been really busy recently and don't have the time to actually finish working on it, for now.
Especially because on my macbook it takes ages to compile.

I hope to get some free time to finally finish the patch and post it here for review.

[Ben-bucksch (ben-bucksch)]

> This is what I implemented

Can you share the code, please?

[Vespacarlo (vespacarlo)]

Created attachment 9154734
0001-Draft-patch-for-bug-1402822.patch

Here it is. This is after a `git pull --rebase`.
Unfortunately, mach tells me there's something in my tree that doesn't let it compile, so I don't even know if it compiles now. I would have to checkout everything again from scratch and run a full compile, but it would take hours.

The code worked when I wrote it, the patch was missing a couple of failing tests to be fixed and general polishing / splitting in multiple smaller commits.

The result was that the dictionary selection menu was not a radio group anymore but a multiple select and misspelling suggestions would come out in round robin for each message, because hunspell doesn't return a score to sort by.

[daniel (danieldam13)]

(In reply to Carlo from comment #16)
thanks for your contribution Carlo.

[Krosylight (krosylight)]

I know this is older, but there is a more active issue about this.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 1402822 ***

[Krosylight (krosylight)]

*** Bug 616108 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[R-bugs-h (r-bugs-h)]

There is some work happening here currently. See bug 1402822

[Ben-bucksch (ben-bucksch)]

🎉
@Dan Minor: Thank you for working on this!

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Updated upstream bug to:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1402822

[Kocjso (kocjso)]

I am looking for this too.

[Dminor (dminor)]

Created attachment 9266351
WIP: Bug 1402822 - Support multiple dictionaries to mozISpellCheckingEngine.idl

[Dminor (dminor)]

Created attachment 9266352
WIP: Bug 1402822 - Support multiple hunspell instances in mozHunspell

Depends on D140238

[Dminor (dminor)]

Created attachment 9266353
WIP: Bug 1402822 - Support multiple dictionaries to mozSpellChecker

Depends on D140239

[Dminor (dminor)]

Created attachment 9266354
WIP: Bug 1402822 - Support multiple dictionaries in RemoteSpellcheckEngine

Depends on D140240

[Dminor (dminor)]

Created attachment 9266355
WIP: Bug 1402822 - Support multiple dictionaries in nsIEditorSpellCheck

Depends on D140241

[Dminor (dminor)]

Created attachment 9266356
WIP: Bug 1402822 - Support multiple dictionaries in EditorSpellCheck

Depends on D140242

[Dminor (dminor)]

Created attachment 9266357
WIP: Bug 1402822 - Fix dictionary extension loading code in XPIProvider.jsm

Depends on D140243

[Dminor (dminor)]

Created attachment 9266358
WIP: Bug 1402822 - Update unit tests for multiple dictionaries

For the most part these are simple updates to account for multiple
dictionaries and the fact that SetDictionaries is async whereas
SetDictionary was sync.

Fixing test_async_UpdateCurrentDictionary was more involved because
there were flaws in the existing test and it is more difficult to
harmonize the UpdateCurrentDictionary callback with the changes to make
SetDictionaries async.

Depends on D140244

[Dminor (dminor)]

Created attachment 9266359
WIP: Bug 1402822 - Add mochitest for multiple dictionaries

Depends on D140245

[R-bugs-h (r-bugs-h)]

*** Bug 1759018 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Dminor (dminor)]

There's failures on test-verification with these changes, but there's failures on test-verification on these tests without the changes as well, e.g. https://treeherder.mozilla.org/jobs?repo=try&revision=99fedcc1a058b3377c7def7938d3f27173edaee6 where I added some comments to trigger test-verification on the existing tests.

Fixing https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1760824 should help make the tests less flaky. I've tried to improve them a bit as part of these changes as well.

[Pulsebot (pulsebot)]

Pushed by <email address hidden>:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/264664a44f49
Support multiple dictionaries in mozISpellCheckingEngine.idl; r=smaug
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/1af11d34c213
Support multiple hunspell instances in mozHunspell; r=smaug
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/043d88291491
Support multiple dictionaries in mozSpellChecker; r=smaug
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/4a3b7ee6a51e
Support multiple dictionaries in RemoteSpellcheckEngine; r=smaug
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/74f061f43c77
Support multiple dictionaries in EditorSpellCheck; r=smaug
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/338485f1d803
Support multiple dictionaries in InlineSpellChecker; r=smaug,Gijs
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/64b43b5b1bba
Fix dictionary extension loading code in XPIProvider.jsm; r=smaug,extension-reviewers,mixedpuppy
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/e86c493e43a4
Update unit tests for multiple dictionaries; r=smaug
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/465a18abbd0e
Add mochitest for multiple dictionaries; r=smaug

[Abutkovits (abutkovits)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/264664a44f49
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/1af11d34c213
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/043d88291491
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/4a3b7ee6a51e
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/74f061f43c77
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/338485f1d803
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/64b43b5b1bba
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/e86c493e43a4
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/465a18abbd0e

[Sledru (sledru)]

Release Note Request (optional, but appreciated)
[Why is this notable]: Great new feature for polyglots
[Affects Firefox for Android]: I don't think so?
[Suggested wording]: The spell checker allows multiple language dictionaries at the same time
[Links (documentation, blog post, etc)]:

[Dsmith-k (dsmith-k)]

Release note added, please see https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/100.0a1/releasenotes/

[dartraiden (dartraiden-deactivatedaccount)]

Has the about:config → spellchecker.dictionary setting been adapted to support multiple dictionaries? In my tests setting it to something comma-separated like "ru,en-US" does nothing.

[Dminor (dminor)]

*** Bug 676500 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Dminor (dminor)]

(In reply to Alexander Gavrilov from comment #36)
> Has the about:config → spellchecker.dictionary setting been adapted to support multiple dictionaries? In my tests setting it to something comma-separated like "ru,en-US" does nothing.

We first try to match the element or document language and then use this preference. So if we think the input is in en-US, and en-US is in the list of dictionaries in "spellchecker.dictionary", we'll only enable the en-US dictionary. If there's no match on the element or document, then all of the dictionaries in the pref are used.

[Ben-bucksch (ben-bucksch)]

> element or document language ... is ... en-US ..., we'll only enable the en-US dictionary

So, if Gmail or Yahoo or RoundCube document was set to "en-US", that means I can only type English emails? Doesn't that counter the purpose of this bug?

[dartraiden (dartraiden-deactivatedaccount)]

> that means I can only type English emails?

You can type in any language, but only English dictionary will be enabled for such pages. You will have to manually enable multiple dictionaries via spellchecker context menu.

[Ben-bucksch (ben-bucksch)]

When I wrote "can type", I meant of course with the spellchecker working in the language, assuming I have the right dictionary installed, without the spellchecker trying to tell me that **all** my _words_ are _wrong_ and _everything_ has a _red_ _underline_, which is _quite_ _annoying_. (Underline for illustration of the effect.)

It would be quite a pity to do all this work in this bug, and then the spellchecker still assumes English, just because Gmail or Yahoo Mail or RoundCube or whatever web app is in English. How would RoundCube know which language I am writing the email in? I write emails (and text in webapps) in multiple languages, so this logic as stated in comment 38 would render the fix here moot in such situations and keep the spellchecker broken for all languages but one.

[Ben-bucksch (ben-bucksch)]

I often even mix multiple languages in the same text, for various reasons. In a multi-language context, this is quite common.

[dartraiden (dartraiden-deactivatedaccount)]

Yes, I wrote about this in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1073827#c40
See also https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1073827#c33

I think the priority of choosing dictionaries should be discussed in that ticket

[Dminor (dminor)]

The default for a site you haven't visited is to match the language of the document or the edit control. If you change the dictionaries manually, they should be remembered for the site, so this should only be a problem the first time you visit a site.

I think it's worth discussing whether we should change this behaviour when the user has explicitly enabled multiple dictionaries at the same time, but I think that would best be done either in a new bug or maybe one of the existing bugs above.

[daniel (danieldam13)]

(In reply to Dan Minor [:dminor] from comment #38)
> (In reply to Alexander Gavrilov from comment #36)
> > Has the about:config → spellchecker.dictionary setting been adapted to support multiple dictionaries? In my tests setting it to something comma-separated like "ru,en-US" does nothing.
>
> We first try to match the element or document language and then use this preference. So if we think the input is in en-US, and en-US is in the list of dictionaries in "spellchecker.dictionary", we'll only enable the en-US dictionary. If there's no match on the element or document, then all of the dictionaries in the pref are used.

The thing people are looking for is something like https://imgur.com/a/2JUXlwr where you set a default set of languages (toggle on/off) that the browser checks when doing spellchecking.

[Eyalgruss (eyalgruss)]

*** Bug 739109 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***