Could someone improve LibreOffice's API in order for LanguageTool to be able to suggest underlining colours and also change the style of the text (italic)? "We're limited by the LibreOffice API. It only takes the information of the error position, we cannot specify a color there, neither for the underline nor for the background." (Daniel, LanguageTool) Thanks!
Could you (or someone from LanguageTool) supply more detailed requirements? Preferably to the level of how exactly they'd like the API to change, and also give reasoning why each of these changes would be important? I can get behind the idea of being able to specify the color of the underlining (but then I wonder what other implications there might be, with regards to a11y for example), but modification of style seems to be very intrusive to the document.
As a side note, using color as primary information is evil as color impaired people may not be able to perceive the information.
This is the follow up off a forum discussion about this possibility. http://forum.languagetool.org/t/displaying-errors-in-colour/1031/12 Having the possibility to attribute a color to each category allow the user to identify the type os error and disable it in the settings accordingly. In a style and grammar checker, users may wish to follow all grammar advices but may not want to follow controversial style guidelines. Color coding grammar advice can also apply to distinguish between 'possible mistake' type of rules and 'certain error' type of rules' This is a very significant usability improvement when reviewing large texts (i.e. think of reviewing big translated texts). > As a side note, using color as primary information is evil as color impaired > people may not be able to perceive the information. Well... 'primary information' and 'evil' are quite strong words, are not they? Neither the underlined information is primary, nor there is anything evil about using available resources to inform the user. Should GUIs be discontinued because there are persons with severe visual impairments using computers?
> Well... 'primary information' and 'evil' are quite strong words, are not > they? I second this. The word "evil" was a poor choice. It seems like at least having an option to display errors in color wouldn't harm anyone and could be quite useful for some. I'm not sure when LibreOffice chose to set the bar behind gatekeepers for enhancement requests. This is clearly a valid enhancement request, at least when we used to consider an enhancement request as follows: Any request that would cleanly fit within the current software and would benefit some in some case. Now in this case the request would harm no one (if it were an option) and could have real benefits for many. Furthermore, it's clear that it fits cleanly within the current LibreOffice software. Is there a wiki somewhere that says how enhancements are now being considered? One or two members of UX reject and it gets closed? The enhancement requester has to fight tooth and nail to convince people of its value? Just curious, a wiki would be nice, if nothing else to clarify for users who take the time to put in requests what is going on when their enhancement requests are being rejected. Also, if things have changed I suggest going through the several thousand open enhancement requests and purging most of them because I'm sure 1-2 UX people would feel like they should be purged
Discussion seems to go off-topic. OP requests a change to the API, which is fine to me (would appreciate the extension actually very much), and I added on a side note concerns about color-impaired people. As usual you can ignore this, but the prevalence of red/green is ~10%. If devs take accessibility serious they could second the color with text in the tooltip, for instance. Setting to NEW.
> If devs take accessibility serious they could second the color with text in the tooltip, for instance. Just to calm any concerns over this request, I will explain further my idea. A color information input will only plug-ins that use it, not the default pre-bundled features, unless their developers decide to do so. I do not know if LanguageTool or other plug-ins will implement this like I am envisioning it, but, the color extension should only be applied to extra information. That means, for rules that are set as inactive by default (because they controversial or they were not designed to be 100% accurate) or for rules that can be ignored by the user a significant amount of times. A consequence of this is that a user, that does not perceive the new colors, will not lose information. He will just be unable to see the new underlines/information. *OFFTOPIC* @Heiko Tietze I would think about a different solution for users with any degree of color differentiation impairment. Create an option in accessibility settings that presets the color and style of the underline when a spelling or grammar error is detected. For example, having a red underline with a dot-line-dot pattern, or other already existing border pattern. Notice that this is a totally different enhancement request (that someone else may report). This would fix the already existing problems with this type of impairment as well as cover all the remaining color blindness situations (Protanopia, Tritanopes). @Joel Madero Many thanks for your timely and well written comment.
Created attachment 138429 [details] How it looks in MS Word 2016 with the new LanguageTool add-on How it looks in MS Word 2016 with the new LanguageTool add-on
Given that in 2022 LanguageTool is integrated into LibreOffice, I would like to know if this request remains valid. In case this request is still valid, it would be nice to have someone from the LanguaTool team providing more info about which error categories should be supported. These color options could be placed under the "Language Tools Settings" options dialog. I'm willing to work on the Options dialog portion of the fix. I can also take a look at the code that applies the colors to the document (but no guarantee in this part). It would be cool to make LanguaTool look like attachment 138429 [details] in LibreOffice as well.
(In reply to Rafael Lima from comment #8) > In case this request is still valid, it would be nice to have someone from > the LanguaTool team providing more info about which error categories should > be supported. Daniel?
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #9) > (In reply to Rafael Lima from comment #8) > > In case this request is still valid, it would be nice to have someone from > > the LanguaTool team providing more info about which error categories should > > be supported. > > Daniel? Most of LanguageTool's add-ons support three color: red for typos, blue for style and yellow for everything else. These colors are mapped from the category ids and style types. While these don't change often, I'm not sure if it's a good idea to add this mapping to LO, as it may change over time.
Since LanguageTools is now integrated, it should use the Grammar mistakes and Spelling mistakes underline colors set in Tools - Options - Application Colors.