I frequently work with multilingual documents. When selecting text language via tools-language menu or via the status bar LO populates the top-level language list with languages already present in the current document but new languages have to be added via a somewhat complicated process: "more" which opens the character dialogue where one has to tab or click to the language field and find the required language in a fairly long list of all languages. I would like to be able to select multiple favourite languages which will always be present in the top level language list available in the tools-language menu. Currently I have to resort to a rather awkward workaround of adding random words in favourite languages to a document template.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 70953 ***
Reopening since bug 70953 was not resolved and is not a duplicate anyway.
I support that idea. Request to improve character dialog is perhaps bug 85449
While the filter request in bug 85449 sounds reasonable I struggle with the favorites idea. Does using a template help you, lvm?
IMO, we need to make it clear how the languages appear in that list first. There are several sources of information available to build such a list. 1. Languages used in this document. 2. Language of default document. 3. Locale and UI of LibreOffice. 4. Locale and UI of OS. 5. Input languages configured in OS. 6. Automatically detected language of the text (bug 139185). 7. MRU languages manually picked by user. I believe (and this is off-topic here), that having "headings" in the list, splitting the list into such categories, so that user sees why some languages are here, would help. As with any dynamic list, it seems reasonable to be able to pin some entries - see e.g. bug 38742; also see bug 152666 and related bug 157154 - so pinning is an essential functionality, basically equivalent to this favorites request. Worth implementing (and making universal, consistent) IMO.
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #4) > While the filter request in bug 85449 sounds reasonable I struggle with the > favorites idea. Does using a template help you, lvm? Well, it is better than nothing, but it is a poor workaround actually. And the same can be said about any kind of automatic guessing suggested in the bug 85449, this idea doesn't appeal to me at all. It won't be as good as the list I made myself, but more importantly it will change all the time, languages won't be in the places I am used to; using such a list will be a continuous frustration. Also more complex to implement.
(In reply to Mike Kaganski from comment #5) > As with any dynamic list, it seems reasonable to be able to pin some entries... That's where I disagree. (In reply to lvm from comment #6) >> Does using a template help you, lvm? > Well, it is better than nothing, but it is a poor workaround actually. Why is it a workaround, what could be made better. My point is that user-defined lists, may it be per customization, pinning items, saving some state, etc., is not a simple and standardized design pattern. Besides it requires some effort to implement. We definitely have to improve the font/language workflow. One screw is the number of languages offered in the options where a selection could be beneficial for the use in dialogs/menus.
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #7) > Why is it a workaround, what could be made better. > The purpose of this bug was to describe exactly this. > My point is that user-defined lists, may it be per customization, pinning > items, saving some state, etc., is not a simple and standardized design > pattern. Besides it requires some effort to implement. > LO configuration is an XML file. What can be easier than adding a list to an XML file? Some fuzzy language-guessing algorithm analysing data from many sources? Seriously? And there are ready UIs for picking custom lists of arbitrary length from predefined values e.g. Tools-Customise. All ABBs are ready, just put them together.
We discussed this topic briefly and agree on the need or rather benefit to define a list of language in advance. Use case might be to define a template for international use. => NEW This question needs to be integrated into a larger rework of languages. bug 104318 - get rid of the artificial trinity of western, cjk, ctl bug 103036 - rework language settings into a dedicated dialog bug ? - disentangle language from font choice (this is not a complete list)