Bug 117705

Summary: Every application should inherit the global spellchecker but be allowed to override it to meet user needs
Product: [Unmaintained] kdelibs Reporter: Cláudio F. Gil <claudio.f.gil>
Component: kspellAssignee: Zack Rusin <zack>
Status: RESOLVED UNMAINTAINED    
Severity: wishlist CC: arvidjaar, kde-2011.08, maris.kde
Priority: NOR    
Version First Reported In: unspecified   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Compiled Sources   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Cláudio F. Gil 2005-12-05 10:57:16 UTC 
Version:            (using KDE Devel)
Installed from:    Compiled sources

Well, I don't really know how to put this wish but my problem is as follows:

I'm Portuguese, so it is to expect that I use the Portuguese dictionary. But that only partially true. Due to the advent of the Internet each (non English speaking) pearson really needs to speak at least to languages. In my case I get the following usability problems:
  - When I'm using Kopete, I'm normally speaking Portuguese
  - When I'm using Konqueror (like submitting this wish) I'm mostly using English
  - In KMail it's really a problem. It's about 60%-40%. The 60% being Portuguese and the 40% English.
  - Etc.

In the description I say that applications should be able to override the global spellchecker. Well, I guess that they already can ... But what is the need of a global spellchecker policy if each applications overrides it?

So what I really wish is that the global spellchecker was more context aware. For instance it could behave like this:
  - You set the global spellchecker to Klingon
  - You decided to submit a wish in bugs.kde.org
  - You start writing the wish and the speller starts Klingon spellchecking with a relevance of 100%
  - You write more and more English words and the Klingon relevance goes down as the English one goes up
  - After a certain threshold the speller changes the dictionary to English.

This mechanism allied with a default dictionary for each applications would be great. Meaning that (in my case) when I start Kopete the default dictionary would be Portuguese. But if I start speaking to and English buddy the dictionary will automatically change after a few sentences. When I start Konqueror the default dictionary would be Portuguese. But if I, for instance, start a post in a Portuguese forum the dictionary would change to Portuguese.

Well, thank you for reading this. I'm not aware if I'm the only one afflicted by this problem but I guess that you opinion and the voting system in here is one way to find out.
Comment 1 Marcel Hilzinger 2005-12-05 12:34:36 UTC 
I'd like to have a similar wish: I often use 2 or more languages. For these languages I also use different keyboard layouts. So actually it would be nice, if each KDE application would be able to adopt the default spellchecker to the actual keyboard layout.

Of course, automatic spellchecking for several languages would be even nicer, but perhaps my suggestion can easier be done.
Comment 2 Dotan Cohen 2008-10-14 12:45:19 UTC 
I think that this could be done much easier if the spellchecker could simply check against two dictionaries at once. Of course, the use could concatenate his Portuguese and English dictionaries himself, but most users would not know how to do that.
Comment 3 Māris Nartišs 2009-08-27 16:23:35 UTC 
It should be easy for beginning just to add spellcheck language switching option for any widget where mouse rightclick offers spellcheck option. Mozilla Firefox does it just right - mouse right click and select language for checking. (And, Yes, I writte this frm Knonquerror)
Comment 4 Zack Rusin 2009-08-28 17:09:45 UTC 
Please try to keep your comments within scope of the bug. If the wish asks for automatic detection of a language, which makes a lot of sense and is something I wanted to have for a long time, then saying that a spellchecker should be able to spell check in multiple languages (which it already can, you can create spellers for as many languages as you want within any text), or that one should add options to widgets (which in turn has nothing to do with sonnet/kspell) is not very helpful or meaningful.
Comment 5 Christoph Feck 2010-01-31 06:17:29 UTC 
Reading through the comments, most suggestions are duplicates.

Comment #0 is mostly bug 66516.
Comment #1 is a new wish ("adopt the default spellchecker to the actual keyboard layout")
Comment #2 is bug 125506.
Comment #3 is bug 195484.
Comment 6 Christoph Cullmann 2024-09-14 16:18:05 UTC 
Hi,

kdelibs (version 4 and earlier) is no longer maintained since a few years.

KDE Frameworks 5 or 6 might already have implemented this wish.

If not, please re-open against the matching framework if feasible or against the application that shows the issue.

We then can still dispatch it to the right Bugzilla product or component.

Greetings
Christoph Cullmann