Subject: Re: Smart Quotes
From: Tim LaDuca (mail@timl.org)
Date: Wed Jul 19 2000 - 20:50:00 CDT
Er, I meant to send this to the group:
sam th wrote:
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> OK, here's my attempt to summarize the various issues around smart
quotes
> and how they should be implemented in AbiWord.
>
Well, there seems to be a lot of groping around in the dark on various
issues
with AbiWord. How many among you use WordPerfect? I think it is by far a
superior Word Processor to MS Word and something that should be used as
a
"guide" for how AbiWord should work. I'm not saying it should be a clone
of
WordPerfect, but I have plenty of anecdotal evidence form my job that
WordPerfect "Does things right". For example, they have Tools | Spell
Check... not Tools | Spelling... , while a very minor detail, I think it
is
obviously the more intuitive choice for running a spell check. As far as
smart quotes prefernces go, they fold it in as a feature of
AutoCorrect(MS
probably does that too). And I think that makes sense as well, it's very
much
an on-the-fly change-as-you-type sort of thing. Obviously there is no
AutoCorrect feature in AbiWord right now, so for now a simple Tools |
Curly
Quotes on/off option ought to be just fine. Regarding inch quotes(6"),
and
apostrophes, even WordPerfect is not perfect in that regard, you can
check
for spaces before the single quote which would usually indicate to make
it
curly, you can check for numbers before double quotes which would
indicate
the inch mark, but you won't get it right 100% of the time. I can't
offer any
advice on the technical aspects of implementing smart quotes though,
sorry!
Cheers,
TimL
AbiWord User
Future Developer?
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