Issue 4579 - Special Character Shortcuts
Summary: Special Character Shortcuts
Status: CONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: Writer
Classification: Application
Component: configuration (show other issues)
Version: OOo 1.0.0
Hardware: All All
: P3 Trivial with 42 votes (vote)
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: AOO issues mailing list
QA Contact:
URL:
Keywords: rfe_eval_ok, usability
: 17980 19909 19910 22816 23860 26863 27744 32075 35960 36077 38127 46994 54468 54852 63136 64186 95077 112774 119195 (view as issue list)
Depends on: 99432 99465
Blocks:
  Show dependency tree
 
Reported: 2002-05-07 05:22 UTC by Unknown
Modified: 2018-06-21 19:21 UTC (History)
14 users (show)

See Also:
Issue Type: ENHANCEMENT
Latest Confirmation in: ---
Developer Difficulty: ---


Attachments
WordPerfect Keyboard Customisation Dialogue (8.52 KB, image/png)
2006-04-24 20:07 UTC, pesala
no flags Details
macro to insert accented character (10.43 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text)
2007-05-05 17:09 UTC, redi2go
no flags Details
Paragraph symbol, dots between words inserted while copying text (20.50 KB, text/plain)
2018-06-21 19:21 UTC, Susan E G Scott
no flags Details

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this issue.
Description Unknown 2002-05-07 05:22:25 UTC
It is consistently difficult to type in foreign languages in the English version of OOo.  
Languages such as Spanish with many accents and German with umlauts and [ss] require special 
characters to be used with frequency, and the current implementation is unacceptably slow 
(Insert->Special Character...->[find character]).  Shortcuts that are currently used in other 
word processing programs should be included in the next build (e.g. [alt + ', e]=é ; [alt + :, a]=ä ; 
[alt + s, s]=ß, etc. and so forth.).  I have already thought out a lot of shortcuts, so whichever 
programmer decides to take this up should email me at toshirooc@yahoo.com.  One thing that will 
have be watched for are previous shortcuts ([ctrl + s]={save}, so the shortcuts for ß and {save} 
will need to be differentiated.
Comment 1 Matthias Basler 2002-05-11 20:14:38 UTC
In my opinion this clearly a question for customization. I like the 
solution that M$ Word has, which is, that the user can customize 
special characters just like other commands. This is important, 
because mathematicians use other shortcuts frequently than writer of 
foreign texts or everyday writers and so on.

If standard shortcuts will be implemeted for common characters these 
have to be language- (and keyboard-) specific. I, as a German user, 
do for example not need standard shortcuts for ä,ö,ü, and ß, but 
English User will need them.

To use so many shortcuts the shortcut combination possibilities will 
have to be expanded, to use f.e. Alt+a, Alt+Shift+a. or Alt+Ctrl+a. 
In the moment it is not possible to create shortcuts with the Alt key.
Comment 2 Unknown 2002-05-11 21:10:07 UTC
Why didn't I think of that?  Foreign language keyboards are all different, and 
mathematicians use different shortcuts and everything.  Maybe the only solution is 
to have a 'customization' tool that allows binding of characters/macros/commands 
(perhaps even changing the shortcuts that are already established for certain 
commands, such as ctrl+s=save), and then have config files for it that would make it so 
an english keyboard has math shortcuts, and then has a shortcut that will either 
change it's shortcuts to different ones that would allow foreign language typing or 
even change the in-openoffice configuration to that of an actual foreign keyboard (I 
know that Windows has this capability, and possibly Linux (never looked for it), but 
having it so foreign language keyboard configurations work only in openoffice would 
have the additional advantage of not interfering with native-language programs.)  In 
a question for Matthias, I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit on what he means by 
"On the moment it is not possible to create shortcuts with the Alt key".  Also, if a 
programmer out there with knowledge of how OOo currently handles shortcuts has the 
time, could you please tell me what OOo's limitations are/possibilities are for this 
potential feature?
Comment 3 Matthias Basler 2002-05-11 21:51:58 UTC
Concerning the question of J. Meyerowitz:
This is a seperate issue (no. 4756), but what I mean is, that on the 
customization tab "keyboard" there are lots of shortcuts to which 
commands can be assigned. There Shortcuts include F1-F12, Ctrl 
(or "Strg" in Germany) + key or Ctrl + Shift + key. But Shortcuts 
with the Alt key are not listed and can therefore not used for 
customization. They are nevertheless used as shortcuts to the menus.
(Maybe that's the reason why they are not customizable.)

In M$ Word however it is common that people assign special characters 
to shortcuts with "Alt" like "Alt"+"a" for "ä" or "å". You listed 
some examples yourself.
Comment 4 stefan.baltzer 2002-05-13 14:51:12 UTC
Reassigned to Christian.
Comment 5 brant 2002-11-08 14:33:15 UTC
Can't you use ALT + ASCII/Unicode character number.  This works in
every application.  For example ALT + 0169 gives the copyright symbol: ©.
Comment 6 christian.jansen 2003-02-11 16:22:25 UTC
Reassigned to Bettina.
Comment 7 christian.jansen 2003-02-11 16:22:37 UTC
Reassigned to Bettina.
Comment 8 rkilgore 2003-04-10 05:29:07 UTC
It is usually possible to allow customization of commands including
the Alt/Meta key, and still allow Alt to be used to do the menus. 
Didn't an older version of OpenOffice have this?  I find myself
crippled without being able to use Alt to setup shortcuts.  There
simply aren't enough letter keys on the keyboard.
Comment 9 bettina.haberer 2003-09-24 16:16:48 UTC
A further tabpage for assigning shortcut keys to special characters
should be integrated into the existing "Insert Special Characters"-dialog.
Comment 10 lohmaier 2003-09-25 21:12:38 UTC
*** Issue 19910 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 11 lohmaier 2003-09-26 18:24:12 UTC
*** Issue 19909 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 12 lohmaier 2003-11-13 18:36:42 UTC
*** Issue 17980 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 13 lohmaier 2003-11-30 17:16:33 UTC
*** Issue 22816 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 14 bettina.haberer 2003-12-09 14:53:58 UTC
Hello Oliver, please have a look at my last comment. Please give approval for
this evaluated OO.o 2.0 flagged issue. 
If you confirm with the target OO.o 2.0, then please keep it on your owner (or
the owner of the concerning developer) for implementation. In case you want this
issue for 'OOo Later', then please reset the target milestone. If you decline
the issue finally, please set the resolution to 'Wontfix' (but do not close). In
case of 'OOo Later' or 'Wontfix' please reset it on Bettina's owner. Thank you.
Comment 15 Oliver Specht 2003-12-09 15:31:08 UTC
The configuration of shortcuts only supports assignment of functions but doesn't
support configuration of parameters to that functinos. 
I.e. you can configure the function "Insert special character" but you cannot
add a certain character to it. 
This lack of flexibility of the configuration makes an implementation for OOo
2.0 impossible. 

Comment 16 lohmaier 2003-12-28 00:00:49 UTC
*** Issue 23860 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 17 Oliver Specht 2004-01-08 11:40:19 UTC
As the main limitation that prevents the implementation of such a feature is in
the configuration of menues/toolboxes/short cuts I reassign the task to mba.
Comment 18 Mathias_Bauer 2004-01-12 14:57:14 UTC
We think that this is doable for OOo2.0.
Carsten already implemented commands with parameters.
Comment 19 carsten.driesner 2004-01-13 08:16:11 UTC
CD: The core function (commands with parameters) is already implemented. It
should be possible to implement the missing part with the OOo 2.0 time frame.
Comment 20 goerwitz 2004-03-03 03:36:17 UTC
It would become much easier to use the 'special characters' menu to insert
strings in alternate languages if the string that's been currently typed were
editable.  Right now in OpenOffice 1.1 if I type in a series of characters, and
I blow it and type one in wrong, the only obvious thing to do is to cancel and
start over.  This (as the originator of this thread pointed out) is particularly
problematic when the characters are in a foreign language that's not easy to
re-type.

One very good thing the special chars menu does now is collapse the characters
present in a given font down, so you don't have to look at screen after screen
of blank unicode characters, which is great.

But I note that it doesn't work consistently when you use it to insert foreign
languages.  E.g., if I select Hebrew (especially if I use a font that has a lot
of the special diacritics used with biblical/liturgical Hebrew), when I paste
the Hebrew word into an English paragraph, it's sometimes jumbled up, with the
font sometimes ending up being what's in my document rather than what I selected
in the special character menu, and with the point size sometimes being off
(e.g., the first character will get the point size I picked in the special char
menu, but the rest will be that of the paragraph it's pasted into).  Also the
left-right characters often get jumbled up with the Hebrew right-left characters
that are being pasted in if they're pasted in right before Latin-1 punctuation
characters, numerals, etc. (not letters).

In sum, as the original poster noted, the 'special characters' menu is hard to
use for inputting languages with a lot of diacritics.  It exhibits some
usability issues as well as some real bugs when the inserted text is right-left
and the paragraph you're inserting it into is left-right.
Comment 21 lohmaier 2004-03-23 18:03:58 UTC
*** Issue 26863 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 22 michael.ruess 2004-04-14 10:20:43 UTC
*** Issue 27744 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 23 carsten.driesner 2004-05-27 07:04:49 UTC
CD->AS: Please take over.
Comment 24 andreas.schluens 2004-06-18 07:21:19 UTC
.
Comment 25 lohmaier 2004-07-26 19:10:00 UTC
*** Issue 32075 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 26 Martin Hollmichel 2004-08-09 14:02:36 UTC
according to http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=releases&msgNo=7690
this issue will be set to OOoLater
Comment 27 sgautier.ooo 2004-09-07 15:48:14 UTC
adding keywords according to new RFE process - Sophie
Comment 28 nenglish 2004-09-24 04:48:45 UTC
I agree that language capabilities are lacking (both foreign language 
and "math" language). One thing that I have not run across, in particular, is 
that it would be useful to have a more fluid method of alternation between 
standard-script, superscript, and subscript. Especially for math related work 
this would be useful (alternating between Greek text, exponents, and subscripts 
is time consuming).
Comment 29 lohmaier 2004-10-21 21:05:57 UTC
*** Issue 35960 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 30 lohmaier 2004-12-02 22:44:15 UTC
*** Issue 38127 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 31 flibby05 2004-12-14 23:44:43 UTC
*** Issue 36077 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 32 peschtra 2004-12-17 01:19:26 UTC
Since we have added paragraph styles to available categories for cutomizing
keyboard shortcuts, why not add special characters.

Or add the dialog in the insert special character menu. I think this is a key
feature for people trying to migrate from MS Word, because you can do it there.

On a side note, as a work around, you could assign the special character in the
autocorrect menu table.

Peter
Comment 33 eric.savary 2005-05-10 08:17:09 UTC
*** Issue 46994 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 34 lohmaier 2005-09-12 21:21:45 UTC
*** Issue 54468 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 35 lohmaier 2005-10-15 21:26:34 UTC
*** Issue 54852 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 36 discoleo 2006-03-09 14:31:29 UTC
In Romanian, there are special characters, too. I hope this issue gets fixed (or
implemented).

A temporary workaround coud be: (e.g.)
 replace "a>" or "a'" with the corresponding character "ă", but the replace
should permit wildcards: "[a-z]*a>[a-z]*" to "... ă ...".

Implementing wildcards in the replace function would be really great (not only
for this workaround).
Comment 37 Regina Henschel 2006-03-13 20:47:53 UTC
*** Issue 63136 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 38 lars 2006-04-10 12:48:37 UTC
*** Issue 64186 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 39 pesala 2006-04-24 20:07:27 UTC
Created attachment 35992 [details]
WordPerfect Keyboard Customisation Dialogue
Comment 40 pesala 2006-04-24 20:08:03 UTC
I would like to the Alter Key to be customisable, and be able to assign text 
directly. In WordPerfect, even the alpha/numeric keys can be modified if one wishes, 
and entire paragraphs of text can be essigned to a shortcut.

Control, Control Shift, Alter, Alter Shift, Control Alter, Control Alter Shift, with 
any function key or alpha/numeric key. Wordpefect's functions, macros, or external 
programs can also be assigned — all from the same simple tabbed dialogue. 
Comment 41 nickleus 2006-05-31 09:23:29 UTC
there's a lot of talk about the alt-key around, but really the most important
thing is just adding a little text field to the "insert > special character"
window where one may enter a unicode value directly and have OO Writer generate
the symbol.
Comment 42 pesala 2006-07-08 19:21:32 UTC
Alt-key assignments are useful for much more than typing special characters. They 
can replace other shortcuts freeing the control key for typing accented characters, 
which is the easiest key combination to use, as it exists on both sides of the 
keyboard. Typing codepoints into a dialogue requires more keystrokes and one needs 
to remember the numbers. This is a very inefficient way to type foreign characters.

In Opera I can type āīūḍḷṃṇṭ very easily with the control key. If I need to use Alt 
for typing or other functions I can — no problem — alt m = m-dash, since control m 
is already used to type ṃ (m dot below). 

For a word-processor, the current limit of control and control shift is too limited.
Comment 43 nickleus 2006-07-08 21:07:31 UTC
believe me, i am a fan of keyboard shortcuts, but i'm think of the time usage of
the developers and what would be fastest to implement, plus the fact that most
(all?) keyboard shortcuts do something that already is in the menu, so start
with the menu first.
Comment 44 discoleo 2006-08-19 00:12:56 UTC
I have described an alternative method to implement this in issue:
http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=67500

Instead of using a key combination, a simple work-around would be to use
automatic word-replacements, e.g.
  a' => to some special character (e.g. ä)
  A' => another special character (e.g. Ä)
  a+ => some other special character
  ...

Hovever, for this to work, the automatic replacement should be alble to perform
replacements inside words, too (not just whole words).

Therefore,
 - either create a second replacement list, that specifies strings that are
always replaced, even if it is not a word (e.g. Gra'ser => Gräser, in German grass)
 - or implement the more advanced feature of issue 67500 (i.e. wildcards in
replacement lists)

This type of implementation will not depend on any keystroke  combinations (like
alt+shift+something), and would easy allow implementing many special characters
simultaneously, withoud the need for very dumb and hard to remember key
combinations. (When choosing key combinations just for a few special characters,
it is easy to assign meaningfull ones. However, if you try to extend the list of
those special chars, you get really fast into trouble. My solution creates more
logical pseudo-shortcuts.)

If you find my solution good, please vote for that issue, too. Some of the
developers showed somehow less optimism for that one.
Comment 45 pesala 2006-08-19 05:51:39 UTC
There are lots of work-arounds for this issue, but work-arounds are not what is 
wanted. What is wanted is more shortcut assignment options.

1. Use of Alt Key combinations as well as Control, Control Shift. Two 
keystrokes shortcuts like ~n to type ñ as in Word, might also be wanted by some 
users. 
2. Direct assignment of text — one or more characters
3. A simplified dialogue like that attached to make the customising process 
easier. 
Comment 46 discoleo 2006-08-22 13:25:23 UTC
I hope this gets implemented, but I also want to point out some problems of the
pure key-combination approach, e.g.

 - in french there are 3 types of accent for e (e with '/', e with '\' and e
with inverted 'v'; I do not have a french keyboard) and if I count the upper
case lettrs, we will have 6 possible combinations, definetily more than any easy
and logical key combination. (there are simply not enough key combinations using
e + ctr + shift for all this)
 - I often write in Romanian and German: there are 2 accents for a in Romanian,
and still one different in German; when I write in both languages simultaneosly,
I will need again 6 shortcuts for the various flavours of 'a', not easily done
with key-combinations.

Therefore,
 - when I write only in German (I have an English keyboard, like many), the
key-combination approach is probably easier to use
 - when I write in Romanian, both approaches seem similar in ease of use
 - when I write simultaneulsy in German and Romanian, (or I would have to write
in french, I currently do not write in french, but I know others who do), the
replacement approach is more powerful.

However, this issue is quite old. I hope therefore that the approach that can be
implemented more easily gets implemented to have something working. And I hope
it gets implemented fast.
Comment 47 opaben 2007-02-19 01:32:59 UTC
This issues has generated much discussion but apparently little action. The 
delay may be due to the great variety of viewpoints and of possible techniques.

For generating accented letters [letters with diacritics], Word has a built-in 
process using dead-keys. For ex, press Ctrl+` [dead-key] and then e to get è, 
or A to get À, etc. Very efficient, simple, and intuitive.
I think it would be very useful if something like that were included in Writer 
[or perhaps throughout OOo].

Comment 48 gudmund 2007-02-19 11:10:25 UTC
Whatever solution is found should *definitely* be implemented throughout the
suite! Anything else would be a truly bad joke.
Comment 49 redi2go 2007-04-30 13:44:39 UTC
I would like to support opaben's suggestion for this issue - ie use the same
mechanism as Word. It's simple, straightforward, and provides lots of extra
characters without using up too many keyboard shortcuts.

This issue has been around forever and really needs to get sorted - to do even
simple translation work I have to switch to Word, one more reason why I have to
continue to buy MS Office upgrades...
Comment 50 redi2go 2007-04-30 13:48:30 UTC
Also, should not issue 6847 be folded into this one - they're obviously the same
basic problem.
Comment 51 redi2go 2007-05-05 17:05:21 UTC
I've been thinking about this and attach a solution. It's a trivial macro that
looks up a character pair in a table and if it finds a match substitutes a
corresponding accented character. The macro can be bound to any key of the
user's choice - I use ctrl+shift+z and it works fine for me. Note it only needs
ONE special key regardless of how many translate pairs you've defined.

So if I type e: then immediately press ctrl+shift+z to invoke the macro, the two
characters are replaced by ë. If I don't call the macro then nothing is changed.

This version of the macro includes a translate table that covers most European
languages and a few odd symbols such as © which are useful to me, but it's
trivial to modify for any specific purpose or preference. It could certainly be
made faster, but is designed for simplicity and clarity. It would be nice if:

1) somebody could compile a master list of translations, so that users could
subset as they needed;
2) it could be generalised to work with spreadsheets and presentations etc - at
the moment it only works in text documents. To go further would require far more
time than I have available (it's not the doing it's the learning how!)

Hope it's useful...
Comment 52 redi2go 2007-05-05 17:09:28 UTC
Created attachment 44886 [details]
macro to insert accented character
Comment 53 discoleo 2007-05-05 20:59:12 UTC
Nice thing to see at least a workaround.

I append some language specific diacritics here, as I believe that it makes more
sense to define them based on the language to use and the available keyboard to
write (then have a big list with all the possibilities).

See also http://www.umich.edu/~langres/diacritics/french.html for
language-specific common diacritics.

Characters suitable for replacement on an English keyboard:
one keystroke (these are preferred): ` ' / \
two keystrokes (shift + ...): ~ : < >
rather difficult to type: ^


German characters

A	Ää
O	Öö
U	Üü
s	ß

Romanian characters

A	ĂăÂâ
I	Îî
S	Şş
T	Ţţ

French characters

A	ÀàÂâÄä
C	Çç
E	ÈèÉéÊê
I	ÎîÏï
O	ÔôÖö
U	ÙùÛû
...

By the way:
# Is there any other word using 'ç', except for 'françai...'?
# Is there any other word using 'ù' except for 'où'?
...

Of course, most European languages use diacritics, so this list could be
enhanced. (See also previous web-address for Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and
Swedish.) Hungarian and Slavic languages are missing.
Comment 54 redi2go 2007-05-05 23:57:14 UTC
Discoleo, as far as I'm concerned, to my problem it's a solution, not a
workaround. The only improvement that really interests me is having it available
for spreadsheets too, but I don't care enough to make the necessary changes myself.

Thanks for your character suggestions, but the macro already has over 120
diacriticals, including as far as I know all those in Hungarian and Romanian
(although since I speak neither of those languages, I can't be certain). I
suggest you examine the downloaded file, or even install the macro on your
system and try it!

I should say that I do not intend to do any further work on this - it's
available for those who want to use it, and that's it as far as I'm concerned.

Ref Ç it's in many other words eg façon, rançon etc. Ref Ù I can't think of
another French example although I'm sure one exists, but it is also used in
Italian eg virtù. There's no cost to having it in the list so it's there.
Comment 55 andreas.schluens 2007-05-07 08:46:52 UTC
AS->redi2go:

Thanks for your patch. Unfortunately it does not  fix the real problem mentioned
by this task. The office already knows all the stuff you describe here. It
already have a full featured accelerator configuration .. further a generic
shortcut handler exists. The missing part is that there is no UI to bind special
characters to shortcuts. There is a dialog showing special characters ... and
there is a dialog for shortcuts ... but they doesn't work together. The idea: it
should be possible to define shortcuts directly within the special character
dialog. So this issue address the missing UI part.

On the other side your macro will be an usefully extension. You should pack it
as an extension (OXT file) and place it on
"http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Extensions" especialy in the extension
repository "http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Extensions_repository".

Best Regards
AS
Comment 56 redi2go 2007-05-08 17:08:52 UTC
AS
'The office knows all the stuff you describe here'. Thanks for the laugh. If the
office knows so much why have I and thousands of other users been struggling for
years to insert special characters when there's been a perfectly good solution
available all along?

Being a diligent sort of person, I spent an hour or so searching through a few
pages of google hits trying to find out how to write an extension. None of them
gave me any useful information. Eventually I found Chapter 5 of the OO
Developers Guide. This is completely incomprehensible to someone who needed a
day to learn enough OO and Basic to write a 10-line macro.

So I've decided to follow the lead shown by all the oo bug reports I've filed or
supported. I've put it on an enhancement list and given it a target date for
completion of 'none'. That should sort the matter nicely.

Meanwhile, for anyone living in the real world who wants a copy of this
invaluable little macro, I've put some corrected code on my website
http://www.billhibbert.com with accompanying notes, and anyone who wants it can
go and get it...
Comment 57 andreas.schluens 2007-05-09 06:38:50 UTC
AS->redy2go:

> Thanks for the laugh. If the office knows so much why have I and
> thousands of other users been struggling for years to insert special
> characters when there's been a perfectly good solution available all along?

Sorry - It was not my intention to annoy you !
But it's true. Nobody can understand why a so easy task wont be fixed in time.
The problem behind: there are ~50-60 developers on OOo. A "normal" developer has
~ 200-300 issue in it's intray. Some developers (mostly project or co leads) has
more then
500 issues. And believe me - all of them are important enough to  be fixed asap.
On the other side - the day has 24 hours only :-)

The problem with these task is - it does not have a high prio (compared with
other tasks). E.g. vista support, crashes etcpp are more important - sorry. So
these task wont be fixed within an OOo 2.x timeframe ... excepting somehwere of
the community will be able to fix it.

What has to be done to fix this task realy ?
The special characters dialog has to be rewritten. It has to show the set of
special characters and must provide the possibility to define shortcuts there
directly.
If you know somewhere which is able to write a new VCL dialog in C++ - tell me
its name. I will give you all support I can give (CVS handling, QA step etcpp).

Your question regarding "extension development" ...
You should try these:
"http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Extensions_Packager".

Regards
Andreas
Comment 58 andreas.schluens 2007-05-09 06:42:04 UTC
AS->redi2go: ... I've forgot .. further communication about your macro should be
done via email as@openoffice.org  ... not here inside this issue. THX.
Comment 59 mbayer 2007-08-13 19:26:59 UTC
My vote for enhancing the Tools > Customize > Keyboard dialogue so that it
supports a) shortcuts for an arbitrary character to be inserted (Writer) b)
shortcuts with the AltGr key (all modules).

Please note that both is already possible, if you configure the accelerator
configuration file manually. (Those who understand German may read on
http://www.ooowiki.de/TastaturAnpassen .) So "only" a suitable GUI is missing or
the enhancement of the existing Tools > Customize > Keyboard dialogue is needed,
respectively.

Given the number of votes, CC'ed persons, duplicates, and user requests on the
mailing lists on this (missing) feature on the one hand, and the
already-implemented core technology for this feature on the other hand, we
shouldn't delegate this to an Extension. It should be able to use shortcuts with
the AltGr key in the "vanilla" OOo, and it should be possible to use shortcuts
for inserting special characters.
Comment 60 mfrasca 2008-04-23 12:37:30 UTC
...  but: is this really a problem within OpenOffice?  or isn't it an operating
system issue?  on Linux, there's no such need: I type Compose ' a and get á,
Compose " U -> Ü, Compose / L -> Ł, Compose b a -> ă, Compose ' r -> ŕ...  you
name them, you learn them...  

other example?  take the small Nokia N810, it's the module of the operating
system taking care of handling keyboard input that allows the user to write
national characters.  keep the 'chr' key pressed and hit the 'a' four times to
get the fourth accent available on the 'a'... a bit clumsy, but it also works in
all programs.

IMHO it really should not be a concern of the application developer to fill in
the blanks left by the operating system...  I think this is a MSWindows issue,
not OpenOffice's.  so if you are affected by this issue, you might consider
running OpenOffice on Linux...  just a hint.  :)

(obviously the 'Compose' on my keyboard is marked 'Caps Lock'!)
Comment 61 mbayer 2008-04-23 13:17:09 UTC
mbayer->mfrasca: Well, I AM running OOo on Linux and I can tell you that
nonetheless there IS a demand for this feature (as also the 34 votes show).
Recommending the change of the O/S is without any use to those that can not
liberally choose it (just think enterprise users). Also, the use of keyboard
tools, like MS' keyboard layout creator, might not be allowed anywhere. Then,
there are thousands of characters available via Insert -> Special Character that
you can not type in with your keyboard, even if you learned how to use the
compose key. Plus, the feature requested is already implemented; you can define
keyboard shortcuts for special characters by editing the config file manually.
Thus, all we need is an enhancement of the Tools -> Customize -> Keyboard GUI.
Comment 62 gudmund 2008-04-23 13:24:55 UTC
Once you set out to write a cross-platform application, it does become the
concern of the application developer to fill in the blanks left by the operating
system, or the application doesn't do its intended job in the concerned platform.

Even if it were a MSWindows issue, it would still be an OpenOffice issue too, as
long as OpenOffice is intended to run on Windows.

As for considering running OpenOffice on Linux, I've done so for many years, but
still *have to* use Windows for most tasks, as do a fair number of people, for
reasons other than ignorance or bloodymindedness on their own part. I see the
smiley, but can't help getting frustrated.

If you know of a general method for getting special characters via sensible
keyboard actions in platforms where this doesn't work in OpenOffice today,
please tell us all. 

BTW, I wonder if the special characters features in Linux you're talking about,
e. g. getting ß by pressing AltGr+S - S don't depend on a few things like locale
settings, keyboard layout etc. etc.
Comment 63 redi2go 2008-04-23 13:41:28 UTC
gudmund - 'If you know of a general method for getting special characters via
sensible keyboard actions in platforms where this doesn't work in OpenOffice
today, please tell us all.' 

I thought this was exactly what the macro I posted last May did...
Comment 64 gudmund 2008-04-23 13:45:07 UTC
Once you set out to write a cross-platform application, it does become the
concern of the application developer to fill in the blanks left by the operating
system, or the application doesn't do its intended job in the concerned platform.

Even if it were a MSWindows issue, it would still be an OpenOffice issue too, as
long as OpenOffice is intended to run on Windows.

As for considering running OpenOffice on Linux, I've done so for many years, but
still *have to* use Windows for most tasks, as do a fair number of people, for
reasons other than ignorance or bloodymindedness on their own part. I see the
smiley, but can't help getting frustrated.

If you know of a general method for getting special characters via sensible
keyboard actions in platforms where this doesn't work in OpenOffice today,
please tell us all. 

BTW, I wonder if the special characters features in Linux you're talking about,
e. g. getting ß by pressing AltGr+S - S don't depend on a few things like locale
settings, keyboard layout etc. etc.
Comment 65 gudmund 2008-04-23 14:01:51 UTC
@redi2go: I must have either missed that, or it's due to my being on the tenth
(twentieth?) OOo installation since last May, some of the last ones being
special things for dealing with the infamous OOXML format, and the next upcoming
being for hopefully getting to terms with OOo shortcomings in regular expressions. 

Depending on macros for performing standard tasks isn't a solution, much as I
appreciate the effort. Will download and try it at any rate, thanks for the effort!

(I notice my last post got posted twice. This was probably triggered by my
reloading/updating the page in Firefox, sorry!)
Comment 66 mfrasca 2008-04-23 17:28:49 UTC
ok, points taken...  but just partially...  About the frustration: I also have
to use windows at office, but then I'm lucky I have to write just in Dutch or
English, where the accents are rarely needed...

the way Compose works is not dependent on the locale settings, as far as I know.  

admittedly, there are keys I cannot produce with Compose-key1-key2, like some
Vietnamese vocals topped by two or three accents, or all Arabic characters.

...

Even if I think I understand frustration and the need for a better solution than
something which is only available on Linux and is not at all complete, I still
think this should be solved somewhere in the operating system, not in each of
its client applications.  In my opinion, doing so (offering this option in each
client of the OS) leads to a configuration nightmare.  I don't know if there are
any extensions to Windows (nor to Linux) than enable us to configure our
keyboards in a more complete way, but if I were a windows user (or if I needed
typing Vietnamese), I would look for something like that, I would not ask
openoffice to provide me with something which will only work within openoffice
and which I would miss in abiword, emacs and vi.

until I find such a tool, I would use your macro, very probably.
ciaociao.
Comment 67 gudmund 2008-04-23 20:38:25 UTC
There's no sign in sight one would have to worry about a configuration
nightmare, at least as far as Windows is concerned. I'd be happy to be proven
wrong, but the chances of Windows getting a global ability of *easily* typing
any manner of characters any time soon, look exceedingly remote. It would
probably have to go FOSS before that happens.

Apart from this, with all the characters possible in e. g. UTF8, there would
always be a large amount of characters that wouldn't be practicable to access
with keyboard combos without switching keyboard layout.

So the bug would still stand, it seems.

Switching keyboard layouts (yes, it's possible in Windows - if an Admin/root has
installed the corresponding language packs, activated this that and whatnot
etc.) and then dealing with unfamiliar key placements, is precisely what fixing
this bug would help us avoid.

Since no really useful *standard* solution seems to exist for at least Windows
(no, using Windows Charmap just isn't practical enough, and there most probably
are no other *standard* solutions), it has to be solved some other way. As for
missing features between apps - that happens all the time. Just take having to
use different spellcheck dictionaries for different apps, forcing you to
duplicate and triplicate work. 

Sad, but hard to avoid unless all the involved app makers and the OS makers
start talking to each others and standardize.
Comment 68 andreas.schluens 2008-04-24 07:53:25 UTC
gudmund, redi2go, mbayer: Please don't use these task for pure discussion. Do so
on an more appropriate channel e.g. dev@framework.openoffice.org. THX.
Comment 69 pirtepiraja 2008-09-19 10:07:16 UTC
I'm using OOo Writer in both Linux and Windows. In Windows, I have been using
also MS Word, in which I can use Ctrl+Alt+Num- (minus) by default to type the
m-dash. In Linux, it is easy to assign the m-dash to a Compose Key (I'm using
the left & right Win_key+hyphen) so that it works not only in OOo but also in
the web browser, etc. 

My problem is that as I work in different system environments and with two or
three different word processors (more and more exclusively with OOo, however),
and it's a bit inconvenient having to remember the different key combinations in
each of them. (In Linux, it's easy to remember that the Win-key is the compose
key, because no other function has been assigned to it.)

Now it would be nice if I could assign an m-dash macro e.g. to the key
combination Ctrl+Alt+Num- in the Windows version of OOo Writer - this seems to
be no option, since there are only a few key combinations available, as far as I
know. I had to assign em-dash to Ctrl+m. There should be more options for key
combinations, I think, as has been argued in this thread already.
Comment 70 michael.ruess 2008-10-17 16:21:36 UTC
*** Issue 95077 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 71 corigo 2008-11-13 10:27:10 UTC
We're on OOo 3.0 now... maybe it's time to move this out of OOo Later and back 
into OOo sooner? 

Also, maybe this needs to be moved out of Word Processor and into OOo Base so 
that its functionality is included in Calc, and Presentation as well?
Comment 72 nickleus 2008-11-13 10:33:12 UTC
corigo, i completely agree:
"Also, maybe this needs to be moved out of Word Processor and into OOo Base so 
that its functionality is included in Calc, and Presentation as well?"
Comment 73 Mathias_Bauer 2009-02-15 15:40:24 UTC
taking over from as
Comment 74 michael.ruess 2010-06-29 08:07:19 UTC
*** Issue 112774 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 75 Marcus 2012-04-06 17:33:35 UTC
*** Issue 119195 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 76 Marcus 2012-04-08 09:35:09 UTC
*** Issue 119195 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 77 Marcus 2017-05-20 11:22:03 UTC
Reset assigne to the default "issues@openoffice.apache.org".
Comment 78 Susan E G Scott 2018-06-21 19:21:41 UTC
Created attachment 86435 [details]
Paragraph symbol, dots between words inserted while copying text

Queried recipient if she (has very limited vision) could hear incomplete file (what I sent you) on her computer.  
These symbols are undesirable in newsletter I produce, but text is readable by normal-vision individuals.  These extra characters appeared suddenly while transcribing above document, wish them Removed.
Thanks for your help.