[AD 2.5.x] Character panel: Unable to change spelling language

[jan_c]

Since upgrading Affinity Designer to 2.5.x (including the latest 2.5.6 update), I have been unable to change the spelling language of text boxes.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Start Affinity Designer
2. Create a new document
3. Create a text box using the Frame text tool
3. Note the value in Character > Language > Spelling.  On my system, it's set to the default "English (United States)".  The drop-down lists other languages such as German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese

4. Type something in the text box
5. Save the .afdesign file
6. Close the file
7. Reopen that same file
8. Note the value in Character > Language > Spelling.  It now says "Unknown (en-US)" and the drop-down only has one value, "None".

Workaround:
1. Quit Affinity Designer
2. Start Affinity Designer
3. Reopen the same file
4. Make edits; do NOT close and reopen the file, otherwise the bug occurs again

Affinity Designer 2.4.2 did not have this problem.

OS: Windows 10 Home 22H2 English 64-bit

Edited December 1, 2024 by jan_c
added "bug" tag

[MikeTO]

Could you share a test file with this issue?

In step 4, when you type some text in the frame, does the panel still show English US as you're typing?

If you re-open the file, select the text, choose English US again, save it, and re-open it, is it fixed then or does it still show en-US?

FWIW, I opened somebody else's test file this week and it showed de-DE instead of German but I got distracted and didn't investigate it.

 

[jan_c]

19 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Could you share a test file with this issue?

Certainly, attached is a test file. untitled4.afdesign

19 hours ago, MikeTO said:

In step 4, when you type some text in the frame, does the panel still show English US as you're typing?

Yes.

19 hours ago, MikeTO said:

If you re-open the file, select the text, choose English US again, save it, and re-open it, is it fixed then or does it still show en-US?

That is the issue; that I'm unable to select "English (US)" at all because the drop-down only shows "None".

Additionally, I have tested this on two different Windows 10 systems, both running AD 2.5.6, and both exhibit the same problem.

[MikeTO]

For Serif: The first line of text in this file is en-US but appears in Character > Language > Spelling as Unknown while the second line is en-US and shows up properly as English US. Is there a difference in how these lines of text are encoded?

unknown en-us.afdesign

2 hours ago, jan_c said:

That is the issue; that I'm unable to select "English (US)" at all because the drop-down only shows "None".

Additionally, I have tested this on two different Windows 10 systems, both running AD 2.5.6, and both exhibit the same problem.

That is odd because English US (en-US) is bundled with Affinity for Windows but you could try installing the en-US dictionary in the custom dictionary folder. The download links are on this page along with installation instructions. It doesn't hurt anything to install a custom US dictionary because this is how you'd install a newer dictionary. In fact, the dictionaries bundled with Affinity are a bit old so installing this will give you a newer dictionary. There are two files for the spelling dictionary and one for hyphenation - I recommend installing all three.

 

[jan_c]

I just installed the additional dictionaries as instructed, but the problem persists.

If it's of any relevance, I installed Affinity Designer using the MSIX installer.

Additionally, Affinity Publisher and Photo 2.5.6 do not seem to be affected by this bug.  I can open, close, and re-open the .afdesign file above and the spelling language remains consistent.  The drop-down menu lists the installed dictionaries instead of "None".

So this bug seems to affect Designer 2.5.x specifically.

[MikeTO]

I'm going to have to let one of the Windows experts here look into this because I no longer have a Windows PC. Installing the custom dictionaries should have avoided any issue with the base dictionaries so unless they were installed incorrectly it should just work.

[Lee D]

I've logged the file with the developers to take a look at.
@jan_c Can you take a screenshot of the folder you installed the additional dictionaries to?

[jan_c]

I have since removed the dictionaries, as they didn't make any difference to the situation.  So currently, the dictionary folder is empty.

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "User file: One line of text shows as Unknown (en-US) the other shows as English (en-US)" (REF: AF-5603) has been fixed by the developers in the latest beta build (2.6.0.3078). The fix is planned for inclusion in the next customer release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.
If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please reply to this thread including @Affinity Info Bot to notify us.