[Affinity][REQUEST][Dictionary installer]

[Franz Rogar]

WHAT IS REQUESTED
A hassle-free dictionary installation.

WHY IT IS USEFUL
Wider user base (hassle-free is a must for many end-users), foolproof set-up (less complains from end-users) and it's a feature expected from any text editor (that even opensource/freeware ones include).

SUGGESTED IMPLEMENTATION 
The simplest options (that do not violate GPL and has zero problems with closed source code) would be:

1) Create a separate installer (with all Hunspell dict/hyphen)

• Main Pros: hassle-free, foolproof, no Internet required
• Main Cons: it will add overwork (new installers for each platform)

Note: It can be added the option to "select" languages individually, as other installer do.

2) Create an in-app installer

• Main Pros: hassle-free, foolproof, can offer in-demand*
• Main Cons: Internet required, repository*

Note 1: (I wouldn't recommend) in-demand* mean when you select a language for the interface/spellign, the system might check if the corresponding Hunspell dict/hyphen is installed. If not, it will try to download and install them.

Note 2: the "official repository down/changed/..." problem that might arise with external repos, can be mitigated hosting in your servers a copy of the dictionaries, though they might be a bit out-of-sync with the "official" ones, they offer you a working backup.

Note 3: this option, if I'm not mistaken, would work directly for all platforms without any major problem and, if using your own repo, it'd need zero maintenance.

[MikeTO]

+1

I actually have this on my list of fun things to do but one of my New Year's resolutions is not to start any more projects. I have too many half-built projects that I need to finish.

I was thinking of building it with SwiftUI as an excuse to learn that but doing so would limit it to Mac only.

[Franz Rogar]

2 hours ago, MikeTO said:

I was thinking of building it with SwiftUI as an excuse to learn that but doing so would limit it to Mac only.

When I suggested option #2 (in-app installer), I was thinking for the easiest zero-maintenance version: integrated in the UI, a fixed checklist of languages, with hard-coded URLs to your private repositories, that fetched the checked items when clicked on "apply", via wget (available to all platforms) calls.

You might leave the installed langs checked when the installer shows up (that way, you can to differentiate them from the unchecked/downloadable ones, thus reducing your server used bandwidth due to "reinstall").

Lazy AI mockup added (I'm baffled with the "checklist of languages" included by the AI... 🤣)

 

[MikeTO]

7 minutes ago, Franz Rogar said:

When I suggested option #2 (in-app installer), I was thinking for the easiest zero-maintenance version: integrated in the UI, a fixed checklist of languages, with hard-coded URLs to your private repositories, that fetched the checked items when clicked on "install", via wget (available to all platforms) calls.

Affinity for macOS uses the macOS system spelling and hyphenation dictionaries and not a custom installation of Hunspell as is done on the Windows version. The advantage of this is that adding words to the dictionary in Affinity will add them for all standard apps, not just Affinity. It wouldn't be appropriate to use an in-app system in any one app to modify these dictionaries.

If I were to build this, I'd use the standard GitHub dictionaries and put their URLs in an editable config file. The list of languages in the app UI would be generated dynamically from the config file. It would show which languages are installed and give you the option to add and remove them.

I'd probably go a bit further and allow users to edit their custom user dictionaries. You can do this manually but doing it on macOS is a bit dangerous because the OS caches the user dictionary and users can make a mess of it. If I built a UI to edit the dictionary, users could do it safely because the app would update the user dictionary using the spelling API.

I probably won't get to it this year, I have too much to do, but who knows.

[MikeTO]

But a simpler solution that would help a lot of people without anybody having to build anything is just to bundle more dictionaries with Affinity. macOS comes with a decent list but I've suggested that Affinity for Windows bundle the pt_PT, en_AU, en_CA, en_NZ, en_SA, en_IN, en_SG, and en_JP dictionaries to match those included with macOS. Doing this would save every new Windows user in Portugal, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa from having to find and install a dictionary.