02-22-2014, 10:02 PM | #1 |
null operator (he/him)
Posts: 20,946
Karma: 27620688
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Sydney Australia
Device: none
|
Visibility of special codes
I'll never be more than a casual user of the editor to fix format and layout 'glitches', essentially fine-tuning. For content editing, general layout etc I'll always prefer a something like MS Word or Atlantis.
I've been following the nbsp and nnbsp codes thread with interest. One of the annoyances I have with the editor is when I'm scanning the preview and edit windows I cannot see a distinct representation of special characters, preferably the edit window along with all the other 'technical' stuff. I appreciate I can move the cursor to the yellow lozenge and I'll see the precise name of what's behind it in the status line. But I find it tiresome to have pick up the mouse and position the cursor to the lozenge, besides not all special characters appear as a yellow lozenge (e.g. nnbsp), they're 'invisible', admittedly when I move the cursor 'there' they show in the status line, but... I don't care how these things are represented internally, I leave that to Kovid and other's folks better judgement. What I yearn for is a button that would unhide the special characters and show them as highlighted decipherable mnemonics, something like this where the background colour is specific to displaying special character mnemonics. Ideally the mnemonics would be the same as what's in the Special Character tables and other resources. I'm puzzled as to how other people cope without something like I propose. One of the perennial complaints about word processors is that they selectively hide special characters, it surprises me that this seems to be the case in this editor. I would rank a feature such as this much higher than I would a spell checker or macros. But maybe it's already possible - I frequently find that things I wish were in calibre, are already there BR Last edited by BetterRed; 02-22-2014 at 10:05 PM. |
02-22-2014, 10:17 PM | #2 |
Well trained by Cats
Posts: 30,397
Karma: 58053698
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: The Central Coast of California
Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A
|
The ENTITY NAME for the character under (before) the cursor shows on the right side of the status line
|
02-22-2014, 10:30 PM | #3 | ||
null operator (he/him)
Posts: 20,946
Karma: 27620688
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Sydney Australia
Device: none
|
Quote:
Quote:
BTW on my computer I have to put the cursor after the yellow lozenge to see what it is in the status line! BR Last edited by BetterRed; 02-22-2014 at 10:40 PM. |
||
02-22-2014, 10:41 PM | #4 | ||
Ex-Helpdesk Junkie
Posts: 19,421
Karma: 85397180
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: The Beaten Path, USA, Roundworld, This Side of Infinity
Device: Kindle Touch fw5.3.7 (Wifi only)
|
See here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=234044
Quote:
Quote:
|
||
02-22-2014, 11:06 PM | #5 | |
null operator (he/him)
Posts: 20,946
Karma: 27620688
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Sydney Australia
Device: none
|
Quote:
Its sort of like --- oh, well if MS does it like that it must be the right way do it. Back in the old days it used to be said that no one ever got fired for buying IBM... I have a vague memory of a word processor that displayed special chars as mnemonics - might have been Multimate or Wang. It wasn't Xerox Star because I had the same gripe about it when I did some work for them in 1979. MS developed WSIWYG Word after they filched Simonyi from Xerox in '81! Let's blame Xerox for Everything. BR |
|
02-23-2014, 08:31 AM | #6 | |
Wizard
Posts: 2,608
Karma: 3000161
Join Date: Jan 2009
Device: Kindle PW3 (wifi)
|
Quote:
Last edited by roger64; 02-23-2014 at 09:06 AM. |
|
02-23-2014, 09:54 AM | #7 |
Well trained by Cats
Posts: 30,397
Karma: 58053698
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: The Central Coast of California
Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A
|
I am glad you folk have memorized the UTF-16 chart.
I have NOT. Never will. No Way. Sorbet in H3ll before it happens. The character Name is of great significance to us mere mortals. |
02-23-2014, 11:28 AM | #8 |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 27,941
Karma: 198500000
Join Date: Jan 2010
Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD
|
You're under no obligation to let calibre replace your named/numbered entities with unicode characters (visible or invisible). Just turn off the editor preference that changes entities to characters immediately after typing them and remember not to use the "Fix HTML" or "Beautify" tools. Concessions always need to be made when you want a program to automatically correct/tidy some code (and I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong with needing to do so) for you. But I rarely have broken or unreadable (x)html that I open in an ebook editor anyway.
The ability to open ... edit ... save ... without the editor making any behind the scenes (and silent) changes whatsoever (yes, I know I have to be sure to turn off the metadata update when opened inside calibre) is one of this editors greatest strengths, I think. Also, note that even if I do allow calibre to replace my entities with unicode characters, I still clearly see a yellow background around characters (in the edit/code window) that are considered "special." Sticks out like a sore thumb to my eyes (but I can understand the frustration if some characters lack this distinction). More so than the original entity did, in fact. If it's not clear to me what it is at a glance, I can "zoom" further with the cursor. The narrow non-breaking space, the thin-space, the zero-width joiner, the soft-hyphen and other such characters/entities have played havoc with editors/devices for a long time--many don't support some or all of them at all. I'm sure if there were a simple solution, it would be implemented already. Last edited by DiapDealer; 02-23-2014 at 11:55 AM. |
02-23-2014, 07:21 PM | #9 | ||
Wizard
Posts: 2,608
Karma: 3000161
Join Date: Jan 2009
Device: Kindle PW3 (wifi)
|
Quote:
But you missed my point: I just wanted to remark that it's a character name, not an entity name. One is called no-break space, the other narrow no-break space. We shorten that to nbsp and nnbsp, but now, in the UTF-16 only bright new world - if you selected that option - there are no more entities. Temporarily highlighting characters This is a modest proposal following BetterRed thoughts. We all have used underground in unknown cities. Hopelessly lost, we look our way on the huge wall map, figuring 300 subway stations. We select the name of the target station, and suddenly we can see our itinerary highlighted : six stations on the blue line, change, four on the red line and done. Everything is clear. OK. End of highlighting. New customer. Quote:
Importantly, invisible characters could be pinpointed this way by adding a temporary highlighted character that could not be mistaken for another one. At long last, we could see the invisible man... This could be helpful to many beginners. Last edited by roger64; 02-23-2014 at 08:03 PM. Reason: bulb |
||
02-23-2014, 08:11 PM | #10 |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 27,941
Karma: 198500000
Join Date: Jan 2010
Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD
|
|
02-23-2014, 08:32 PM | #11 |
null operator (he/him)
Posts: 20,946
Karma: 27620688
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Sydney Australia
Device: none
|
It's all moot anyway - unless someone is prepared to carry out significant work on modifying Qt, or Kovid swaps out Qt for ????.
I get the feeling that the odds of either happening, in my lifetime at least, is somewhere south of Viktor Yanukovych chances of regaining his presidency :lol: ============== I'd settle for all the special characters like nbsp, and nnbsp, shy etc being displayed as a yellow lozenge It would also be good if I could discern the presence of the lozenges when the line was highlighted because its the current line. I recall Kovid indicating he hopes to provide customised 'theming'. So, if that happens then I guess this annoyance would be addressed within a theme spec. BR Last edited by BetterRed; 02-23-2014 at 09:51 PM. |
02-23-2014, 11:03 PM | #12 |
Wizard
Posts: 2,608
Karma: 3000161
Join Date: Jan 2009
Device: Kindle PW3 (wifi)
|
|
03-01-2014, 09:45 PM | #13 | |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 11,470
Karma: 13095790
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Grass Valley, CA
Device: EB 1150, EZ Reader, Literati, iPad 2 & Air 2, iPhone 7
|
Quote:
Dale |
|
03-02-2014, 02:12 AM | #14 |
Wizard
Posts: 2,608
Karma: 3000161
Join Date: Jan 2009
Device: Kindle PW3 (wifi)
|
delete
Last edited by roger64; 03-02-2014 at 02:58 AM. |
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Accessories Keyboard visibility Kindle 3 | birtleyboy | Amazon Kindle | 2 | 05-20-2011 07:55 PM |
Visibility of Next and Prev Buttons | spirit_wolf | Feedback | 2 | 08-27-2009 07:38 PM |
Promote FBReader to visibility? | rsperberg | Feedback | 2 | 12-08-2005 11:52 AM |