Introduction to the Writer Region plugin

0b9d53db-9fdd-4234-8eb8-871c6c604201 529 Introduction to the Writer Region plugin Davide Carpi Davide Carpi Writer Region plugin versions 0.3.* Davide Carpi 4 5 decimal

&[DATE] &[TIME] - &[FILENAME]

Writer Region

by Davide Carpi (davide.carpi@gmail.com)

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Hello! This is a Writer Region

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If "Arial" and "City Blueprint" fonts are available on your system,

you should see the region above like in this picture:

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otherwise, a default font-family should be used to render the region.

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use CTRL+SHIFT+W to add a region on the canvas (or "Insert" > "Writer region"):

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FEATURES

- Allows the use of several font styles, sizes and decorations, subscripts and superscripts;

- Allows the mix of colors;

- Alignments handled paragraph by paragraph;

- Copy formatted text through Writer regions;

- Copy formatted text to third-party word processors (Google documents, LibreOffice, MS Office, etc...);

- Copy editable math to MS Word (available for single math objects);

- Multilanguage;

- Diacritical marks allowed;

- Line-spacing of the region customizable;

- Page alignment of the region from context menu;

- Vertical alignment within math regions in the worksheet available through context menu;

- SMath Viewer compatible;

- Customizable settings (portable version has portable settings);

- Spell checker (Windows OS only; see below how to enable it);

- Region statistics (number of words, paragraphs, ...);

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CONTEXT MENU ITEMS

The context menu (mouse:right-click) contains few links to some global properties and functions

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Cut/Copy/Paste/Delete Classic functions (hotkeys available)

Select all Classic function (hotkey available)

Language Get/set a language for the region (like TextRegions)

Page alignment Horizontal alignment in the page, on request

Left Align to the left margin

Center Align to the center

Right Align to the right margin

Annotation Align out of the printing bounds

Vertical alignment Vertical alignment with math regions (if selected)

Wrap Choose how to wrap the text in the region

None No wrap applied (like TextRegions)

Page The region has the width of the page

Custom A resize holder let you choose a width

Line spacing Choose the spacing between the lines

Settings...* Shows the toolbar (hotkey available)

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* Will be moved in a program's toolbar, when this will be possible

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Other options may be available depending on what is selected; f.e. when inner objects are selected, to edit

their properties, or also if you select one or more MathRegions and one or more WriterRegions on the canvas, to align vertically the baseline of the text with the baseline of the math.

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TOOLBAR/TOOLSTRIPS

use CTRL+SHIFT+S to open the settings toolbar (or use "Settings..." item in the context menu)

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Hold the mouse over each button to see his description and hotkeys (if any)

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HOTKEYS DESCRIPTION

CTRL+B Apply bold style to the selection/word or following characters

CTRL+I Apply italic style to the selection/word or following characters

CTRL+U Apply underline style to the selection/word or following characters

CTRL+R Apply strikethrough style to the selection/word or following characters

CTRL+SHIFT+B Apply subscript style to the selection/word or following characters

CTRL+SHIFT+T Apply superscript style to the selection/word or following characters

none Preview/choose a font color for the selection/word

none Preview/choose an highlight color for the selection/word

CTRL+SHIFT+L Left alignment of the line/selected lines

CTRL+SHIFT+C Center alignment of the line/selected lines

CTRL+SHIFT+R Right alignment of the line/selected lines

CTRL+SHIFT+J Justify alignment of the line/selected lines

ALT+SHIFT+LEFT Decrease Indent of the paragraph

ALT+SHIFT+RIGHT Increase indent of the paragraph

CTRL+SHIFT+U Unset custom styles from selection/word or following characters

CTRL+SHIFT+F Copy current format to a further selection

CTRL+SHIFT+H Add/Change/Remove Hyperlinks

CTRL+SHIFT+M Add/Change Math objects

CTRL+SHIFT+X Add/Change Field objects

none Insert a symbol

SHIFT+F7 Toggle spelling check on type

F7 Spelling check of the region

none Thesaurus

none Change the case of the selection/word

none More tools/options

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The toolbar can be kept floating on the canvas, through different documents; it become active when a region

is focused.

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hotkeys of features not available from the toolbar

CTRL+A Select all

CTRL+C Copy

CTRL+G Write using Greek symbols/swap latin and greek characters

CTRL+T Add a Tab Stop

CTRL+V Paste

CTRL+X Cut

CTRL+LEFT Jump to the begin of a world RTL

CTRL+RIGHT Jump to the begin of a world LTR

CTRL+UP Jump to the begin of paragraphs (bottom to top)

CTRL+DOWN Jump to the begin of paragraphs (top to bottom)

CTRL+HOME Jump to the begin of the whole text

CTRL+END Jump to the end of the whole text

CTRL+CLICK Go to hyperlink destination (open the system browser)

SHIFT+RETURN New line

SHIFT+HOME Select/extends selection to the first character of the line

SHIFT+END Select/extends selection to the last character of the line

SHIFT+LEFT Select/extend selection one character to left

SHIFT+RIGHT Select/extend selection one character to right

SHIFT+UP Select/extend selection one line to top

SHIFT+DOWN Select/extend selection one line to bottom

CTRL+SHIFT+I Shows statistics of region and selection

CTRL+SHIFT+HOME Select from caret position to the begin of the whole text

CTRL+SHIFT+END Select from caret position to the end of the whole text

CTRL+SHIFT+LEFT Select/extend selection to the next word on left

CTRL+SHIFT+RIGHT Select/extend selection to the next word on right

CTRL+SHIFT+UP Select/extend selection one paragraph to top

CTRL+SHIFT+DOWN Select/extend selection one paragraph to bottom

ALT+SHIFT+M Export math object to clipboard as MathML plain text

ALT+SHIFT+LEFT Decrease paragraph indent

ALT+SHIFT+RIGHT Increase paragraph indent

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GLOBAL OPTIONS

Global options are available from the toolbar "More..." item: > "Options..."

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New regions

It is possible to chose where to place new regions on the canvas and the default wrap

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Environment

Here you have some general options about Writer Regions

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Popup toolbar: many features are available through a popup toolbar; you can define how to show this form:

- On focus: when you focus a region (new or existing) the toolbar will appears (if not already opened);

- On new regions: the toolbar will be shown when you add a new region on the canvas;

- On request: the toolbar will be shown only on hotkeys press or by contet menu (these features are always

available, even if you choose other settings).

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Delete empty region: this feature set when an empty region must be removed from the canvas.

- Always: if you delete the content of the region, it will be automatically removed;

- On lost focus: the region is deleted from the canvas only when you leave it (left-click on the canvas or actions on other regions on the canvas)

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Share clipboard's images using: single math objects can be exported in MS Word as editable math

(some MathML attributes such as colors and alignments are ignored; it is possible to left-align these items

{ if, line, while, for, sys, cases ... } from inside MS Word - Right click > Column Alignment > Left )

When mixed with text, math objects are converted to images.

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To share these images with other text editors, there are two ways: via embedded code, or via temporary files.

Most of the word processors are able to manage both, however online services can't handle temporary files (because security stuff) and MS Word is not able to process images shared as embedded data.

Here you can choose the way you want, depending on what is your favorite target.

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SpellCheck

In this tab you can see the default status of the spelling checker. A window shows the languages loaded in the program, and the available features (DICTionary, THESaurus, HYPHenator).

This feature is available only on Microsoft Windows environments.

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Import...

Dictionaries are not provided within the plugin. This utility helps you to import the files needed.

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Supported dictionaries are available in the following packages:

- OpenOffice dictionaries (*.oxt, versions 3.x or 1.x and 2.x)

- LibreOffice dictionaries (*.oxt)

- Firefox dictionaries (*.xpi)

- Thunderbird dictionaries (*.xpi)

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1. download a dictionary and unpack it in a local path, using your archive manger (f.e. 7zip or others)

2. From the import utility, click on the "..." button to locate that folder

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3. choose the files from the drop-down menus (it is possible that an archive contains more than one language,

f.e. en_EN + en_US + en_AU etc... choose the one you want)

4. Choose the target language (one of the localization languages available in your version of SMath Studio)

5. Click on "Import files"

That's all! Now you can delete the downloaded files and the dictionary is ready to be used.

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NOTE (1): Hunspell files (Affix and Dictionary) are strictly required;

NOTE (2): you can overwrite existing languages without loosing your custom words.

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Clear

Using the spell checker it is possible to add custom words to the existing dictionaries. This button will delete

every custom word from the selected dictionary.

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Delete

This option delete completely the selected dictionary.

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OBJECTS

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Math

These items are available from toolbar or CTRL+SHIFT+M shortcut; edit is possible via toolbar, double-click, context menu or hotkeys.

Expressions must be inserted using default settings (copy in the clipboard from canvas, then paste it in the dialog)

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Fields

These items are available from toolbar or CTRL+SHIFT+X shortcut; edit is possible via toolbar, double-click, context menu or hotkeys.

You can change "Worksheet Info" attributes from the "File" > "Properties..." menu; the update rule is: region language > SMath interface language > english > no update available (light red highlight).

Documentation about date/time format specifiers may be found here;

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MISC

Font family: Any TTF with regular style should be loaded;

Font size: Integers and decimal values allowed;

Hyperlinks: When mouse goes over an hyperlink, the color and background color should change;

If there are multiple hyperlinks with the same target, all the hyperlinks are highlighted;

Colors: The main font color and the main background color could be driven by the SMath toolbar.

In the settings' toolbar, hold the mouse over a color in the

color picker to have a preview.

The color picker is not available on Linux environments.

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BEST PRACTICES

I recommend to use this region like a paragraph of a document or a block of text in a ppt presentation.

This helps to better handle the worksheet layout if you choose to change the page setup or if the region handles multiple languages (moreover a small region has better performances than a big-one in older environments).

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KNOWN ISSUES

- Sometimes character's horizontal spacing is not uniform

this is handled by the GDI+ core; anyway it's possible to find a better look using a decimal font-size;

usually trying in a range of ±0.25 pts you may experience the same font height but a different spacing.

- Sometimes diacritical marks are not shown correctly

this is handled by the GDI+ core; the only way to have a better look is to choose another font-family.

- Sometimes the mix of font sizes/families causes relative vertical misalignments

if a mathematical formula that fit a correction through different font-size and families will be proposed/found, then will be applied.

- Sometimes print to PDF isn't recognized as text (typically bold characters vs colored-background cases)

this appears as a problem in the PDF printer with some font-families; try with a different font-family.

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KNOWN BUGS

- CTRL + [anything] doesn't trigger the undo button

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MISSING BUT PLANNED FEATURES

- Toolstrips from Form to SMath toolbar

- Find & Replace (available through TextRegionUtilities)

- Styles

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EMBEDDED PLUGINS

- NHunspell

website: http://www.crawler-lib.net/nhunspell

license: tri-license

• GPL http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

• LGPL http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html

• MPL http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/MPL-1.1.html

- Hunspell

website: http://hunspell.sourceforge.net/

license: tri-license

• GPL http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

• LGPL http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html

• MPL http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/MPL-1.1.html

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