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Text File | 1994-11-10 | 28KB | 553 lines

Smart Quotes version 1.20b ⌐ Sam Kington 10th November 1994 See öBoring legal messageò for conditions of distribution. This program is freeware, *not* public domain ù i.e., I retain copyright. Contents ******** This ₧le contains the following sections (those marked * are essential to using Smart Quotes, the others less so): *Å Warning... ù this program is RISC OS 3 (or later) only Å Boring legal message ù terms of distribution Å About the strange characters... ù if this looks strange on a PC Å Iæm using an Acorn machine... ù donæt read this in the System font *Å Quotation marks ù how quotes work *Å Ligatures and diphthongs ù how diphthongs work *Å Typing mistakes ù which ones Smart Quotes can correct *Å Menu structure, windows ù brief explanation *Å Diphthong menu - what it does *Å Settings window ù where you choose types of substitution Å Choices dialogue box ù various preferences or choices Å Other choices ù more choices Å Characters dialogue box ù change the characters used for quotes *Å Diphthongs window ù viewing and editing diphthongs Å Using diphthongs ù hints and tips for diphthongs *Å Known problems ù please read Å How to contact me ù says it all really. Address, email, etc. The ₧le Other.MoreInfo contains the following, more obscure stuff: Å What these ₧les actually do ù explanation of all the ₧les Å The ₧les you actually need ù how to make a smaller Smart Quotes Å Miscellanea ù a few things that didnæt ₧t anywhere else Å * commands ù commands provided by the module Å Variables ù special variables used by Smart Quotes Å Changing the font ù how to change the default font Å Changes between previous versions ù whatæs been added, changed etc. Å Thanks etc. ù various thank-yous, greets, comments, etc. Å Known problems ù various problems with other programs etc. Å Wish-list ù things I would like to do to Smart Quotes You may not have a ₧le called Other.MoreInfo, in which case you have a small version of Smart Quotes. The full version has source code and other goodies, and should be freely available from the place you got this version. The ₧le FileList contains a full list of the ₧les you should have. Warning ù Smart Quotes needs the Filter Manager *********************************************** Smart Quotes works by intercepting key events passed to WIMP applications, a facility which is only available under RISC OS 3 or later. It determines which version of RISC OS it is running under by checking whether the FilterManager is present or not ù so if you have RISC OS 3 or later, type *RMReinit FilterManager at the CLI prompt (F12 or Ctrl-F12) and try again. I am currently aware of four major versions of RISC OS, namely 2.00, 3.00 (early A5000s), 3.10 (most newish machines) and 3.50 (RISC PC). Smart Quotes will not work on RISC OS 2, will probably work on RISC OS 3.00 (it was quite buggy, apparently), will de₧nitely work on 3.10 (the version Iæve got), and will very probably work on 3.50 ù version 1.14 was tested on a RISC PC, and thereæs nothing fundamentally different (i.e. it still behaves the same way). If you come across any problems, please contact me (see öHow to contact meò at the end of this ₧le). Boring legal message ******************** This application is freeware, that is, it can be distributed freely as long as only reasonable charges are made for media and distribution, and as long as all the files are distributed intact, unmodified (see öThe ₧les you may haveò for a full list of files and lengths) ù but see below. I retain copyright on all program code and documentation. One slight exception is the set of library routines Other.ShortHelp, which may be distributed and used separately (for writing modules for instance). See the ₧le Other.ShortHDocs for more information. You may also freely distribute and use the module MoreHelp. No documentation is supplied here, but the application !MoreHelp should be available from the place you got Smart Quotes (if not, send a disc to me and Iæll send it to you, but mail me ₧rst). Given the size of Smart Quotes, and particularly the amount of excess garbage (source code etc.), you are allowed to distribute a öusefulò version of Smart Quotes, i.e. that produced by running SlimDown on a full version, provided: 1) You make it quite clear that this is not the complete version, and that the source code and other interesting ₧les are not included in the package. 2) You make it as easy as possible to acquire the extra ₧les. This software is supplied öasáisò: I make no warranty, expressed or implied, of the merchantability of this software or its ₧tness for any particular purpose. In no circumstances shall I be liable for any damage, loss of pro₧ts, or any indirect or consequential loss arising out of the use of this software or inability to use this software, even if I have been advised of the possibility of such loss. In other words, if your computer crashes, blows up, you lose all your work etc. all because of Smart Quotes (unlikely I know), donæt blame me. If you use this at all, please write to me or e-mail me (see below) telling me how wonderful or how atrocious it is. Itæs always nice to hear from people. About all these strange foreign characters in this ₧le ******************************************************* OK, so if youære reading this on a PC or a Mac or another strange machine like that, you may be wondering what all these strange ae things are. Well, theyære quotes (sorry, there was another one), dashes, ligatures, etc. Honest. But not on all machines... Basically, character sets are only standard up to character 127, which is basically alphanumerics and a few standard punctuation marks. Foreign characters, typographical oddities like quotes and ligatures, and other more obscure symbols are önon-standardò, and each computer often has its own idea of where they should go in the character set. So donæt worry: even if itæs hard to read on your current machine, it wonæt be on an Acorn machine. Iæm using an Acorn machine and it still looks strange ***************************************************** Thatæs because youære using the System font. Quotes look OK in the system font, but dashes and other ligatures or diphthongs look squashed. If youære reading this in Edit or another editor that knows about outline fonts, change to an outline font; if youære using Zap, complain bitterly about its lack of understanding of proportional fonts (if you havenæt come across this öfeatureò of Zap, try it and be amazed), and load the ₧le into Edit. If the lines look spaced out in Edit, set Line spacing to -2 or something. If you want to see why diphthongs are actually useful, use a serif font (like Trinity) rather than a sans-serif font (like Homerton); even better, use the Italic version. The difference is quite spectacular. Quotation marks *************** Operation of the program is (hopefully) self-explanatory; the principles behind it may not be. What the program basically does is sit in the background, and intercept all the key presses, substituting double and single quotes according to the current settings, as well as ligatures or diphthongs. Double quotes are very simple: it just substitutes neutral quotes (ö) by ö and ò alternatively, which should be OK in the vast majority of cases (unless you are using lots of nested quotations). You can of course turn double quote substitution off, for instance if you are programming, and leave single quote substitution on. The problem is single quotes. Because SmartQuotes has no knowledge of what you have previously typed, it doesnæt know, when you type an apostrophe (É), whether you are starting or closing a quotation (e.g. Ésome textæ), or whether the apostrophe is part of a word (e.g. ödonætò). So, if it tries to substitute single quotes like double quotes, i.e. alternating open and double single quotes, it will often get it wrong. As most people donæt use single quotes a lot, but use apostrophes all the time, SmartQuotes will automatically substitute neutral single quotes by apostrophes; however, there is an option to substitute neutral single quotes alternatively with É and æ. Of course, if youære still not satis₧ed, you can turn the whole thing off and stick to double quotes. Also, it will often not substitute quotes in a writable icon ù keys are usually handled directly by the WIMP in writable icons, so Smart Quotes doesnæt get to hear about them. You have to insert them manually ù Shift-Adjust-clicking on any of Smart Quotesæ windowsæ close icon will run !Chars (or whatever character viewer you have chosen - see öOther choicesò). Ligatures and diphthongs ************************ Diphthongs are special characters made out of two other characters östuck togetherò, like µ (öaò+öeò). This looks more impressive in upper-case: ╞. Ligatures are special characters made out of two characters östuck togetherò, like ₧ (öfò + öiò). I canæt show you this in upper-case, because F and I donæt stick in upper-case. Thatæs the difference between diphthongs and ligatures (I think - someone out there who knows much better than I do will probably correct me). Diphthongs are linguistic combinations, ligatures are typographical combinations. Do not think for a moment that you have to remember this. Itæs quite a trivial difference anyway, certainly as far as this program is concerned. In this documentation, I will use ödiphthongò and öligatureò to mean the same thing, a special character made out of two other characters. Anyway, Smart Quotes maintains a list of characters and diphthongs (fully customisable), and scans keypresses like it does for quotes. Whenever two characters are typed in succession, it looks in its tables to see whether they should form a diphthong; if they should, it deletes the ₧rst one, and inserts the required diphthong. So if you type an öfò, and then immediately afterwards an öiò, it will delete the öfò, and replace the öiò by the magic character, ö₧ò. Itæs all straightforward (to use, anyway). Remember, however, that you have to type the two characters in immediate succession ù if you type a hyphen, then something else, then type another hyphen after it, nothing will happen. To replace a hyphen by an en-dash, you have to delete it, then type two hyphens. Also, when you delete a diphthong, you delete the whole thing. You canæt type ö₧ò, type delete, and end up with a normal öfò: Smart Quotes knows youære deleting something, but doesnæt know what (you could have moved the cursor, changed windows, anything). Itæs a small problem; I hope it doesnæt irritate you too much. See öDiphthongs windowò for more details about how to add diphthongs yourself, and öUsing diphthongsò for more hints and tips. Typing mistakes *************** Typing mistakes, known as ötyposò for short: most of them are either wrong capitalisation or transposition of two letters. Short of having a massive dictionary Smart Quotes canæt help you with transposition ù and anyway if youære using this in a word processor you will have a spell checker ù, but it can make an intelligent guess at correcting capitalisation. What usually happens is this: you have Caps Lock turned off, and you want to type a word beginning with a capital letter, so you press Shift to make the ₧rst letter a capital ù and then you leave it on too long so the second letter ends up capitalised as well. Youæve usually let it go by the time you type the third letter, so you end up WIth WOrds THat LOok SOmething LIke THis. If you have typing mistake checking turned on, and you type two capital letters at the beginning of a word and then a lower-case letter, Smart Quotes will replace the second capital letter by a lower-case letter, so you end up With Words That Look Something Like This. This is the option that is least likely to cause you problems, as it doesnæt involve any fancy characters that some programs donæt like. Only turn it off it you will be typing words like NExT a lot of the time, or if case matters (variable names, SWI names etc.). Menu structure, windows *********************** Smart Quotes now supports interactive help, so I will only explain things in this ₧le that wouldnæt ₧t in the interactive help messages. Interactive help should by default be turned on; if it isnæt, select öInteractive helpò in the Choices window, available from the menu option öChoices...ò in the icon bar menu. Diphthong menu ************** Save saves a ₧le called öDiphthongsò in the directory pointed to by the variable SmartQuotes$ChoicesDir, which is by default SmartQuotes$Dir but can be changed to point elsewhere if the Smart Quotes directory is read-only or restricted access (i.e. on a network) in the öOther choicesò window (see below). The Diphthongs ₧le is a simple Obey ₧le, so double-clicking on it will load the diphthongs. Refresh: basically, choose this option if you want to make sure the front end really knows what characters are going to be substituted. Usually it does, but if you have modi₧ed the diphthongs in the command line, or by double-clicking on another Diphthongs ₧le, you have to tell it the diphthongs have changed. Settings window *************** The settings dialogue box determines how characters will be substituted. Choices take effect immediately, so playing around with the different options and typing to see what happens is usually the best way to work out what they all mean. The dialogue box can take two different forms, depending on the current choices, which will be reƒected in the title of the window. The default form is the graphical form ù öShow options as iconsò. You can switch between the two forms by Adjust-clicking on the windowæs close icon. Choices dialogue box ******************** This dialogue box affects the working of the front-end, and so doesnæt affect substitution of quotes: itæs mainly cosmetics. Changes take effect immediately. See also the öOther choicesò window. öShow next quote in iconò: If this option is selected, Smart Quotesæ icon on the icon bar, to the left of the Palette, will change from the standard Quotes icon (Éæ) to a representation of what double and single quotes would be represented by (i.e. either an open, double or neutral quote). Again, the effect is cumbersome to explain in words and very easy to understand when you can see what is going on ù but basically, its main use is to show you what the next quote is going to be, so if you donæt like what it will give you, you can change the options. It doesnæt show ligatures because there are so many of them. öRemember quotesæ stateò: If selected, when you temporarily disable quotes substitution by Adjust-clicking on the iconbar icon, Smart Quotes will remember the state of the quotes, and restore it when you re-enable substitution; otherwise, it will reset the quotesæ state to the default value. So for instance, if you type a double quote (so the next one will be closed), turn off substitution, do something, then turn it back on, and type a double quote, if öRemember quotesæ stateò is on you will get a closed quote, otherwise you will get another open quote. You should select this option if you usually disable substitution to type something, then re-enable substitution and carry on where you left off. Conversely, if you usually disable substitution because you typed a smart quote rather than a neutral quote, and want to avoid that happening again, when you really *do* want to type a smart quote you will probably want to start with an open quote, so you should de-select this option. öInteractive helpò: If selected, you will get interactive help on all of Smart Quotesæ windows and icons; if not, you wonæt. As mentioned above, this is supplied with the module More Help, which means it doesnæt eat up any of Smart Quotesæ memory ù it does use some in the Module Area, though. öÉQuitæ kills moduleò: If selected, when you quit the front-end, the ÉSmartQuotesæ module will be killed, thus stopping all substitution. If you want substitution to carry on after you quit the front-end (if you are short of memory, for instance), turn this option off. Bear in mind, however, that without the front-end you will need to use the command line (F12 or Ctrl-F12) to modify the settings; also, when you quit the front-end, you may have forgotten the module is still running and substituting quotes. Programmers beware! Other choices ************* The öOther choicesò window is different from the other windows, in that changes you make in this window do not take effect immediately. This is due to the special nature of the Other choices window, which is in fact öownedò by another application, as it wouldnæt ₧t in the main Smart Quotes application ù which explains the disc access when you click on the öOther...ò button in the Choices window. In this window you can change the font styles Smart Quotes uses for the öDiphthongsò window, the öEdit diphthongsò window and the öCharactersò window; you can change the application to be run when you Shift-Adjust click on a close icon (the öcharacter viewerò); and you can change where Smart Quotes stores its Choices ₧les, if you are running Smart Quotes from a read-only ₧ling system like a network, a CD or a protected hard disc. Full interactive help is provided, so there shouldnæt be too many difficulties. The following comments may be useful: Å You donæt have to drag an application to the window to change the character viewer; you can drag a ₧le as well. (Unfortunately you cannot use a directory - you canæt have everything). The ₧le will be run using *WimpTask, which will run the ₧le without telling applications ù so if you run a Draw₧le and Draw (or a similar application) is running, a second copy of Draw will be loaded. Therefore, the best ₧les to use are Obey, Command, the TaskWindow equivalents, Desktop or similar ₧les. Å You can change the location of the Choices directory (usually called öSQáChoicesò but you can modify the actual ₧lename by editing the writable ₧eld); when you click öSave and useò, if the ₧lename is different the ₧les will be copied from their old location to their new one. Smart Quotes will then try and update the öChoicesò ₧le in the (NB) *Smart Quotes* directory ù which may be write-protected. In this case, Smart Quotes will try and save it in the Scrap directory. This also happens if the new choices directory is write protected. If you donæt have a Scrap directory set up (i.e. you havenæt öseenò Scrap if you have RISC OS 3.1) the save will fail. Å When you modify one of the options, the title bar will change to öOther choices *ò to show that the choices have been modi₧ed. Characters dialogue box *********************** Clicking Default will revert to default settings. An individual character will also revert to default if the ₧eld is left blank. Clicking Save will save the preferred characters to a ₧le called ö<SmartQuotes$ChoicesDir>.Charsò (see above). This is a standard Obey ₧le, and so is human-readable and editable (unlike the rather obscure Choices ₧le ;) ). Again, like the Diphthongs ₧le, running it from a Filer window will load the characters (provided Smart Quotes is running, of course). Clicking Refresh will re-scan the characters, in case you have changed the de₧nitions via the command line or by double-clicking on another Chars ₧le. Diphthongs window ***************** Choosing òDiphthongs...ö from the main menu will open the Diphthongs window, containing a list of all the current diphthongs. The list is divided into three columns, somewhat like this: First Second Subst - - ù ù - ÿ ÿ - Å f i ₧ f l ƒ The window uses an outline font (Trinity.Medium for the text, Homerton.Bold for the heading, by default) so you can see exactly what is going on. The First column contains the ₧rst character in the sequence, the Second column the second character, the Subst column the character that replaces the two. Using diphthongs **************** Most diphthongs in the list are fairly straightforward: f and i make ₧, - twice produces an en-dash (ù). There is however more than that to diphthongs: you can combine several diphthongs. For instance, to get a longer em-dash, type - three times: it will be substituted by an en-dash, and then by an em-dash, as another diphthong was de₧ned as ù + - = ÿ. For when a diphthong is substituted, it simulates a key-press, and can therefore be the ₧rst part of another diphthong. (Typing - yet again will turn the em-dash into a bullet Å, as yet another diphthong was de₧ned as ÿ + - = Å). Another example is fractions. 1 and / produce ╣; afterwards, typing either 2 or 4 will get ╜ or ╝, as diphthongs have been de₧ned for ╣ and 2 and ╣ and 4. Accents can also be provided: e and / results in Θ, e and \ in Φ, etc. Circumƒexes are more difficult (you need a ^, which uses Shift), and umlauts are downright difficult: " is already used, and using a colon is dangerous as colons are commonly used after vowels. You could always use ú or |. Cautionary tale: at one point I was going through the list of ligatures in the character set, and found ö¢ò. Having just done µ, I added o + e = ¢. Then I typed ödoesò. Oops. So beware: donæt add diphthongs just because thereæs a character that *could* be substituted - you might not want to use it. Known problems ************** If you are programming, typing commands at the CLI (F12 or taskwindow), doing anything at all involving comms, or in general using an application that doesnæt look too kindly upon top-bit-set characters, turn Smart Quotesæ substitution off (Adjust-click on the icon will do the trick temporarily). Otherwise, the CLI will fail to recognise your command (öfile '₧lters' not foundò), any quotes or diphthongs will be tokenised if youære programming in BASIC (itæs particularly spectacular in Zap ;) ), and any e-mail or usenet postings will look particularly gruesome on some peopleæs machines. This isnæt a bug, or even a feature, so thereæs nothing you can do about it. As mentioned previously, Smart Quotes will often not substitute characters when the cursor is in a writable icon ù in a dialogue box or off a menu item, for instance Name disc in the ADFS icon bar menu. This is because the WIMP handles those key presses itself (unless the öNotifyò option is set in the validation string, e.g. öKARTNò), and Smart Quotes doesnæt get a look in. This shouldnæt be too much of a problem ù usually you donæt want substitution in those cases anyway. However, any applications that require you to enter text in a dialogue box (a ₧eld name in a database, for instance), will not allow substitution. Those using Zap may ₧nd certain diphthongs donæt work ù namely, those using a shift-key to produce the second character, like A E ╞ (if Caps Lock is off), < < ½ etc. This is because, when Smart Quotes sends Zap a delete character, Shift is still held down, so Zap looks at Shift-Delete and sees the command öDELETENEXTò rather than öDELETEò, and so fails to delete the character, so youære left with something like A╞, <½ etc. To get round this, you have to change the key mappings: Edit the key mappings (iconbar menu, Options=>Edit keys) Find sDELETE in the ₧le Replace whatever command is opposite it by DELETE Save the ₧le Re-load the key mappings as the new one (Options=>Reload keys) On a similar level, if you hold down the hyphen key, you may ₧nd that dashes in various shapes and sizes start lining up, looking something like this -----ÿÅùÅ-ÿÅ-ù. (This was actually done in Edit as Zap is fast enough not to have this problem ;) ). This is because Edit (or whoever the culprit was) wasnæt managing to delete characters fast enough before another one comes along, so Smart Quotesæ fancy substitution method falls over. The solution is simple: donæt type as fast! If there is an error in the middle of the slimming down/fattening down process, you may find that files are in the wrong place. Unless you know what you're doing, copy your SQáChoices directory to somewhere else, restore from a backup, and copy the SQáChoices directory back. As I don't have a CD-ROM or a network I haven't tested Smart Quotes thoroughly on write-protected filing systems. If files haven't been copied, Smart Quotes will re-create them when it next runs. If you want to keep them, make a backup! I have been told of problems with certain terminal emulators (think it was Hearsay), where Smart Quotes causes spurious interrupts or something. I donæt know any more about this, and knowing comms programs itæs probably not me ;). But you have been warned. As mentioned elsewhere, KeyMouse uses Alt-Select to move a window. Clicking Alt-Select on the iconbar makes it want to move the window ù obviously it canæt, but tries all the same, and someone complains (ADFS Filer on my machine). This isnæt Smart Quotesæ fault! If windows appear in strange positions, or fail to appear at all when you try and open them, you very probably have a corrupt Choices ₧le. Delete it and re-run the program; the program will complain that it canæt ₧nd a Choices ₧le, and will then create a new one with the default settings: Å All substitutions on Å Next double quote will be open, next single quote closed Å Use graphical settings box Å Show quote state in icon Å Use interactive help Å Kill module when quit Å Windows positioned to suit a mode 35 screen or similar (768x288) Impressionæs spell checker doesnæt take kindly to ₧ and ƒ (certainly not on my version, Publisher 4.01, ImpressionSpell 1.27). When spell checking, it ignores ₧ and ƒ, so if you spell check the word ö₧ndingò it will complain that it doesnæt know the word öndingò (rather than complain about not knowing the word ö₧ndingò ;)). This is because, if you look at the character set (double-click on Smart Quotesæ icon or run !Chars), ₧ and ƒ are buried among the odds and ends, like bullets, fractions, dashes, etc., not among the accents at all (Impression knows about accents - checking the word öΘtrangeò will come up with öΘtrangeò and not ötrangeò). I suspect (I havenæt tried it) Impression will ignore all characters from Ç to ┐, and cope happily with └ to ■ (not for some reason), so there will be the same problem for Ü and ¢ (but not for ╞ and µ). I donæt know what you can do about this, apart from complaining to Computer Concepts and using the öIgnoreò button a lot ;) ù the nice man from Computer Concepts said they had no plans to add support for ligatures to ImpressionSpell in the near future. (This is from the company whose own literature, namely the DemoDoc ₧le supplied with Publisher, recommends you use ligatures all the time ;) ). If it bothers you, remove ₧ and ƒ from the list. How to contact me ***************** All bug-reports, suggestions, comments or indeed any feedback at all will be welcomed. Hereæs how to get to me: E-mail : 926286ki@udcf.gla.ac.uk during term-time These should be OK until June 1996 At Christmas, Easter and during the summer, you can get me at wombat@altern.com, wombat@email.teaser.com or sam@altern.com, in order of preference (that is, if mail bounces off one of these or I donæt answer within a week send to the next one). Snail-mail : My term-time address, at least until June 1995, is: Sam Kington Flat 2/1 44 Hotspur Street Glasgow G20 8NL SCOTLAND Again, a backup is the home address ù anything that goes here will get to me eventually. Sam Kington Merlhiot 24420 Savignac les Eglises FRANCE Term-time is October to June, with bits off at Christmas (3 weeks) and Easter (4 weeks).