[Bug 662840] Re: Spell checking more than one language in Firefox

Sun Feb 27 00:09:22 UTC 2022

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On 2017-09-25T12:03:25+00:00 Ben-bucksch wrote:

Problem:
I routinely write emails in 3 different languages. They are all mixed: one email in English, another in German, and some in French. In some cases, I even write 2 different languages to the same person, depending on who else is or was involved in the thread, or depending on the subject.

Importance:
The problem arises for all users who speak several languages. E.g. they speak their local language with their friends, and English with international correspondents. In other words, this bug is important for all international communication (unless your native language happens to be English).

Non-solutions:
I cannot specify the language for each email. That costs too much time, and I'll rather ignore the spell-checker altogether.

Solution:
The only solution is to once - as a configuration - select a number of languages that I know how to write, and then to allow all words in these languages.

This is what Android keyboard does as well.

Out of scope:
If we can automatically detect the language that the user writes, that would be nice, but that would be another bug, an enhancement on top of this bug here.

Etiquette:
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*** Comments from end-users are not allowed here. ***
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These should be posted in bug 69687 instead, as they would be distracting here. Thanks for your understanding. This is an engineering implementation bug. But if you are waiting for this feature and want it to be implemented fast, please vote for this bug here.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/16

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On 2017-11-22T12:50:12+00:00 Dawid M. wrote:

Just to add my two cents and share some user experience... Constant-
manual-language-switching is getting so annoying, that I started to
consider either turning spell checks off completely in Firefox, or
switching to Chrome. I was trying to deal with it, until I was using
mainly Polish and English (+ some Spanish or German from time to time).
But 3 years ago I met my future wife from Slovakia, and this year we got
married. Switching between 3 languages is really tedious work... Plus
I'm still learning Slovak, and she is learning Polish, so in
communication between us we mix all 3 languages quite frequently if not
constantly... ;]

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/17

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On 2018-05-12T05:56:19+00:00 Gingerbread-man-2 wrote:

How does this differ from bug 481884 that you haven't touched since
2014?

(In reply to Ben Bucksch (:BenB) from comment #0)
> If we can automatically detect the language that the user writes, that would
> be nice, but that would be another bug

Bug 1203024

> *** Comments from end-users are not allowed here. ***

You can ask someone with the right privileges to restrict comments.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/18

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On 2018-05-14T09:37:41+00:00 Gingerbread-man-2 wrote:

*** Bug 481884 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/19

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On 2018-05-14T09:38:13+00:00 Gingerbread-man-2 wrote:

*** Bug 557621 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/20

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On 2018-05-14T09:38:25+00:00 Gingerbread-man-2 wrote:

*** Bug 693831 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/21

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On 2018-05-14T09:42:31+00:00 Alexander Popov wrote:

> Duplicate of this bug: 481884

Is the older bug duplicate newer? Okay...

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/22

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On 2018-05-22T17:24:53+00:00 Jmathies wrote:

*** Bug 481884 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/23

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On 2020-02-14T15:13:45+00:00 Ben-bucksch wrote:

Chrome has option "All your languages" (combined): https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=8845416
Chrome puts different language suggestions together: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=9075388

So, Chrome fixed exactly this bug here, in the same way as suggested
here.

This is arguably the correct solution. I often mix words from other languages in a sentence.
This is also the easiest solution, because you don't need a complicated and error-prone language detection. You simply make the dictionary the super set of all the languages (typically 2 or 3) that the user selected.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/29

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On 2020-02-23T15:33:03+00:00 Martijn-pepping wrote:

My current work-around is adding ~100K of the most common words from my
native dictionary to the 'persdict.dat' file (within your Firefox
profile folder). Works OK without any noticeable performance penalty,
but I (and probably many others) would definitely love to see multi-
language spell checking in Firefox. This is a feature Chrome has since
47.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/30

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On 2020-04-04T09:45:03+00:00 Vespacarlo wrote:

Hello, I'd like to work on this bug. I've already developed a possible
solution and would like some feedback.

Can someone assign this bug to me and guide me through the patch
process?

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/31

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On 2020-04-04T09:59:37+00:00 Ben-bucksch wrote:

Carlo: Happy to do that! I've assigned the bug to you.
In case you stop working on it, without the fix actually landing in the code tree, please unassign the bug again.
If you have a patch, be sure to ask for review while you attach the patch. The dropdrown should normally suggest appropriate reviewers.
I've also sent you a welcome message with some additional help.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/32

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On 2020-04-04T11:51:34+00:00 B-emilio wrote:

You can ask any question related to patch submission / etc in
https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#introduction:mozilla.org

There are other links in the topic of that channel which you may find
helpful.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/33

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On 2020-06-05T11:46:14+00:00 Bugzilla-v wrote:

Hi, I'd just like to add my vote to please fix this issue. Technically
it's a feature request, but it's a feature that is sorely missed by
many, many people around the world.

Actually, Chrome's solution to this is quite elegant: the spellcheck
language is set not by a radio button, but by check boxes, and
apparently, the browser simply "combines" all selected languages when
spellchecking (rather than spellchecking only in the 1 selected
language).

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/36

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On 2020-06-05T11:54:30+00:00 Vespacarlo wrote:

(In reply to cOgnaut from comment #13)

> Actually, Chrome's solution to this is quite elegant: the spellcheck
language is set not by a radio button, but by check boxes, and
apparently, the browser simply "combines" all selected languages when
spellchecking (rather than spellchecking only in the 1 selected
language).

This is what I implemented, but I have been really busy recently and don't have the time to actually finish working on it, for now.
Especially because on my macbook it takes ages to compile.

I hope to get some free time to finally finish the patch and post it
here for review.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/37

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On 2020-06-05T14:29:31+00:00 Ben-bucksch wrote:

> This is what I implemented

Can you share the code, please?

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/38

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On 2020-06-06T08:24:51+00:00 Vespacarlo wrote:

Created attachment 9154734
0001-Draft-patch-for-bug-1402822.patch

Here it is. This is after a `git pull --rebase`.
Unfortunately, mach tells me there's something in my tree that doesn't let it compile, so I don't even know if it compiles now. I would have to checkout everything again from scratch and run a full compile, but it would take hours.

The code worked when I wrote it, the patch was missing a couple of
failing tests to be fixed and general polishing / splitting in multiple
smaller commits.

The result was that the dictionary selection menu was not a radio group
anymore but a multiple select and misspelling suggestions would come out
in round robin for each message, because hunspell doesn't return a score
to sort by.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/39

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On 2021-04-11T14:13:00+00:00 daniel wrote:

(In reply to Carlo from comment #16)
thanks for your contribution Carlo.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/40

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On 2022-02-18T11:41:17+00:00 Krosylight wrote:

*** Bug 616108 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/42

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On 2022-02-24T01:28:40+00:00 Ben-bucksch wrote:

🎉
@Dan Minor: Thank you for working on this!

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/662840/comments/44

** Changed in: firefox
       Status: Unknown => In Progress

** Changed in: firefox
   Importance: Unknown => Medium

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Title:
  Spell checking more than one language in Firefox

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