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/** Quotation marks **/
Yet another topic from sentence discussions[1]: Unfortunately many keyboard setups don't include keys for both opening and closing quotation marks so I thought I'd post here on the Wall where one finds these on Macs and how to set it up on Linux, should your layout not provide it.
Apple's operating system has this key under the “[” key (on the US keyboard). Just press “alt option” and the key for the opening quotation mark. Shifting gives you the closing.
On Linux, I added
key <AB04> { [ v, V, doublelowquotemark ] };
key <AB05> { [ b, B, leftdoublequotemark ] };
key <AB06> { [ n, N, rightdoublequotemark ] };
to my xkb symbols file in
/usr/share/X11/symbols/
If anyone knows how to get these glyphs in Windows, please add that information here below.
[1] http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentence...33644#comments
It should be noted however that the set of quotation marks is language-dependent. German Wikipedia has a list of what language uses what symbols (the article also contains info on how to enter the symbols in Windows): http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/An...zeichen#Andere Sprachen
Let's hope people who aren't aware of that don't contribute sentences in those languages.
Apple, by the way, makes life easy and picks the correct quotation marks depending on the keyboard language setting. Linux makes life hard, forcing you to think about what you're doing (oh, the humanity!).
Tatoeba, by the way, doesn't like spaces in URLs, so you'll have to use http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/An...ndere_Sprachen
The corresponding information can be found in English here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qu...-English_usage
To be honest, I can't be bothered to use the "proper" German quotation marks. My computer setup is entirely German, but I still can't type them without using some weird key combination, which is more than cumbersome. Incidentally, all major German newspapers use "..." on their websites.
You heretic! This will NOT be tolerated!!! ;-)
Okay, let me test it: Spiegel and Süddeutsche use "", FAZ and Die Welt use „“.
(Although I don't know whether any of them use their respective signs consistently. Perhaps it depends on the text editor the single authors use.)
I don't want to force anybody to use them, they _are_ a pain in the ass because they are hard to enter. Perhaps the solution would be to have an automated or semi-automated script that updates " into the relevant citation signs.
>You heretic! This will NOT be tolerated!!! ;-)
What can I say, I'm a lazy bastard. ;)
>Perhaps the solution would be to have an automated or semi-automated script that updates " into the relevant citation signs.
I second that.
I think it would be best to leave this up to the contributor. I can imagine that there could be sentences where curly quotes might seem out of place. Automation, furthermore, is likely to create problems (incorrectly detected language gets straight quotes turned into incorrect curly ones, etc.).
We could, however, set up a tool which does en-masse replacement on one's own sentences after one has reviewed them.
The simplest solution, however, is probably just to make it easier for people to type in the glyphs that they'd like to use. Reaching for a different key isn't going to cut any days of anyone's life. If we're really in such a hurry that a slightly novel (and at worst awkward) key combination is too much bother, then I hope that no-one actually read this... :-)
>Reaching for a different key isn't going to cut any days of anyone's life.
Well, I'd have to press five different keys just to type „ or “ (Alt + 0132/Alt + 0147). It adds up. ;)
And here I thought technology was supposed to be a tool, not a shackle...
In the case of Windows, I was wrong: http://news.cnet.com/Linux-felo...3-6204348.html
This might be out of place here, but I've been thinking about a kind of "characters box" (like we click on buttons for a input a special character of our choice) for there are keys in western language, or characters in shanghainese that I find to be a pain to reach but get to use regularly. And possibly if we could personally stuff it according needings.
Sure, but for people who use the languages they contribute in, it would be better to solve this problem globally.
Of course.
I've created a quick and dirty Greasemonkey script: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/101067
It puts some of the hard-to-reach symbols (typographically correct semicolon, citation signs) in a box below the edit window and also provides access keys so you don't have to use the mouse to click them (under Firefox you would use Alt+Shift+1 to insert the semicolon).
For your personal use it's probably best to download the script and modify it for your needs (adding the desired symbols).
It's really just a quick shot, feel free to improve the script ;-)
Great!
For users of mobile devices or those who dont want to install greasemonkey or cannot do so:
There is a script to make other greasmonkey scripts portable. It emulates greasemonkey and can be used as a bookmarklet. Here is the one for "Tatoeba Edit Insert Links":
javascript:%20var%20s=document.createElement('script');%20s.src='http://ab.lage.fuenfundfuenfzig...ld(s);void(0);
I think we should add "…" (Ellipsis) and "–" (Dash), because these symbols are also used to less frequently.
It would be cool to have all the symbols needed for a certain language ( eg. ßäöü for german, èéà etc for french and the corresponding "«" signs) in a form that the user could 1) choose which ones he needs (customize) by puting his preferred language-codes into the script and 2) have them at hand as soon as he uses the dropdown menu. So lets say i dropdown to german, theres going to appear the corresponding needed signs.
What do you think?
Yep, Alt+0132 and Alt+0148 in case of Polish.
„Example”.
The proper French quotes (guillemets) are « » but they're not used consistently on Tatoeba. Maybe Sysko could write a script.
Additionally, spaces before punctuation (for French) should be converted to non-breaking spaces so that punctuation doesn't wrap to the next line by itself. (It looks ugly.)
On Linux, you can type many characters with the Compose Key (which you can set to whatever you want), and logical key sequences that are easy to remember.
For example, [Compose ' a] gives you á. [Compose ? ?] gives you ¿.
Here are the sequences for a few quote characters:
[Compose < "] -> “
[Compose > "] -> ”
[Compose < <] -> «
[Compose > >] -> »
For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key
At least here on Ubuntu, PT-BR layout, I can type these:
AltGr + z = «
AltGr + x = »
AltGr + v = “
AltGr + b = ”