Organising the sequence of dictionaries in 'Dictionary Switcher' dropdown menu.
System info: Win XP SP3 (en-US locale), Firefox v16.0.1 (en-US version).
1: Why are some dictionaries in 'Extensions', and others in 'Dictionaries'? And which of the two is the way of future development?
2: Is there a way to organise the listing of dictionaries in the 'Dictionary Switcher' drop-down menu in A) alphabetical order, B) following the FF Languages option, or C) my own preference?
3: Ditto for the listing of locales in the 'Quick Locale Switcher' drop-down menu.
4: The dictionaries in the 'Dictionaries' section of add-on management do not show up in the 'Dictionary Switcher' drop-down menu. Is this a user-modifiable option, and if so, how?
5: Or should I be asking where to find the help files for various add-ons - other than asking the add-on authors? :-)
I can understand that questions 1 through 4 have interrelated answers.
Thanks, Scott
All Replies (2)
1. The Dictionaries category in the Addons Manager is new, as of Firefox 16. I suspect that the Dictionary addons will need to be updated as a result of that change to Firefox.
2 & 3. I have no idea. My guess is that they appear in the order they were installed; latest installed at the top of the listing. And if that isn't the case, it might be alpha / numeric based upon the GUID of each individual addon.
4. I suspect that all the various dictionary addons will need to be modified slightly to be displayed in the Dictionaries panel rather than in the Extensions panel of the Addons Manager.
5. Best to obtain help help directly from each addons developer, when that information is provided by the developer (email address, forum thread, or the developers' own website).
That said, do you even need the Dictionary Switcher addon any longer?
Right-click in a multi-line Text Area and hover over Languages, then select the dictionary / language.
Re 1&4: Thanks, the-edmeister.
Re 2&3: If disabling & re-enabling an add-on is the same as re-installing it, then the sequence of dictionaries does change when right-clicking in an input field. But not to either alphabetical order, my preferences, last-enabled on top or bottom of list, or to the ID as listed in the Troubleshooting info. Weird. I have not tried actually removing & re-installing a dictionary.
Re 5: I'll go check with the author of 'Quick Locale Switcher'. Methinks one could make writing help-files for add-ons a full-time job...
NEW 6: Every time I switch from Firefox to some different window, the language changes to en-US (probably because that's my system's locale). This I really do not like. I wish it stayed at its last setting. If it HAS to change, then I wish it would have been to the top one in my Language preferences. Whether I have 'Dictionary Switcher' enabled or not makes no difference. This particular sub-question has been asked by others, but I haven't seen a solution that allows the selected input-language to remain selected.
I guess I myself would not need 'Dictionary Switcher' any more if 'Quick Locale Switcher' and/or FF itself A) did not change languages due to window-switching, B) had an 'auto-detect language while typing' option, and C) in its context pop-up displayed either the sequence as in the FF Selected Languages list or in strict alphabetical order (of the ISO-639 codes).
And I do realise the interplay between the language of interface, the content, and the input is a nightmare to set up cleanly - mostly due to average users not realising the difference between the various sections of a web-page.. Examples: - Using multiple input languages (dictionaries) on a single website but the content in whatever the default is for THAT site, and the interface-language set to one's preference for ALL sites. - A worse horror might be the use of multiple languages within a single input field...
Regards, Scott