Difference between revisions of "Advanced Options"

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===Enable C+Shift commands for Bold, Underline, Colorize etc===
 
===Enable C+Shift commands for Bold, Underline, Colorize etc===
  
If this option is on, you can underline selected text by pressing Ctrl+Shift+N (MS-Windows) or Shift+Command+N (Macintosh), and you can colorize selected text by pressing Ctrl+Shift+C (MS-Windows) or Shift+Command+C (Macintosh). New in version 4.1: Bold via Ctrl+Shift+B (MS-Windows) or Shift+Command+B (Macintosh) (inserts a Bold tag but still displays as underline).
+
If this option is on, you can underline selected text by pressing Ctrl+Shift+N (MS-Windows) or Shift+⌘N (Macintosh), and you can colorize selected text by pressing Ctrl+Shift+C (MS-Windows) or Shift+⌘C (Macintosh). New in version 4.1: Bold via Ctrl+Shift+B (MS-Windows) or Shift+⌘B (Macintosh) (inserts a Bold tag but still displays as underline).
  
 
The effect is to insert HTML codes into the text: '''<u>''' for underline, and  '''<font color='blue'>''' for colorize.
 
The effect is to insert HTML codes into the text: '''<u>''' for underline, and  '''<font color='blue'>''' for colorize.

Revision as of 12:30, 11 October 2012

Wenlin 216x93.png Appendix I of the Wenlin User’s Guide

The Options menu (Chapter 2) contains an Advanced Options... item, in which are listed a variety of special features which advanced users might like to enable or disable.

There are several reasons why an option may be classified as “advanced.” The main reason is to keep Wenlin from seeming too complicated. Especially when you are first learning how to use Wenlin, we recommend that you ignore advanced options, and avoid changing their default settings. Some advanced options will only ever be of interest to a small minority of users under special circumstances. Some advanced options will interfere with Wenlin's usefulness if you change their settings without understanding what they do.

Due to the special and sometimes experimental nature of advanced options, they are more likely than other features to change from one version of Wenlin to the next, and their documentation may not be as accurate or complete.

Choosing the Advanced Options... item from the Options menu will display a list of advanced options. Each advanced option is assigned to a general category relating to its purpose. The category names are the same as (and in the same relative order as) the File, Edit, Dictionary, Font, Window menu items. To enable or disable an advanced option, simply check or uncheck the “龱/囗” checkbox before it.

Contents

File-Related

Use UTF-8 as the default format for opening unclear “.txt”, “.htm(l)” and “.xml” files

When this option is turned on, if you open a file whose name has the extension “.txt”, “.htm”, “.html” or “.xml”, and the format of the file is not indicated (by a byte-order mark, charset attribute, etc.), then Wenlin will assume the file is in UTF-8 encoding. By default, this option is off, and you will be asked “What format is this file?” as described in Chapter 3.

Use UTF-8 (not UTF-16) as the default format for saving new files

By default, this option is off, and Wenlin saves files with UTF-16 encoding, unless you choose a different format in the Save As... dialog. If you turn this option on, then UTF-8 will be used instead of UTF-16.

Save automatic-recovery information every 3 minutes

In case of an unplanned disruption, such as a power outage or a crash, Wenlin tries to prevent you from losing work that you have done editing documents or dictionary entries. Every three minutes, Wenlin automatically writes the contents of windows in which you are editing and have not saved the changes, to a special file. When you quit Wenlin normally, it deletes the file before quitting. If you quit abnormally and the file still exists the next time you start Wenlin, the file is displayed so that you can recover its contents. This feature is called "auto-recovery”. There are some limitations to it. To avoid taking too much time or using too much disk space, it only saves the text from windows containing up to one megabyte each, and it writes them all into the same file. This feature is not designed to replace the Save and Save As... commands; it is only a last resort that may, or may not, protect you in the event of disaster.

The name and location of the automatic-recovery file depend on your operating system. On Macintosh, it is named “.wenlin_autorecovery.wenlin” and is stored in the current user’s home folder; the dot at the beginning of the name causes the file to be hidden. On MS-Windows, it is named “wenlin_autorecovery.wenlin” and is stored in the Application Data folder for the current user; on Windows 7 or Vista that might be “C:\Users\[user name]\AppData\Local\”; on Windows XP it might be “C:\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Local Settings\Application Data\”. Normally there is no reason to look for the file directly, even if there is a crash. When Wenlin starts, it always looks for the file and opens it automatically if it exists.

By default this option is turned on. You might want to turn it off if you find any problem with it making noise or otherwise interfering with your normal workflow.

Automatically save flexible flashcard files (*.wenlinfx) after each question

When this option is on, as it is by default, flexible flashcard files are saved automatically whenever you do something that modifies the stack of cards, such as answering a question (which changes the order of cards and may change your score). If your computer is very slow or your flashcard stack is very large, the automatic saving might be slow and distracting, in which case you might want to turn this option off. You will be prompted to save before closing or quitting.

Disable updating of the “Open Recent” menu

The Open Recent sub-menu in the File menu is generally useful and you probably will want to keep it enabled most of the time. In fact, it is so useful that you may come to rely on it for conveniently opening certain important files that you frequently read. If you occasionally want to browse through a long list of less important files, you might not want them to fill up the sub-menu and replace the important files. This is a situation in which you might want to disable updating of the sub-menu temporarily before browsing the less important files, and then re-enable it when you're done. By default, this option is off, meaning that the sub-menu is not disabled.

Add BOM (byte-order mark) when saving .txt files as UTF-8

New 4 1 s.png With this option enabled, Wenlin adds a BOM (byte-order mark) when saving “.txt” files as UTF-8 (if a BOM is not already present). The head of a UTF-8 can have a BOM as a signature — an indication that an otherwise unmarked text file is in UTF-8 encoding form (though it makes no difference in the endianness of the byte stream). BOM at the head of UTF-8 text may, however, interfere with some processing. For more, see the Unicode BOM FAQ.

Tushuguan options...

Opens an option window that lets you change the location of Wenlin's Tushuguan folder. This can be used to access the data from an older version of Wenlin 4 that you have previously installed on your system.

Edit-Related

Reveal codes when editing is enabled

If this option is turned on, then whenever editing is enabled in a window, codes will be revealed. In other words, choosing Enable Editing from the File menu will then automatically have the effect of choosing Enable Codes in This Window from the Options menu; and if Open Files with Editing Enabled is turned on in the Options menu, then simply opening a file will cause it to have editing enabled and codes revealed. By default this option is off.

Show gray invisibles (spaces/tabs/newlines) when codes are revealed

If this option is on, then when codes are revealed (as by choosing Reveal Codes in This Window from the Options menu), spaces, tabs and newline characters are displayed as visible gray symbols. A space looks like a gray asterisk (*); a tab looks like a gray plus sign (+); and a newline looks like a gray pilcrow (¶) (Unicode U+00B6). By default, this option is turned on. You can turn it off if you don't need the gray invisibles and find them distracting.

Convert numbers to Chinese (e.g., 5 → 五, 10 → 十, 100 → 百) with the Convert key/command

When this option is on, typing a number followed by the special convert key converts the number into a Chinese number. Only numbers that map to single Chinese characters are converted.

As explained in Chapter 2 and Chapter 4, the special convert key is a shortcut for choosing Convert from the Edit menu, and its default value is the slash (/) key. So, if this option is on, you can type 5 / and the result will be . However, this can interfere with writing fractions such as 1/2 and dates such as 12/9/2010, so by default this option is off. But remember: you can always type your special convert key itself by typing the semi-colon followed by the special convert key, e.g. ; //.

Try to convert misspelled pinyin (e.g. “shaban” for “xiaban”) with the Convert key/command

With this option enabled Wenlin (as of 4.0.2, first documented for 4.1) attempts to correct frequent pinyin spelling mistakes when using the Convert command. Corrections will be suggested only if there are few or no conversion results from the uncorrected text. This option is experimental.

When editing is enabled, “Make Transformed Copy...” output replaces the input

Normally, “Make Transformed Copy...” makes a copy of its input text and places this in a new document. If you prefer that a new document not be created but the text be transformed in-place, you may select this option. It is applied only where editing is enabled (so you can't accidentally mess up a dictionary entry with it), and it is possible to Undo the transform using the normal Edit / Undo command.

Show advanced items in the “Make Transformed Copy...” pop-up list

When this option is on, the Make Transformed Copy... command displays options for transformations that are otherwise hidden. Some of these transformations are for unusual purposes and might distract you from the more basic or important transformations. Furthermore, Wenlin Institute does not guarantee technical support for these transformations. Therefore this option is off by default.

The extra transformations in Wenlin 4.0 are as follows (the additional ones in 4.1 are listed below this list):

  • {hanzi|pinyin} transcription: like pinyin transcription but leaves the hanzi in the copy, like this: {汉字|Hànzì} {与|yǔ} {拼音|pīnyīn}. You can then make any necessary corrections before transforming the text again using one of the "{hanzi|pinyin} to ..." transformations below.
  • {hanzi|pinyin} to HTML: takes a {hanzi|pinyin} transcription and turns it into HTML code for a Web browser. When the resulting code is displayed in a modern graphical Web browser like Safari, Firefox or Internet Explorer, the pinyin for each group of hanzi will be placed over the top of that hanzi group (so-called "ruby" layout). This transformation can also turn any other text into HTML code, not just {hanzi|pinyin} transcriptions, but it is most useful for {hanzi|pinyin} transcriptions.
  • {hanzi|pinyin} to CJK-LaTeX: takes a {hanzi|pinyin} transcription and turns it into typesetting code for the advanced typesetting system called LaTeX (a variant of the TeX system developed by Professor Donald Knuth of Stanford University and often used in academia). You will need the CJK version of LaTeX to typeset hanzi and pinyin. This transformation can also turn any other text into LaTeX code, not just {hanzi|pinyin} transcriptions, but it is most useful for {hanzi|pinyin} transcriptions.
  • {hanzi|pinyin} to Lilypond lyrics: takes a {hanzi|pinyin} transcription and turns it into lyrics code for a music typesetting program called GNU Lilypond. You can use this to typeset songs with pinyin placed over the hanzi. Note that this transform generates only the lyrics code, not the music. You will need to add the music yourself using Lilypond's music code. Therefore this transform is useful only if you are familiar with GNU Lilypond.
  • {hanzi|pinyin} to column of text: takes a {hanzi|pinyin} transcription and turns it into a column of text that is suitable for display on a narrow screen such as a mobile phone. The hanzi is displayed on the left and the pinyin on the right.
  • Interleave Encode [U+]: like Encode [U+] but leaves the original text interleaved with the encoded version. This allows you to see both the text and its Unicode numbers at a glance.
  • Run a Perl/Python script on this text: this allows programmers to write their own programs to transform the text in the current Wenlin window, using the Perl or Python programming languages. To use this transform, simply save the script which you wish to run in the “Wenlin4/” folder, in a file titled “wenlin-mtc.pl” (for Perl, or “wenlin-mtc.py” for Python). Scripts should read from standard input and write to standard output, in both cases using UTF-8 encoding form. If you try to use this transform without having first written a program, the result will be a message indicating where to put your program. If you are using Windows, you will also need to install Perl or Python on the system (Linux with WINE then you may be able to skip that step).
  • Unicode Normalization Form Composed (NFC): The Unicode standard for coding text provides different ways of representing some characters. For example, Latin letters with accents can be represented as either a code for the letter itself plus a separate code for each accent (often in any order), or sometimes a single code for both the letter and its accent as a pre-combined unit. Some (usually older) programs don't know about this difference, which may sometimes cause them problems with searching and sorting such texts. Converting the text into NFC form will ensure its coding is consistent. It is not usually needed.

New 4 1 s.png:

  • Replace non-Latin1 tone marks with 1-4 (new in Wenlin 4.1). This is like the "Replace tone marks with 1-4" transform, but leaves in place any tone marks that can be displayed using the "ISO Latin 1" character set, which is supported by many devices that cannot support full Unicode. If you wish to display text on such a device, and you wish to use tone marks where possible but tone numbers otherwise, you can use this transform.
  • Full form characters in band notation (new in Wenlin 4.1): TODO document this
  • Quick pinyin-over-hanzi (best guess) (new in Wenlin 4.1): Equivalent to {hanzi|pinyin} transcription (above) with no ambiguities shown. As the name of this transform implies, it is intended to be used in conjunction with the Display {hanzi|pinyin} markup as stacks advanced option. If that advanced option is switched off, this transform will issue a warning about it.
  • {hanzi|pinyin} to OpenOffice.org (new in Wenlin 4.0.2), renamed to {hanzi|pinyin} to .odt document in Wenlin 4.1 because .odt files can now be opened by other programs (e.g. LibreOffice and even Microsoft Office 2010). This transform works differently from the others: instead of creating a new document within Wenlin, it will prompt for a filename and save a .odt file, which will then be opened automatically if an appropriate program is installed on your system. The transform translates {hanzi|pinyin} into stacks, and also recognises bold markup and comments. You may use OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice to save the resulting document as a Word 97 file. (Note: the appearance of the hanzi-over-pinyin stacks depends on which version of which program you have. For example, LibreOffice 3.3.2 on Linux displays documents better than LibreOffice 3.4.2 on Windows 7 (and MS Office 2010 on Windows 7), however if you use LibreOffice 3.4.2 you can export to Word 97 format and then MS Office will display it better than LibreOffice 3.4 did (but not as good as LibreOffice 3.3). Because .odt-related software is in active development, Wenlin Institute cannot guarantee a good appearance on all versions.)
  • {hanzi|pinyin} to LyX 2 for XeTeX (new in Wenlin 4.1): takes a {hanzi|pinyin} transcription (or other text) and turns it into a LyX document. LyX is designed as an easy-to-use front-end to LaTeX (see above): LyX has its own file format that is different from LaTeX, but all LyX documents are converted into LaTeX before printing. As the name of this transform implies, the resulting LyX document will require at least version 2 of LyX to read, and will require the XeTeX variant of TeX to print. The printed results might differ slightly from those of the LaTeX transform.
  • TODO document HAVE_MTC_SORT_LINES_DESC and HAVE_EXTRA_SORTS_OF_SORTS (if it's going to stay in)
  • TODO document "Number lines" (if it's going to stay in)
  • Pinyin or {hanzi|pinyin} to Braille (experimental) (new in Wenlin 4.1). This can transform pinyin or {hanzi|pinyin} into 3-cell Chinese Braille. It outputs Unicode Braille symbols. You can also enter Unicode Braille symbols manually in Wenlin by typing the dot numbers followed by the letter b and pressing Convert, e.g. type 34b and press Convert to get Braille dots 3 and 4 (this may be useful for writing instructional materials about Braille).
  • Unicode Braille to ASCII Braille (new in Wenlin 4.1). This transforms Unicode Braille symbols (see above) into ASCII Braille, which is an ASCII-based standard for representing Braille patterns used by some Braille displays and embossing equipment.

Try to rewrite 'yi' and 'bu' sandhi in pinyin transforms

This option applies to the transformations Pinyin transcription and {hanzi|pinyin} transcription as well as Quick pinyin-over-hanzi (best guess) and the pinyin quick note hotkey. It causes the tones of 一 (yī) and 不 (bù) to be rewritten according to context, as is done in some pinyin publications. While great care has been taken to ensure the software does this correctly, occasional errors might result, hence the words "Try to" in the name of the option; for maximum confidence the results should be proof-read. New in Wenlin 4.1.

Include Instant Lookup popups in HTML transform

This option applies to the advanced "{hanzi|pinyin} to HTML" transformation. It controls whether code is added to add pop-up instant-lookup information to the generated HTML (which was done by default in Wenlin 4.0.2; this option is new in Wenlin 4.1). You might want to turn this off if you wish the HTML code to be easier to edit, or if the person using the HTML document will not need popups, or if you are working on a very large document and wish to speed up the transformation.

If you are working on a very large document and you do choose to include popup information, it is possible that the result will contain information from a significant number of dictionary entries, and this might be copyright infringement if distributed. Please use good judgement and only distribute excerpts from the ABC that are small enough to be considered "fair use".

Display {hanzi|pinyin} markup as stacks

This option causes any {...|...} markup in any document to be displayed as stacks, with the line in which it occurs becoming double-height and displaying the part after the bar (|) above the part before the bar. This is intended to be used with text generated by the {hanzi|pinyin} transform. Wenlin takes care not to place a page break in between the pinyin and the hanzi. New in Wenlin 4.1.

Warning: This way of displaying pinyin over hanzi within Wenlin is experimental. It is primarily intended for use when viewing {hanzi|pinyin} documents, and we hope it will work reasonably smoothly in such cases. Editing documents is another matter. While extensive effort has been put forth to ensure it works well with all editing operations, we cannot guarantee it to be bug-free in all possible situations, and it's not impossible that a complex editing operation with stacks will result in display corruption. We hope we have eliminated this, but the option remains experimental and it might be safer to turn it off before doing any complex editing, or at least save your work frequently. We decided we would still include the option for the benefit of advanced users who take the necessary precautions, as it can be very useful indeed to be able to view and print pinyin-over-hanzi from within Wenlin itself.

At any rate, Wenlin does not yet support editing inside the stacks with this option turned on, unless "Reveal codes in this window" is switched on so that the {..|..} markup is shown as-is. If "Display {hanzi|pinyin} markup as stacks" is switched on then "{hanzi|pinyin} transcription" will automatically set "Reveal codes in this window" on so that the transcription can be edited.

Enable C+Shift commands for Bold, Underline, Colorize etc

If this option is on, you can underline selected text by pressing Ctrl+Shift+N (MS-Windows) or Shift+⌘N (Macintosh), and you can colorize selected text by pressing Ctrl+Shift+C (MS-Windows) or Shift+⌘C (Macintosh). New in version 4.1: Bold via Ctrl+Shift+B (MS-Windows) or Shift+⌘B (Macintosh) (inserts a Bold tag but still displays as underline).

The effect is to insert HTML codes into the text: <u> for underline, and <font color='blue'> for colorize.

The implementation of underlining and colorization is somewhat incomplete and experimental. If they are used to underline or colorize long stretches of text, the display may be inconsistent, so they are better used only for short pieces of text such as a few words. If they are used repeatedly or in combination for overlapping or nested stretches of text, the display may be inconsistent. The color inserted is always blue, but you can choose Reveal Codes in This Window from the Options menu and change to a different color.

By default this option is off.

Copy hidden “wow” codes with the Copy command

New 4 1 s.png Copying text that contains hidden “wow” codes also copies those codes.

Copy hidden codes (other than “wow” codes) with the Copy command

New 4 1 s.png Copying text that contains any hidden codes at all also copies those codes.

Warn if copying has removed codes

New 4 1 s.png Disable warnings that codes have been stripped from copied text. This warning can be suppressed temporarily (for the current session) with the checkbox in the warning dialog itself.

Open Clipboard window in response to other programs

When other programs change the clipboard, Wenlin will open a "clipboard" window showing its contents. This may be useful if you frequently switch between other programs and Wenlin, using Wenlin to help you understand the Chinese being shown in the other program: it eliminates the step of pasting into Wenlin.

The clipboard window automatically changes whenever the clipboard is changed by another program. If you enable editing in the clipboard window, it will turn into a normal document window and its contents will no longer be updated when the clipboard changes (a new clipboard window will be opened instead when the next change takes place).

Clipboard window follows Wenlin's own changes too

Normally, the clipboard window (above) is not updated when Wenlin itself changes the clipboard. This is so you can use Wenlin to move around parts of the text that another program put on the clipboard, without disturbing the clipboard window in the process. However, if you prefer that the clipboard window be updated by all changes to the clipboard, even Wenlin's own, then set this option.

Ask clipboard for Rich Text when possible

When another program places text onto the clipboard, it sometimes makes formatting information available (e.g. Bold and Underline) via the Rich Text standard. Wenlin normally asks the system clipboard to discard such information and provide the plain text. If you would prefer Wenlin to ask for the Rich Text information so the formatting is preserved, choose this option. Wenlin will ask for the Rich Text first, and, if this is not available, the plain text.

Please note that we have not tested Wenlin's understanding of Rich Text with every application out there. It is possible that some program will create Rich Text that confuses Wenlin when pasted in. If that happens, it is recommended that you turn this option off when working with that program. However, if your other programs are well-behaved enough, and you wish the text from them to have its formatting preserved in Wenlin, then you might want to try turning this on.

Automatically paste into new window when editing is disabled

Normally if you try to paste into a window that has editing disabled, Wenlin will ask if you wish to enable editing. If you answer No, Wenlin will ask if you wish to paste into a new window instead. If you wish to bypass these two dialogs and always paste into a new window, turn on this option.

Search-Related

Seal=Sòng if “Full=simple” (enables Shuōwén variant foldings)

This advanced option enables searches with “Full=simple” to find Shuōwén seal characters and a variety of related characters.

Full=simple itself enables limited variant foldings (for both Chinese and alphabetical text). For example, a search for “CAT” also finds “cat” (and vice versa), and a search for full-form “說”[U+8AAA] also finds simplified “说”[U+8BF4] (and vice versa).

With this advanced option enabled, many more variants will be matched. For example, a search for “說”[U+8aaa] not only finds “说”[U+8BF4], but also “説”[U+8AAC] etc. and corresponding seal forms. Likewise, a search for a seal character finds full and simple forms and a variety of Unicode variants.

To learn more about Shuōwén variant foldings, see the file “variants.wenlin” which is accessed via the “異體字” yìtǐzì button in Zìdiǎn entries for seal characters. For more about Shuōwén seal characters, see Looking Up Vocabulary.

This feature is still in development. It is not yet available in regex searches. By default this option is off.

Dictionary-Related

Use short band names in dictionary (Cídiǎn and Yīng-Hàn) entries

This advanced option is only meaningful when you are editing dictionary entries. An example of a long band name is part-of-speech; the corresponding short band name is ps. Chapter 9 and Appendix E describe band notation. By default, this option is off.

Look Up Word command lists alphabetically adjacent words

If this option is turned on, when you choose Look Up Word... from the Dictionary menu and enter an alphabetical word (pinyin or English), the resulting window contains the list of all words in alphabetical order, as though you had chosen Words by Pinyin or English Words Alphabetically from the List menu.

This option also applies to the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+L (MS-Windows) or ⌘L (Macintosh), and to the 查 item in the toolbar. However, it does not affect what happens when you look up a word using the Mouse pointer finger.jpg hand tool. Also, it does not affect what happens when you enter a word in Hanzi.

By default this option is off, and the resulting window only contains the entry for the word you entered.

Resolve variant and mixed-type Hanzi during look-ups and transforms

When you try to look up a polysyllabic Chinese word written with non-standard variant character forms, if this option is on, then Wenlin tries to map the variant forms to standard forms. For example, in addition to the standard simple and full form characters for guī ‘tortoise’ 龟 and 龜, there are also variant forms 亀𪚨𪚧𪚺𧑴𪚿𪚦𪚴𤕣𠁴𠃾. If this option is on, then when you look up a word such as 烏亀, Wenlin will recognize that it is equivalent to 烏龜 and 乌龟. Also, if you mix standard full and simple forms in a word, such as 乌龜 or 烏龟, Wenlin should be able to find the word.

This feature is still experimental and is off by default.

Substitute for variant Hànzì during “Simple form characters” transform

New 4 1 s.png This option converts any non-standard variant Full form Hànzì to the more usual Full form, as may be needed to accomplish conversion to Simple form characters.

Show advanced functionality in Search Dictionaries popup

New 4 1 s.png It shows extra functionality in the Search Dictionaries dialog. Currently the extra functionality is a checkbox called “Limit the search to user-modified entries”. If you have added or modified a lot of dictionary entries, you can use this checkbox to search just your own entries without searching the rest of the dictionary.

Use dot notation instead of star notation when exporting Cídiǎn and Yīng-Hàn entries

New 4 1 s.png TODO document this

Convert to full form characters in Cídiǎn and Yīng-Hàn entries when the Simple Form Characters option is off

New 4 1 s.png This option is on by default. On older machines it may be slow, and might be best turned off.

Set prefix for new serial numbers

New 4 1 s.png This option lets you change the prefix that is given to new serial numbers when creating dictionary entries. Normally the serial number is R (for Random) followed by a random number. Wenlin ensures that the random number does not conflict with any other entry in your dictionary, and if you are importing somebody else's entries then Wenlin can warn you about serial-number conflicts if you “Test” the import. However, if you regularly create entries using several different computers (and you don't always keep their dictionaries in sync) then you might find it useful to set each computer's serial-number prefix to something different, so that there is no possibility of a clash. You could also use this to keep track of which computer you used to create the entry.

Font-Related

Color seal characters red in Zìdiǎn entries (and other key places)

Red seal characters are beautiful, but if you disagree, turn this off. By default it is on.

Enable advanced CDL (Character Description Language) features

Please see Appendix G for explanation. By default, this option is off, since CDL features are a bit technical and may be distracting especially when you are first becoming acquainted with Wenlin.

Use “fake bold” instead of underline for bold markup

New 4 1 s.png Normally, bold markup is represented as underline in Wenlin. This option enables some code to generate "fake bold" by overprinting instead.

Report printer font size when screen setup is adjusted

New 4 1 s.png The size of printed text depends on the width of the Wenlin window and the size of the on-screen font; it is adjusted so that the width of the Wenlin window always corresponds with the printable area of the paper. If you are aiming for a particular printed font size (e.g. 12 point), you may have to fiddle with Wenlin's window width and on-screen font size a bit; this option helps by causing the Instant Lookup area to briefly show what the printed font size would be when you change Wenlin's window size or use the "Bigger" and "Smaller" controls.

Options-Related

Use the “Text/convert_custom.wenlin” conversion file, if present (not “convert.wenlin”)

New 4 1 s.png TODO document this

Open “convert.wenlin” configuration file

New 4 1 s.png TODO document this

Window-Related

Sub-window [+] “maximize button” makes gradual transition

If this option is on, when you click on a [+] maximize button to enlarge a sub-window, the transition happens gradually rather than instantly. The gradual transition was always the behavior in Wenlin versions before 4.0. If you prefer the gradual transition, you can turn this option on. By default it is off.

Smooth scrolling

When the Smooth scrolling option is on and you’re scrolling through some text, Wenlin scrolls one line of pixels at a time, instead of one line of characters at a time. Smooth scrolling works better on some computers than others. On notebook computers, it’s blurry, because the liquid crystal screens retain images too long. On slower computers, it's too slow to be effective, and even on faster computers the effect may not be good. So we’ve set the default to off. Nonetheless, if you have a fast computer with a standard monitor, you may prefer Smooth scrolling.

Scrollbars have no arrows

New 4 1 s.png This option turns off the up and down arrows in the scrollbar, and replaces the Scroll Box with an oval.

Display Unicode values (e.g., “文[U+6587]”) in Zìdiǎn window titles

By default, this option is off, and the title of a Zìdiǎn entry window is simply the character, such as “文”. If you turn the option on, then the title will be like “文[U+6587]” instead, where U+6587 is the Unicode Scalar Value. This is useful sometimes when doing technical work.

Space bar is equivalent to Page Down key (when not editing)

If this option is on, then when editing is not enabled in the active window, pressing the space bar is equivalent to pressing the Page Down key. This is similar to the behavior of many web browsers. This option overrides the normal effect of space bar in Zìdiǎn entries (with editing not enabled), which is to open the stroking box. By default this option is off.

Enable advanced navigation keys (when not editing)

This option (off by default) enables an advanced navigation feature that will be familiar to users of the Emacs programmer's editor. When editing is not enabled, you may press M to set a "mark" at the current position, and later press X to "exchange" the current position with the mark. For example, suppose you are in a classroom and are looking at a long document, and the teacher wants to skip over something and come back to it later. You can press M to mark the current position (say, the 47th sentence) before skipping; if later on you have made it as far as the 85th sentence and you need to jump back to your saved position, press X, and this will take you back to the 47th sentence but will mark the 85th. Later still, you might be at the 49th sentence and press X to go back to the 85th and mark the 49th. And so on: the "mark" effectively gives you two different cursors within the document, which you can switch between with a single keystroke (not even requiring any modifier keys, hence easy to press even on the most awkward of mini-laptops which you might have in the classroom).

Please note that this "mark" feature is still experimental. There is only one mark, and it cannot be saved, cannot be made visible, and will be forgotten if you change the text. However, we are including it as an advanced option because we believe some people will find it useful.

Hide topmost titlebar for more screen space

New 4 1 s.png Particularly useful for working in very large print.

Quit if the last main window is closed

On MS-Windows, it is traditional for most programs to quit when you close their only remaining window. On Macintosh, on the other hand, most applications remain running when you close their only remaining window. Some people don't like the way most programs behave in this regard, but for whatever reason, they don't switch to the other operating system. In an effort to make everybody happy, Wenlin makes this an option. The default is on for MS-Windows, and off for Macintosh.


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