GoldenDict Forum

The term "scan popup" means nothing to me. What SHOULD it mean?

In trying to learn how to use the product, I quickly learned that Ctrl C with a word selected will cause the definition to popup.

First of all, why Ctrl "C" instead of Ctrl W (for word) or D (for Definition), or T (for Translation), or M (for Meaning)? Linux and DOS and Windows have captured Ctrl C for other uses, so using Ctrl C for a popup definition is a little scary at first, and makes no linguistic or alliteral sense.

I have used WordWeb for a decade. I love the way that program works. It uses Ctrl ALt W to pop up the definition.

Also it defines the ROOT words for plurals, so if I high light "quilts" it does not tell me "plural for quilt." It tells me the definition for the root, "quilt." GoldenDict could operate that way and frustrate users less.

Why not rename it to something sensible, like "selection popup?"

My biggest problem came from selecting the magic wand, "Scan Popup." I don't know what that term means, and the name makes no sense from what I can tell. Maybe you should call it "Selection Popup" or "Instant Popup." For a whole day after forgetting I had selected that feature, I had to put up with annoying popups every time I selected a single letter or array of letters or words for cut/copy and paste. It drove me crazy. Finally, I opened GoldenDict and started trying different things till the popups stopped. It was the magic wand (insane wand, not magic, by the way).

I can see the point of the Selection or Instant popup when using kindle or some ebook reader where the user does not ever cut and paste, and has no other reason to select text than to pop up a definition. But with a word processor, you should NEVER enable instant popup/scanpopup because it only annoys the user who wants to cut/copy and paste the text.

Also, I encourage the developer to take note of the FUNCTIONAL meaning of buttons. If the button enables a function, its name should start with "Enable" or "Toggle," and it should contain other words to explain the function. The "Popup" is not the function. It is the MECHANISM. The function is "Define" or Translate." Thus, I would have named it "Toggle Instant Selection Define" even though it seems excessively long because THAT IS WHAT IT MEANS. It DOES NOT MEAN "Scan Popup" More precisely it means "Define Upon Selecting Text Rather than upon pressing Ctrl C." Its function would become clear if hovering over the button displayed text that said "Click to pop up definition upon selecting text" when dark, and "Click to pop up definition upon pressing Ctrl-C."

And I would give the user a way to redefine the Hot Key from Ctrl C to Ctrl ALt W or some other key combination.

I mean no insults in the foregoing comments. I realize the developer does not "enjoy" English as the "native" language, and I imagine the developer intended GoldenDict mostly for translating words from some language to another. But MY use (and that of most users, I imagine) requires looking up definitions in any of a variety of dictionaries, not in translating words.

So, to summarize:

Change the word "Scan Popup" to something more meaningful and Ctrl C to something else not already in wide use (like Cut for, or terminate program).

I think it is called scan popup because it scans the word selected or under the mouse and open a popup window right there with the translation.

It's Ctrl + C + C and not Ctrl + C. Check shortcuts: http://goldendict.org/wiki/index.php/Ho ... rtcut_keys)
You can change the shortcut to whatever you want going to Edit > Preferences > Hotkeys.

GoldenDict also can understand the root of any word providing you have the hunspell morphology files installed. It also correct mispelling words in any language.

@chulai,

Thanks for your post. But I experienced the same issue as @bobhurt has; I can confirm no popup issue with ctrl + c under debian unstable however it's a problem when I copy a word with ctrl + c under opensuse 12.1.

AG

agrothendieck wrote:@chulai,

Thanks for your post. But I experienced the same issue as @bobhurt has; I can confirm no popup issue with ctrl + c under debian unstable however it's a problem when I copy a word with ctrl + c under opensuse 12.1.

AG

I have OpenSUSE 12.1 KDE and I don't experience the problem. You could grab one of portable Linux version of GoldenDict I just created and see if the problem is not present in one up-to-date version. The last stable release, v1.0.1, is more than one year old. From 2010-12.

This is the link to the GoldenDict portable version: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1764

I just tried GoldenDict with OpenSUSE 12.1 Gnome x86_64 and I still don't experience the issue that 'Ctrl + C' and not 'Ctrl + C + C' displays the popup window.

However, if I press first 'Ctrl' key then 'C' key and I keep 'C' key pressed for a couple of seconds then the scan popup window appears anyhow. And not only that, but also it opens several tabs with the search term in each of them! I'm not sure if this the expected behaviour but I don't like it. In my opinion this imposes a problem for people with disabilities.

By the way, the default hotkey to translate text from clipboard is not 'Ctrl + C + C' by chance. It's on purpose because the first part, "Ctrl + C", is captured by the Operating Sytem to copy the selected text to the clipboard and then the second 'C' keystroke triggers GoldenDict's translation of content in clipboard. Which means that GoldenDict effectively translates the content that was just copied to the clipboard. If you change the default hotkey to, let's say "Ctrl + T" then you should:
1) Select the text.
2) Press Ctrl + C to copy the text to cliboard.
3) Press Ctrl + T to trigger GoldenDict's translation of clipboard content.
So it's more cumbersome I would say.

Guys, maybe I just don't understand the problem you're discussing, but still

On Windows, Control + C + C opens the pop-up windows, everything is OK. But this is with Scan Popup disabled. If I enable Scan Pop-up (the button with the magic wand is pressed), and in the options I have a setting that scan pop-up should only appear when Ctrl is pressed, then just a simple Control + C opens the scan pop-up.

Maybe that's by design But it is somewhat surprising to see such behavior.

At any rate, I usually have the scan pop-up functionality disabled and just rely on Control + C + C all the time, which works just fine once the scan popup is disabled.

Tvangeste
When Scan Popup is on, GD also track clipboard modification and translate changed clipboard content when modifiers are pressed.

Maybe that's by design But it is somewhat surprising to see such behavior.

Look scanpopup.cc, slot "clipboardChanged".

Tvangeste wrote:Guys, maybe I just don't understand the problem you're discussing, but still

On Windows, Control + C + C opens the pop-up windows, everything is OK. But this is with Scan Popup disabled. If I enable Scan Pop-up (the button with the magic wand is pressed), and in the options I have a setting that scan pop-up should only appear when Ctrl is pressed, then just a simple Control + C opens the scan pop-up.

Good catch! That's probably the issue they are experiencing and I was not because I have Ctrl AND Alt modifiers for scan popup.

Tvangeste wrote:Maybe that's by design But it is somewhat surprising to see such behavior.

At any rate, I usually have the scan pop-up functionality disabled and just rely on Control + C + C all the time, which works just fine once the scan popup is disabled.

I don't disable scan popup. But I don't use it anyway. I also rely on Control + C + C. And I have the "send translated word to main window" flag set too.

Abs62 / Tvangeste, have any of you experienced the strange behaviour I explained above:

However, if I press first 'Ctrl' key then 'C' key and I keep 'C' key pressed for a couple of seconds then the scan popup window appears anyhow. And not only that, but also it opens several tabs with the search term in each of them! I'm not sure if this the expected behaviour but I don't like it. In my opinion this imposes a problem for people with disabilities.

chulai wrote:Abs62 / Tvangeste, have any of you experienced the strange behaviour I explained above:

I don't see anything strange here. When you press and keep pressing the "C" key, your keyboard starts to generate "C", "C", "C", etc. So, GoldenDict would get Ctrl+ C+ C+C +C + C+C....