single angle guillemets

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stefur
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single angle guillemets

Post by stefur »

Hi, I need help. when I use guillemets (with Quickfix), it works for the double guillemets (>> or <<), but when I want to quote a word in a quote, I get just normal single quotation marks, not > or <.
As an example, what I want is:

<<I don't like <Hamlet> that much>> she said.

Any ideas?

Steve
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Elbrecht
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Re: single angle guillemets

Post by Elbrecht »

HI

Menu : Insert / Special Character / Quotes

HE
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phspaelti
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Re: single angle guillemets

Post by phspaelti »

Aside from HE's idea, you can also just type them. On the US keyboard that i'm using they are at <shift><option>3 and <shift><option>4. On the French "azerty" keyboard they seem to be at <option>w and <shift><option>w.

But I'm wondering if Nisus shouldn't have the single quotes change with the language setting. Currently only the double quotes change. That is when I switch the language to French the smart double quotes become double guillemets, but the smart single quotes remain quotes. I don't enough about French, but is that really the desired behavior for a French user?
philip
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Elbrecht
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Re: single angle guillemets

Post by Elbrecht »

Yes –

"Keyboard Viewer" is the way to explore what's at hand. But then you have to remember all these combinations – I prefer to use 1) "PopChar.app" for rare characters missing in my "Ukelele.app" done 2) German Extended Keyboard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark

HE
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xiamenese
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Re: single angle guillemets

Post by xiamenese »

The problem in terms of French or replacing single quotes with single guillemets across the board is that the many apostrophes that occur will also become guillemets; "l'étoile" will become "l‹étoile" for instance. I think remembering Opt-Cmd-3 and 0pt-Cmd-4 when needed would be much less hassle than sorting out the resulting apostrophe mess, or alternatively using TextExpanderr or equivalent keyboard macro app with appropriate rules.

Mark
credneb
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Re: single angle guillemets

Post by credneb »

Another option would be make define the desired characters as glossary entries.
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Elbrecht
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Re: single angle guillemets

Post by Elbrecht »

Well –

but there still is this fine-tuning with French guillemets – I posted the link to check the correct spaces in between…

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stefur
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Re: single angle guillemets

Post by stefur »

Thank you all for your helpfull responses.
xiamenese wrote: The problem in terms of French or replacing single quotes with single guillemets across the board is that the many apostrophes that occur will also become guillemets; "l'étoile" will become "l‹étoile"
Now I understand the problem. I can handle it now with the help of your propositions.
IMHO, Mellel had solved this problem in a better manner.

Steve
adryan
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Re: single angle guillemets

Post by adryan »

G’day, all

I’m just not sure we have really come to grips with Steve’s original problem. As I understand it, it’s not a question of how to type special characters or of how to convert English-style quotation marks to French-style guillemets. It’s rather a question of nested quotation marks, guillemets or whatever — there being a toggling between double-character delimiters and single-character delimiters as one proceeds deeper into the nest.

With the problem formulated in this way, what is required is a macro. It might be called “Nested Quotation Marks in Selection” (or “Nested Guillemets in Selection”). The idea would be to type all the relevant text using the standard (double) delimiters. One would then select a string containing nested quoted strings and run the macro. The macro doesn’t need to concern itself with apostrophes, as they were readily distinguishable from the (double) quotation marks in the first place.

In fact, one doesn’t really need a macro: a simple Replace in Selection expression in the Find/Replace dialog will work for one quoted string nested inside another. One just replaces the two inner double delimiters with appropriate single delimiters.

Although much less common, situations involving more than two quoted strings do occur. The method of the preceding paragraph can be repeated after selecting the appropriate substring. But the mathematician in me would prefer a macro that caters for any number of nested strings!

Cheers,
Adrian
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phspaelti
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Re: single angle guillemets

Post by phspaelti »

Adrian, here is the kind of macro that you are looking for. (You'll have to do the embedded to any level part yourself ;-)
Change embedded guillemet to single.nwm
(5 KiB) Downloaded 672 times
But actually your approach really doesn't work well either. The problem is that the smart guillemets will not allow you to open another before you have closed the last one. So it is very difficult to type embedded guillemets. Much easier to just type the single guillemets directly.
philip
Þorvarður
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Re: single angle guillemets

Post by Þorvarður »

Hello Steve,
stefur wrote: IMHO, Mellel had solved this problem in a better manner.
Hold your horses, there are 1001 answers to your question, and each and every one of them depends on factors that you haven't even mentioned yet.
when I use guillemets (with Quickfix), it works for the double guillemets (>> or <<)
QuickFix—that's true— is a text substitution feature, but it requires that you type a space (tab or a punctuation mark) after the abbreviation to trigger the expansion; and that space is (unfortunately) added to the text. In other words, you get spaces where no spaces are supposed to be, so I don't understand when you say it works for you for the double guillemets (>> or <<)

If you prefer a text expanding solution, Typinator is perfect for this. It does not add any space after the text, unless you explicitly want a space. Unfortunately Typinator is not a part of Nisus. :-)

In what language is the text you are writing?
Guillemet is used in so many different languages (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillemet>)

If you usually write in English and just need Guillemet occasionally for quotes, I would just type them as Philip suggested. Or, if that's not cool enough, then assign the text the proper language attribute (via the Format menu > Language > …), use your normal keyboard layout, and type (English) quotation marks as usual. They will be automatically converted into Guillemet. … At least that's what I would expect. I did not test all the 37 languages that use Guillemet. :-)

But I did test French. I used the ABC Extended keyboard (= "US Extended" in earlier OS system versions) to write some French text. I used the usual English way to type the quotation marks " ", and those quotation marks were instantly transformed into Guillemet « ». Single Left- and Right Pointing Angle Quotations "‹" and "›" had to be entered manually though. They were not automatically transformed after I entered ' on the ABC Extended keyboard.


How about using a simple, but effective macro with a keyboard shortcut (I use Command j e):

Code: Select all

# Inserts Guillemet with non-breaking spaces
Type Text "« ‹› »"
Find "‹›", 're'
# End of macro
The macro will insert Guillemet with non-breaking spaces, because that seems to be required in French (see Wikipedia). If that's not true (anymore), or you are not writing in French, then remove the non-breaking spaces from the macro.
1.png
1.png (7.73 KiB) Viewed 17603 times
The macro takes into account the possibility that you may want to use a Single Angle Quotations inside the main quotation. If that's the case, press the left arrow key on your keyboard and start typing until you reach the position where you want to type the inside quotation (‹Hamlet› was your example).
If you don't need a quotation inside a quotation, then just start typing, the preselected ‹› will be overwritten. When you are finished, press ctrl + e to jump to the end of the paragraph, i.e. jump out of the Guillemet. Ctrl + e, as you may know, is a keyboard shortcut built into OS. The opposite shortcut is ctrl + a. It will place the insertion point at the beginning of the paragraph.

__________
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phspaelti
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Re: single angle guillemets

Post by phspaelti »

Þorvarður wrote:But I did test French. … I used the usual English way to type the quotation marks " ", and those quotation marks were instantly transformed into Guillemet « ». Single Left- and Right Pointing Angle Quotations "‹" and "›" had to be entered manually though. They were not automatically transformed after I entered ' on the keyboard.
Right. Now the discussion has come full circle again. This is what we already noted earlier.

I was first confused about why this happens, but Mark reminded me of the reason for this; French is one of those languages that uses separate characters for single quotes and apostrophe, and so there is no simple way to type both using the same straight quote key. It should be possible to get this behavior, if your text engine allows context-sensitive input. Since Mellel has their own, they can do this. But Nisus relies on Apple.

Anyhow, I am attaching here a macro that can do "smart single guillemets". If you give it the keyboard <cmd>' shortcut, (i.e., command-single straight quote), it'll be almost like the real thing.
Attachments
Smart Single Guillemet.nwm
(3.99 KiB) Downloaded 608 times
philip
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