Re: [Audacity-quality] comma as decimal separator

[Steve t. F. <ste...@gm...>]

On 7 October 2013 20:43, Gale Andrews <ga...@au...> wrote:
>
> Summary: +1 to testing the extra patch in bug 642 then committing
> those patches if OK.
>
> If Vaughan's OK with that, then those will be on my list of patches that
> Leland will commit.
>
> Detail below....
>
>
> | From Steve the Fiddle <ste...@gm...>
> | Mon, 7 Oct 2013 14:20:46 +0100
> | Subject: [Audacity-quality] comma as decimal separator
>> On a system where the locale is one that uses a comma as the decimal
>> separator (such as German), we seem to have different behaviour in
>> different effects. (My testing is on Linux Mint)
>>
>> Amplify (Verstärken) displays a comma, and will only accept a comma.
>> If a dot is used then the fractional part is lost.
>> [update]: after a Nyquist effect has been applied, this is reversed -
>> a dot is displayed and only a dot is accepted.
>>
>> Normalize (Normalisieren) displays a dot, but will accept a dot or a comma.
>>
>> Click Track displays a comma but will only accept a dot (Bug 173)
>>
>> Tone Generator displays a comma but will accept a dot or a comma
>> unless a Nyquist effect has been used. If a Nyquist effect has been
>> run then it  will not accept a dot or a comma.The fractional part is
>> lost. (bug 642)
>>
>> Phaser displays a comma and will accept only a comma, unless a Nyquist
>> effect has been run.
>> After running a Nyquist effect a dot is displayed and will only accept
>> a dot. If a comma is used then the fractional part is lost.
>>
>> There may be other combinations but I don't speak German which makes
>> testing difficult.
>>
>> I presume that it is intended that the comma should be displayed and
>> accepted as the decimal separator.
>>
>> Should a dot be accepted as the decimal separator or not?
>>
>> The patch for bug 642 makes the situation much more consistent. After
>> the patch, all effects that I have tested, apart from Normalize, will
>> display and accept a comma as the decimal separator and a dot is not
>> accepted. The behaviour for Normalize is unchanged. by the patch.
>>
>> The problem that I see is that the current bad behaviour has been
>> around for so long that German language users are likely to be using a
>> dot as the decimal separator in Nyquist effects. If we fix this with
>> Leland's patch then a dot will no  longer work.
>>
>> Will it be sufficient  to just release note that the decimal separator
>> issue is fixed, or does the behaviour need to be changed so that
>> either a dot or a comma may be used? Note that the issue is widespread
>> so changing the behaviour may not be easy or soon. I don't think that
>> we can just leave it in the current badly broken state.
>>
>>
>> Steve
>
> Thanks for rigorous testing, Steve.
>
> Leland's "Patch to correct the locale setting for nyquist" in bug 642:
> http://bugzilla.audacityteam.org/show_bug.cgi?id=642
>
> does appear to be a significant improvement, and also fixes
> "Built-in generators produce silence after running Nyquist effect
> when system locale uses comma separator":
> http://bugzilla.audacityteam.org/show_bug.cgi?id=173 .
>
> Leland's extra patch in bug 642 (not tested by me yet) would I
> presume make Normalize come into line by displaying comma as
> decimal separator in locales that require that.

That patch does make Normalize display a comma as the decimal
separator. (tested on Mint with Deutsch locale).

Normalize is still slightly different from other effects in that it
will accept a comma or a dot as the decimal separator, but that is not
a bad thing.

Steve

> Subject to testing that extra patch, I'm +1 on committing both
> patches. The README and 2.0.5 Release Notes will say that those
> bugs are fixed and to use comma separators in relevant locales.
>
> Also we can say in the Forum topics about these bugs that they
> are fixed.
>
> The announcement won't help users who cannot read English, but
> I think if period no longer works in locales that expect comma
> separator, it will be obvious to try comma.
>
> >From Steve's description, I'm -1 on making effects accept period
> and comma as separator. It's not expected. So let effects accept
> one of period or comma according to locale, unless we can't make
> comma separator work correctly.
>
>
>
> Gale
>
>
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