[18:59] <YoBoY> hi godbyk, do you have some minutes to talk about the french punctuation for the ubuntu manual ? (but this can wait another day :) )
[19:01] <godbyk> YoBoY: Sure!
[19:02] <YoBoY> great :)
[19:03] <godbyk> How can I help?
[19:04] <YoBoY> I'm trying to understand how polyglossia work, and I don't really understand. It seems the spaces inserted are only normal spaces, but I don't know if i'm testing this right ^^".
[19:05] <godbyk> It should insert thin or thick spaces depending on the punctuation.
[19:06] <godbyk> Thin spaces are used before ! ? !! ?? ?! !? and ;
[19:06] <YoBoY> yes for the ; it's \nobreak\thinspace and for : it's \nobreakspace
[19:06] <godbyk> Thick spaces are used before :
[19:07] <YoBoY> (reading it there : https://github.com/fc7/polyglossia/blob/master/tex/gloss-french.ldf )
[19:07] <godbyk> And for quotation marks (guillemots), thick spaces are used.
[19:07] <godbyk> Yep, that's the file.
[19:07] <YoBoY> :)
[19:08] <YoBoY> but it seems the space sizes are the same on my pdf :]
[19:08] <godbyk> Hmm.. Can you point me to some examples? I'll take a look.
[19:08] <godbyk> Actually, give me a moment and I'll create a test document.
[19:10] <YoBoY> my test file : http://pastebin.com/WBVt8y95
[19:10] <YoBoY> godbyk, ^
[19:11] <YoBoY> (I'm a complete beginer in TeX things ^^")
[19:13] <YoBoY> ok sorry it's my eyes, I need to change them ^^" the ; have the correct space size
[19:14] <YoBoY> but the : don't have the correct one, it's a bug in polyglossia
[19:17] <godbyk> Give this one a shot: http://pastebin.com/ia4zV26b
[19:17] <godbyk> just compile it with xelatex.
[19:18] <godbyk> The difference between \thinspace and \nobreakspace is rather small. It's easy to miss it.
[19:20] <YoBoY> yes
[19:21] <YoBoY> when we use a \, it's smaller than the thinspace
[19:23] <godbyk> \thinspace and \, are exactly the same.
[19:28] <godbyk> YoBoY: My understanding is that there should be a thin space before semicolons, question marks, and exclamation marks, but a normal word space before the colon and inside guillemets.
[19:28] <godbyk> YoBoY: See this thread <http://typophile.com/node/94726#comment-516066> and the language note <http://www.microsoft.com/typography/developers/fdsspec/punc.aspx#period>.
[19:30] <YoBoY> second question for tonight, how can I test this sample file with the ubuntu-manual class ? (something to add on the xelatex commande ?)
[19:32] <godbyk> YoBoY: Here's a translation test file that I created for French: http://pastebin.com/vzXi5h7s
[19:32] <godbyk> YoBoY: You can add or remove text from it as you test things.
[19:32] <godbyk> YoBoY: You may also need to play with code in the um-french.clo file.
[19:32] <godbyk> That's where we put all of the French-specific LaTeX customizations.
[19:33] <YoBoY> yes I have removed the hack to deactivate the punctuation :p
[19:35] <YoBoY> thank you for the test file
[19:35] <godbyk> If you have any questions or run into any problems, let me know. I'm happy to help.
[19:35] <godbyk> Oh, you'll need to run that translation test file from the ubuntu manual directory (the one that contains the ubuntu-manual.cls file).
[19:36] <godbyk> Otherwise it won't be able to find that file.
[19:36] <YoBoY> I can enter it when xelatex ask it
[19:36] <YoBoY> but this is throwing an error ^^"
[19:37] <godbyk> Probably best to just run it from the ubuntu manual directory since it'll need the um-french.clo file from there, too.
[19:37] <YoBoY> yes, no more error like that
[19:37] <YoBoY> thanks
[19:40] <YoBoY> I'll add a sentence to see what appen when we already have spacings (like exemple1~; exemple2\,! )
[19:40] <godbyk> It may double the spacing in some cases.
[19:51] <YoBoY> for a first test, (with an empty um-french.clo file) I can't see extra spaces
[19:51] <YoBoY> and the forced with or without a ~ polyglossia do the spacing work
[19:53] <godbyk> In some instances, Polyglossia tries to remove any existing space before adding the proper spacing.
[19:53] <YoBoY> ok
[20:01] <YoBoY> what I can see so far is, if we keep using [nbsp] in launchpad, polyglossia can do its job and replace the ~ by the right space, if we put \, polyglossia don't touch it.
[20:04] <godbyk> YoBoY: That sounds about right.
[20:04] <godbyk> YoBoY: The \, is actually a kern and not a space.
[20:06] <YoBoY> ok
[20:07] <YoBoY> we will try to have a clean um-french.clo for the raring release :)
[20:07] <godbyk> No problem.
[20:07] <godbyk> I just figured it'd be easier to let LaTeX handle the spacing instead of having the translators insert the spaces everywhere.
[20:08] <YoBoY> the thinspace width can be changed if needed by our great translators ?
[20:08] <godbyk> Yes.
[20:09] <godbyk> I can modify the spacing parameters used by Polyglossia for the French punctuation spacing.
[20:09] <godbyk> Instead of using \thinspace, for instance, we can create our own space value to use.
[20:10] <YoBoY> great :)
[20:19] <YoBoY> godbyk, thanks for everything. I'll continue my tests another day :)
[20:19] <godbyk> YoBoY: No problem. Have a nice evening!
[20:19] <YoBoY> thanks