Copy/Paste, Translate

[StandYourGround]

Can be there a simple way to copy messages from chat? Occasionally I will be in a MP game with people who speak another language (often Russian), and it would be great to be able to copy their text so it can be translated online. It would be more ideal to have some kind of translation built in, but being able to copy text would be a fine first start.

[iceiceice]

I made a feature request for this a while ago, and discussed on irc. The situation seems to be, it's possible but would require a multiline text box to be written in the GUI2 framework, which is apparently nontrivial. So I think we have to wait until someone who knows GUI2 writes one.

In the meantime, if you write the text to a map location label, that can be copypasted from the edit dialog, which is good enough for sending hyperlinks usually.

edit: https://gna.org/bugs/index.php?21755

I didn't bring up the translate idea, probably the best we could do is forward the text to google translate or similar. I'm not sure if that's better than you iust copypasting into your browser.

[StandYourGround]

There's still the problem that there seems to be no way to select text in chat to copy. Not even in the chat log.

[iceiceice]

Well, that's apparently the part that requires GUI2. See the link I posted. The clipboard code we already have, that is very easy to use.

[Pentarctagon]

Perhaps as a stopgap measure there could be a hotkey/button to put the entire chat log on the clipboard? Depending on difficulty/practicality, there could also be a filter somewhere to allow for moving messages 3 to 7 to the clipboard.

[iceiceice]

Yeah I mean all of these things are possible, we could also add such to the (GUI1?) lobby chat. Whether stopgaps are worth it depends on what the time horizon is for when we would get a proper multiline textbox though, and really I'm not sure if we have any idea about that right now.

[Pentarctagon]

Would it be a good thing to submit as a feature request on GNA just so it doesn't get completely forgotten?

[Iris]

Look at the bottom-left corner of the dialog.

Not having a GUI2 multiline textbox didn’t stop me from giving us the ability to copy WML load errors to clipboard before. It’s just that I procrastinated on the chat log item of my to-do list for so long, I missed the deadline (1.11.10).

Spoiler:

This prerequisite commit is the reason behind that procrastination.

Now I’ll proceed to do likewise with its lobby counterpart. Procrastinate, that is. Unless someone else wants to solve this irksome layout puzzle for me.

[Pentarctagon]

Maybe put it on the right end of the chat box or on the bottom of the list of players in the lobby?

[Iris]

That would imply it’s an action pertaining to the input line or the list of players, respectively.

[Pentarctagon]

Next to the lobby chat scrollbar then?

[Iris]

The scrollbar is part of a GUI1 multiline textbox widget, and overlapping widgets tend to cause all sorts of issues. The button would have to go either below the textbox or along its right edge — either option would require borrowing some horizontal or vertical space from it and making things look weird.

[em3]

I'd say add it below the input box, this place could be used for some more chat related tool buttons later (for example buttons that insert into input box some common commands).

[Iris]

There is no space below the input box. You mean to its side? I’d rather not add it until there is a better justification for its presence, especially since I plan to get this backported somehow.

[iceiceice]

Is it possible to spawn a context menu on right click events on the lobby chat? I'm not familiar with the GUI code enough to say.