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Chapter 18
Contributing to the RichDoc Framework

The RichDoc framework is a public-domain project, which is provided for free to its users in the hope it will be useful. The users are encouraged to contribute to the project in any way, by reporting bugs, submitting suggestions, adding code or adding localized resources.

18.1 Contributing Localized Resources

So far, the framework fully supports the English language, and partially supports the Czech language (unfortunately the only two languages the author can speak).

18.1.1 Localizing User Interface

The RichDoc framework is delivered by means of a series of JAR (Java Archive) files, that contain the executable code, as well as localizable resources for the user interface of the framework.

The most important part, that must be localized at a minimum to reasonably support a language, is in the package org.ksmsa.richView.model. It contains names of text fragments automatically inserted to documents, such as “Table of Contents”, “Chapter”, “Section” etc.

18.1.2 Creating Language Packs

A Language Pack is a bundle of resources that is external to the executable JAR files of the framework. It contains the following resources:

Hyphenation Patterns
Hyphenation patterns tell the RichDoc framework how to correctly hyphenate words. The format the RichDoc framework is using is similar to hyphenation files of the TeX system, and thus can be simply imported from TeX, as hyphenation files within the TeX system are usually in the Public Domain.
Spell-checking Database
Spell-checking database allows the RichDoc framework to report spelling errors. The databases are adopted from the ispell project.
Stemming Rules Database
Stemming rules define how given language inflects words. It is used by the framework during indexing and search, to improve the recall of the search system. The search system can then find words even if they appear in the document in their inflected form. The database also contains the stop list, i.e. list of words that are not significant for the search, which includes articles, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs, etc. Database may also contain list of exceptions, i.e. list of words and their inflections that do not obey the rules.

Next: Chapter 19  Styles Up: Part II  Expert's Guide Previous: Chapter 17  The RichDoc Print Format