Hi guys! I have been using Elan for a long time and I like it quite a lot. But recently I installed this on a computer of which the system language is Chinese. But whenever I want to import a file, all Chinese characters in the pop-up window become small squares. Anyone know how to fix that?
(I wish I can attach a screen shot but I don’t know how to)
Thank you very much!
Am I correct that in e.g. the timeline viewer, the Chinese characters look as they are supposed to look? And that when you start editing the characters become squares?
I don’t understand that, but there are a few settings that might play a role. Maybe an Input Method has been set for that tier (Tier->Change Tier Attributes…) or a specific font (More Options… in the Change Tier Attributes window)? Again, I wouldn’t understand it, but I don’t have better suggestions.
When you mention “import a file” is that really about importing, or rather about opening an .eaf file?
-Han
Hi Han,
Thank you for your help. The problem is not with the characters in the tiers. When you click File, then click Open, you will see a window from which you can select your elan files. On the left panel you can navigate around your directory by going to Recent, Desktop, My Documents, etc. It is the problem with the characters on Recent, Desktop, My Document, etc, cause I can only see the icons and all the characters below them are small squares. I assume this is a problem with Elan as all other English interface software on my PC don’t have this issue.
Thanks for the clarification, I hadn’t realized the message was about the file dialog. I guess the problem applies to Save/Save As dialogs as well.
I can’t explain why boxes appear, but I see in the code that attempts are made to have the texts in that window in the same language as what is set as ELAN’s interface language. This seems to work for most labels in that dialog but when I switch (in ELAN) to Chinese on my English system, I notice that the labels of the items you mention (in the side bar on the left), remain in English.
I don’t know exactly why this is but I would expect that in the case of a Chinese system, the text would just be in Chinese, like in the operating system itself.
I have no solution for this problem; you could try to switch to English (if that’s not already your ui language) as the ELAN interface language and see what happens. On the other hand: the icons of those items (Recent Items, Desktop etc.) are supposed to be more or less self-explanatory, so maybe it is not worth the efforts?
Hi Han,
Thank you again for your effort to help. Yes, the same problem occurs in the Save/Save As dialog. The problem persists even if I switch to English UI. But on another machine this problem does not occur (I tried both English system language and Chinese system language), but on that machine you don’t see the side bar, I don’t know why.
You are right that this is not a very serious issue as the icons are self-explanatory, but it could be a pain if you click on the drop-down box right of Look in. There are Chinese names in the folder becomes boxes. It is like ELAN tries to read the names through the file dialog, but doesn’t recognize Chinese.
Another issue that could be potentially related is the language setting. If you go to Options, then click Language, you see a list of language names. There is a language below 日本语 which is forever displayed as 口口口, and if I switch to it, everything in the ui becomes 口口口口. I noticed this on several machines but don’t know why this happens.
Concerning the first problem, I wouldn’t know what we could do to prevent the boxes, that apparently appear on some systems but not on others.
What could be tried on systems that have this problem, is to switch to the cross-platform Look and Feel. In Edit Preferences, Platform/OS tab the Use Windows Look and Feel could be unticked (and ELAN relaunched) to see if that helps.
The language with the boxes is Korean. This is a font issue. I also see the boxes but I assume that on a Korean system the text is displayed correctly. This problem (probably) depends on the operating system, different systems (or the Java implementation for those systems) might have different ways of dealing with selecting the default font to use for the user interface.
Anyway, I think I’ll add a property key (to the elan.properties file) which would allow the user to specify the name of the preferred font for the user interface. To be used in case all else fails.
Hi Han,
Thanks for the message. I tried your method and it worked. The style of the UI is no longer windows-like, and the boxes are gone (except for what are supposed to be Korean). It is encouraging to see that you are trying to make this software better and thank you again for what you have done!