[texworks] German quotes missing [was: Re: german umlaut in TeXWorks]

[Juergen Fenn]

Philip,

apologies for my late reply.

I'm afraid, it took me a while to figure out how to configure TeXworks
for input of correct German quotation marks, and I would like to share
how this is done in case someone else is also looking for a solution to
this issue. I am writing this reply in TeXworks and copy it back to
Thunderbird for posting to the list.

First of all, I guessed that setting TeXworks to German language would
automatically select the proper quotation marks and everything else that
goes with it. Unfortunately, this is not so. In fact, TeXworks
developers have taken no effort to provide a ready solution for users
who are no English speakers, or who wish to write in other languages
than English. So, here is how to proceed:

Figure out where the file smart-quotes-modes.txt is located on your
system. The documentation in TeXworks-manual-en.pdf dated 2021-03-08
<https://github.com/TeXworks/manual/releases/download/2021-03-08/TeXworks-manual-en.pdf>
in section 4.5.4 on page 22 does not say where exactly to find it which
is strange for a cross-platform application. It only states:

> Finally, it is possible to define personal quotation marks systems (in
the file smart-quotes-modes.txt in the configuration folder of the
resource folder).

"The resource folder" on the Mac can be found at

/Users/USERNAME/Library/Application\ Support/TUG/TeXworks/configuration

Duplicate the file smart-quotes-modes.txt in this folder for later
reference and then open it with, e.g., TextEdit.app and enter the
replacements manually that suit your language. In my case the mapping
goes something like this:

-----snip-----
[TeX ligatures]
œ	\glq{}	\grq{}
"	"`	"'

[TeX commands]
œ	\glq{}	\grq{}
"	\glqq{}	\grqq{}

[Unicode characters]
œ	‚	‘
"	
„	“
-----snap-----

I chose to use Option-ö = œ on my German keyboard to enter single
quotation marks because if I would map it to the apostrophe key I would
not be able to enter this character any more. There do not seem to be
shorthands for single German quotes defined in babel, so I chose the TeX
commands here, too. Then the same for TeX commands and for Unicode
characters.

Now, there are two ways to switch between the three ways to enter the
quotation marks. In general settings you select the default settings
that take effect after a restart of TeXworks for the next new editor
window. If you already are editing a document you select the settings
for the active document under Format | Typographische Anführungszeichen
(Format | Smart quotes).

Now, what do we make of this? I find it somewhat confusing that the
language you select in general settings does not affect all other
settings that go with the language environment. E.g., in TeXstudio you
can chose between English, French, German and Polish quotation marks in
general settings. I am not sure any more, but I think in Aquamacs with
AUCTeX this was configured out of the box already. I've just switched to
Emacs for MacOSX (a Vanilla Emacs for the Mac), and configuration of
AUCTeX was straightforward with Customize.

Why did I take a look at TeXworks in the first place? I am worried
because my Aquamacs, although it still works pretty well with Rosetta on
macOS Ventura on my M1 MacBook Air has not been updated for over four
years which means that I do not have access to the latest in Emacs
development. So I was looking for other options in TeX editors.

As was shown, I was able to solve the above issue. But I'm afraid, most
users with less experience would have failed here.

Best regards,
Jürgen.

Am 04.08.23 um 10:41 Uhr schrieb Philip Taylor (Hellenic Institute):
> On 04/08/2023 08:25, Juergen Fenn wrote:
>>
>> I'm afraid correct German quotes are not available in TeXworks, although
>> the settings dialogue says so. Even the unicode option is wrong. :(
>
> Is not the opening quotation mark below correct, Jürgen?
>
>> „die Anführungszeichen
> This was inserted by TeXworks when I entered the Windows code for a low
> opening German quotation mark (Alt+0132).  Unfortunately I could not
> find the Windows code for the corresponding high closing German
> quotation mark (“), but if you have a German keyboard you should be able
> to type it directly and TeXworks should then correctly insert it in as a
> single Unicode character.
>
> --
> /Philip Taylor/
>