Zero width spaces and xml entities

[luebbe]

We have one translation component where we intentionally allow (read want) zero width spaces as a sort of poor man's hyphenation. Weblate warns about the usage of zero width spaces. I guess I can turn off the check when I work my way through the docs.

• How can I insert a zero width space in weblate's editor other than copy&pasting it from somewhere else?
• Would it be possible for weblate to highlight zero width spaces in the editor, like it does for linebreaks?
• Would it be possible for weblate to preserve this character as xml entity?
  e.g. the string was uploaded as Ein​heit, but is returned as Ein​heit
  This doesn't matter much in further processing, but it would be good to know that there is something in between Ein and heit

[nijel]

How can I insert a zero width space in weblate's editor other than copy&pasting it from somewhere else?

You can add it to the visual keyboard.

[luebbe]

I added it to the visual keyboard via my user configuration. It works (on the keyboard), but since it is a ZWS, it's well hidden in the config.

Is it possible to add special characters as unicode or xml escapes to the config? I tried adding ​ to the user config, but this adds &, #, ... to the visual keyboard. Is there a way to achieve this in a "visual" way?
The global config would be the next logical step, but I want to try it out first before bothering my admins with it.

[nijel]

You can also add these site-wide in settings.py (and use unicode escape sequences there).

[nijel]

Would it be possible for weblate to highlight zero width spaces in the editor, like it does for linebreaks?

It should be possible, feel free to open issue for that.

[nijel]

Just for the record, this is covered by #6377

[luebbe]

I know, I wrote the ticket 😆

[nijel]

Would it be possible for weblate to preserve this character as xml entity?

The serialization is implemented using translate-toolkit and it's behavior varies depending on the file format.