"Learn" is grayed out in Suggested Spellings

[HazMatt]

As shown in the attachment, the Learn option is grayed out in my Suggested Spellings contextual menu option. It's been like this for years and I'm not quite sure why. This does not happen on local files, only my hosted files.

What's the low-down on dictionary modification for hosted files?

[K1200]

Thank goodness I've found someone else having this problem. I, too, have been chasing it on and off for two years. I posted on FileMaker's forum six months ago and got several suggestions but no solution. Maybe something in the thread will apply to your situation. Link

I use the separation model and it only occurs on my bound runtimes.

If someone in FileMaker would look at the code and state "here are the runtime conditions that can gray out the choice:" then we could probably both locate our respective solutions.

I hope someone can shed some light. Good luck with your situation.

[Steelers1]

You will want to check that your users have access privileges to read & write to files in the FileMaker Pro > Extensions > Dictionaries directory otherwise the "Learn" will be grayed out as FileMaker Pro will not be able to write to the User Dictionary.

[K1200]

Thanks for the response. That sounds like a real possibility -- although Edit User Dictionary works fine on my runtimes and accesses the same file. It's only Learn that is grayed out.

Regardless, I can't spot any "file" setting on the Edit Privilege Set dialog. I can control access to Records, Layouts, Value Lists and Scripts. Where is "Files"?

[HazMatt]

No what Steelers1 means is the permissions on the actual files (which are completely independent from internal FileMaker file design).

That's a good idea which I will check tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure the privs are set for read/write already.

[K1200]

permissions on the actual files

So how do I go about checking those for user.upr?

Thanks for any assistance.

[HazMatt]

Well… I think I discovered an important clue!

For the record, the permissions were set correctly (see attachment). On Windows, file permissions are set differently than you would see in my screenshot. But the file permissions are NOT the culprit…

1) I created a brand new Untitled.fp7 database file and saved it locally.

2) With my hosted files closed (so Untitled.fp7 was the only file open), the Learn option in spellchecking is ACTIVE (in both the contextual menu and the Spelling dialog box).

3) Now I open my hosted files. "Learn" is grayed out on these new hosted files, but still works in the local file.

4) I close and re-open my local file (leaving my hosted files open as well), and Learn is DISABLED again!

So, it definitely appears to me that the Learn ability is rendered inactive on any newly opened file—if hosted files are open at the same time!

Can someone say "FileMaker bug"?

[K1200]

Based on your Mac file configurations, I poked around the same type of settings in Win XP and found things that weren't very encouraging.

For one, UPR isn't a registered file type on my target test machine. It's registered to FileMaker Advanced Pro on my development system, but there's no corresponding FileMaker app on the runtime machine to register it to. This, alone, may explain why none of my target machines can access it.

Just as a test, I tried XP file sharing, but moving User.upr to the Shared Folder caused it to be inaccessible to my runtime.

In addition, there's some ambiguity in whether the PATH to User.upr is Read Only at some level ... even though the file, itself, is set writable (not Read Only, in XP lingo).

Like I said, none of this is very encouraging. It very probably is one of those obscure bugs that FileMaker will never see on their test machines. Best bet for me would be for them to detune the security on this particular file. In other words, have it as a clickable Yes/No option.

In the mean time (for the umpteenth time), I have to explain to users why the Learn option is there, but grayed out -- not a fun thing to have to do.