trying to ignore a couple of strings

[fredc]

I need to compare my html files and consider these two strings unimportant: "·" and "∙"
>> Edit... I just noticed that my entities didn't come through.
>> The two strings are &_#8729; and &_#183; without the underscore.

I have figured out that there is a "grammar rules" feature... I just can't get it to work. I wouldn't mind just ignoring those strings even if they don't match up positionally in the document.
Step by step one thing I have tried.

1. Select the two files and compare, they are exactly the same except one uses "·" in places and the other uses "∙" in places.
2. Observer the lines with differences pointing out those entities.
3. Click on the little "Rules referee icon" select the "Importance" tab, click on "Edit Grammar...".
4. Click on "New...": Set "Element Name:" to "Entity"; "Category:" to "Basic"; "Text Matching" to "&_#8729;". Click "Ok". (Remove the underscore, wouldn't post correctly without it.)
5. Click on "New...": Set "Element Name:" to "Entity"; "Category:" to "Basic"; "Text Matching" to "&_#183;". Click "Ok".
6. Click "Ok" in the Grammar window.
7. Un-Check "Entity" in the "Grammar Elements" list.
8. Click "Ok"

Result: The compare window refreshes, but the entities are still flagged as different. I toggled the "Ignore Unimportant Differences" button a couple times to make sure I had it set right. It had no effect.

I also tried a "Category" of "List" in the Grammar rules.

What am I doing wrong?
Is this a missing feature?
Thanks

[Michael Bulgrien]

It sounds like you should be using replacements instead of grammar rules in this situation.

[Erik]

Hi Fred,

I tried the steps you've provided and everything is behaving as expected. Could you send sample files and your settings (Help -> Support -> Export) to [email protected]?

Thanks,

[fredc]

Thanks for the suggestion Michael. Yes, replacements are exactly what I needed in this case, and they work perfectly. I didn't see that feature.

[fredc]

I have sent in my files Erik. And yes, I can still repro the "bug" if you even want to call it that. It turns out that if I setup grammar rules to ignore a couple of words like "ignore" and "this". Then my test works just fine. But with those entities it doesn't. And like Michael pointed out, replacements is what I wanted anyways, and they work.

[fredc]

I just noticed that my entities didn't come through in my original post, which makes a bunch of difference in understing. The two strings are &_#8729; and &_#183; without the underscore.

[Erik]

Hi Fred,

Thanks for the files and settings. The reason you weren't getting the behavior you expected is that the new grammar items you defined (&_#139; and &_#8729) never actually will be used. This is because the &_#\d+; grammar item matches the same text and since it is higher on the list, it gets precedence. Thus the solution is to move your new grammar items before it.

[fredc]

As usual, something really simple once you know what to look for. Thanks much Erik!