[Python-modules-team] Bug#904487: Failed to load plugin "spellchecker" - No module named gtkspell

[Simon McVittie]

Control: clone -1 -2
Control: reassign -2 virtaal
Control: forwarded -2 https://github.com/translate/virtaal/issues/3284
Control: tags -2 + upstream
Control: severity -1 wishlist
Control: retitle -1 python-gtkspellchecker: deprecated gtkspell wrapper not included

On Tue, 24 Jul 2018 at 19:56:00 +0200, Miguel Bouzada wrote:
> After comparing package lists,
> build rules and upstream's source code with Arch Linux - where it's correctly
> working - we believe this is due to a missing parameter GTKSPELL=true in the ./
> setup.py file, which is inhibiting the module to be invoked and, hence,
> compiled.

The upstream source code release that's used in Debian, which was
downloaded from <https://pypi.org/project/pygtkspellcheck/#files>,
doesn't include the gtkspell.py module. That module appears to only be
available from the upstream git repository.

It seems to be a deprecated wrapper to emulate an older PyGTK API under
Python 2 (but not Python 3), and was described as a "legacy API" in
the commit that added it in 2012. I'm not sure whether that's something
that is really appropriate for Debian to be enabling, when the future
direction is away from both PyGTK and Python 2.

> ERROR:root:Failed to load plugin "spellchecker"
> No module named gtkspell
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtaal/controllers/
> plugincontroller.py", line 109, in enable_plugin
>     self.plugins[name] = plugin_class(name, self.controller)
>   File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtaal/plugins/spellchecker.py", line
> 69, in __init__
>     import gtkspell
> ImportError: No module named gtkspell

I suspect virtaal's spellchecker plugin should use gtkspellchecker directly,
instead of going via gtkspell. This is a necessary step if virtaal is
ever going to move to Python 3 (so is #885493), because the gtkspell
module is not available for Python 3.

    smcv