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From: kent@circus.camex.com (Kent Borg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: Finder 7.0 suggestion
Message-ID: <1433@camex.COM>
Date: 19 Jul 90 21:45:31 GMT
References: <2695@<956> <70500015@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@Camex.COM
Reply-To: kent@camex.com (Kent Borg)
Organization: Camex Inc., Boston, MA
Lines: 34

In article <70500015@m.cs.uiuc.edu> gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>> It would be nice if System7 had a Spelling Manager with a standard
>> dictionary and the ability to add specialized dictionaries
>> (Engineering, Medical, etc.).
>
>Better yet, system 7.0 needs a "word-stream" manager -- a program that
>lets you pipe text through a processing program.  Especially:
>
>(1) spelling checkers.
>(2) grammar checkers.
>(3) machine translation programs.


First, it is far too late to add anything this major to 7.0.  7.0 is
supposed to hit the streets in just a few months (though we shall
see).

Second, 7.0 already has features which might help along these lines.
Interapplication Communication through AppleEvents could make generic
spell checkers possible.  The spell checker could drive the word
processor (scroll to such-and-such a word so the use can see the
context and so on), or the word processor could just submit a batch of
text, request faceless processing, and itself tell the user about it.

It will be interesting to see how the standard set of AppleEvents
turnout.  If they are well done it might be easy for spell checkers to
offer all sorts of dictionary services.

--
Kent Borg                internet: kent@camex.com             MacNet: kentborg
                                            H:(617) 776-6899  W:(617) 426-3577
"If 2 + 3 is always going to be 5, why do they keep teaching it to us?"
	- 5-30-90 New York Times quoting a first grader