Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!claris!krazy From: krazy@claris.com (Jeff Erickson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: MacWrite II's spell checker Message-ID: <9997@claris.com> Date: 2 May 89 13:42:50 GMT References: <13120@paris.ics.uci.edu> Distribution: na Organization: Claris Corporation, Santa Clara CA Lines: 169 I must have missed the original post. Time to defend the MWII spell checker. From article <13120@paris.ics.uci.edu>, by milne@ics.uci.edu (Alastair Milne): > The spelling checker built into WriteNow version 1 does all but the last 2 > of these things (I haven't tried version 2 yet): WriteNow 2.0 has the same spelling checker interface as 1.0, but I think it may be a bit faster. >>Speed: Nobody wants to wait around while the speller is doing its thing. > If you were using a Z80 machine before, you'd like the speed in WriteNow. > And it's faster than Word 3.02's, too. MWII is fast, too. Word is like waiting to the pyramids to crumble, in my, uh, humble opinion. More details on this later. >>Context Display: seeing the word in its context. > WriteNow video-inverts the word right in the document -- though to be > fair I believe this is standard practise for built-in checkers. Ditto. In addition, there is a 'context box' which can be called up at the bottom of the dialog. The misspelled word shows up underlined in the middle of one line of text. Since the dialog is movable (as is WriteNow's), you can look to see exactly where the word is, anyway. >>Easy lookup for suggested replacement: (i.e., not just one >> choice but several words in the immediate vicinity) > WriteNow's checker window provides a GUESS button. Clicking it causes > all the similar words it can find to appear AS BUTTONS themselves. > Just click the word you want. Or click FORGET. Or IGNORE. MWII doesn't wait for you to click on a button. I looks up similar words in the background. The process is interruptible, so if you know the word is right, you can immediately click on "Learn" or "Skip" and the lookup will be aborted. The suggestion list WriteNow gives you is a series of buttons. MacWrite II gives you a scrolling list (like in the Open/Save dialogs) and a text-edit field. You can type in the correct spelling, double-click on the correct suggestion (the first click copies the suggestion to the edit box), or use the keyboard (command-1 for the first suggestion, command-2 for the second, and so on up to the sixth). >>Ease in adding word to main dictionary: Yes, it used to be >> fairly easy to add to the main dictionary rather than >> creating alternate dictionaries. > Click the LEARN button in the checker's window. I've found this a very > quick way to add plurals and possessives to the dictionary. Hmmm. We don't do this one. You actually have to install a user dictionary (simple enough -- invoke the "Install Dictionaries" command, and click "New"), but the installation can be made automatic (instructions in the manual). There's a "Learn" button in MWII's spell checker dialog, also. It adds the word to the current user dictionary. Also, our checker is smart enough to detect plurals and possessives. >>Ability to mark words found by speller to locate them >> in an editor: sometimes faster. > Well, it doesn't attach anything to the word that would help you find it > later -- but since it's work directly in the document anyway, and has in > fact already found the location -- do you really need this? The checker > is a modeless dialogue, so you can alternate between it and the document > with no difficulty. Once again, ditto. The misspelled word is highlit right there in the text; no need to go back and find it later. One minor quibble. While I find our spelling checker much better at most things than WriteNow's, one property annoys me: our dialog is not modeless, but merely movable. You have to hit "Cancel" to get back to the document. I think this is due to a difference in design strategy: we spell-check the entire document when you bring up the dialog, and then run through the list of misspellings interactively; whereas, WriteNow find the next misspelled word after the current insertion point/selection. So in order to go back and forth between the dialog and the document, you have to close the dialog and bring it up again (rebuilding the list of misspelled words in the process). This difference in philosophy also affects the speed. WriteNow is faster at finding the FIRST misspelled word, but MWII is *much* faster at "finding" the second one. >>Ability to back up: Sometimes you change your mind on how to >>spell something, such as a transliterated name (Qaddafi, Kadaffi, >>Qadhafi--intifada, intifadah) or a word with more than one correct >>spelling (modeling, modelling). > Since WriteNow's checker always advances from the current cursor > position, and the dialogue is modeless, you only need to move up to > the top (or in fact to anywhere you want) and click in the text. > The check will continue from there. > > Your only problem here is that if you've told it to ignore Qaddafi > (because you consider it correct, but don't actually want it in the main > dictionary) it will continue to ignore it, rather than landing on it for > changes. See the previous discussion about modelessness. MWII doesn't remember which sections of the text have been checked (as WriteNow does), so you don't have the problem of the checker ignoring ytour word when it shouldn't. I should point out one other feature we have that WriteNow doesn't. When you find a misspelled word and offer a replacement, we replace ALL instances of that misspelled word. So if you changed your mind about "Qadaffi", you could change every instance of it in one swell foop. It would be nice if you could turn this feature off (grrr...), but you can't. Yet. (Of course, you can do that with Find/Change, too, in both programs.) >>...locate repeated words, such as "the the," which is more >>of a typo than a grammatical error. > > Nice. This I haven't seen. I have, and it's nice. Unfortunately, we don't do it, either. >>Now put all this into a desk accessory, make it dirt-cheap, >>and you'll have something. > > Try Thunder. My brother, on a 6-year old Mac 512+, swears by it. ---- A few other selling points about MWII's spelling checker: # It can check just a selected range of text, the whole main body, or the whole document (headers, footers, and footnotes included). # It can spellcheck as you type. Personally, I find this incredibly annoying, but you can have the program beep at you, or just flash the menu bar, every time you type a misspelled word. A menu command (with a keyboard equivalent, Thank God!), lets you check that word immediately. # Within the spelling dialog, you can type any word (in the edit box) and check its spelling, get suggestions, etc. # We have (or will have soon) dictionaries in about ten foreign languages (British, Spanish, French, German, Swedish, Danish, Portuguese, Norwegian,.....) You'll have to call our customer service dept. for details about this. # If you know the secret password, it can automatically reroute every electronic financial transaction in the country into your own Swiss bank account for exactly one second. This gives the average user about $350M if invoked at three in the morning. It's simple, it's untraceable, and best of all, it's TAX-FREE!!! (No, I'm not going to tell you the password! Are you kidding?!) Before I started working for Claris, I was an avid fan of WriteNow, and there are still some things about it that I like better than MWII. Fortunately, I'm in a position to suggest that those things get changed! :-) Well, I gotta go. Some nice men from the Government are here to talk to me. -- Jeff Erickson Claris Corporation | Birdie, birdie, in the sky, 408/987-7309 Applelink: Erickson4 | Why'd you do that in my eye? krazy@claris.com ames!claris!krazy | I won't fret, and I won't cry. "I'm a heppy, heppy ket!" | I'm just glad that cows don't fly.