Test Builds With Inline Spell Checking (Updated 01/28/2005)

mscott · Post by **mscott** » January 16th, 2005, 6:31 pm

I've been working on adding integrated inline spell checking to Thunderbird for the last couple weeks. This work is based on some original work done by Neil Deakin for the NVU product (thank you Neil!)

I now have a Windows installer and zip build you can use to help test my current inline spell checking work if you are interested:

Installer:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/ ... dSetup.exe

ZIP:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/ ... -win32.zip

<b>Important: Known Issues</b>
<ul>
<li>01/28 update fixes: mispell two words in a row in a bullet item then hit return, before we would remove the spelling underline on the first word.
<li>01/28 update fixes: we now properly recognize URLS of the form http://foo or mailto:foo. When pasting we never underling these words at all. When typing, we'll underline the
scheme name due to a hard to fix bug.
<li>01/28 update fixes: mispellings for words with apostrophes like didnn't now get underlined
instead of treating the apostrophe as a word separator. In general we are much
smarter about guessing what a word is.
<li>01/28 update fixes: the standalone spell check dialog works again (it regressed in earlier test builds)
<li>01/28 update fixes: copy and paste issues.
<li>01/22 update fixes: Using the arrows keys to move the caret out of a word now triggers the word to get spell checked (it used to be that only word terminating charcters like a space triggered spell check)
<li>01/22 update fixes: Using the mouse to move the caret around the compose window now triggers the word the caret used to be on to get spell checked.
<li>01/22 update fixes: If you paste multiple words of text into the compose window, we'll now spell check the pasted words.
<li>01/18 update fixes: type: foo wednesday foo. Use arrow keys to move back to the w in wednesday. now delete the w and replace with a capital W.
<li>01/18 update fixes: numbers at the start of a line were treated as a mispelling.
<li>01/18 update fixes: Misspelling underline sometimes disappears. type: "xxx aaa bbb. ccc", then backspace 3 times (to delete the "ccc"), then type "ccc" again. "bbb" will no longer be underlined.
</ul>

Useage Notes:
<ul>
<li>Be sure to do a custom install and turn off talkback otherwise you'll get an installer error. This is a developer made build and I did not put talkback in it.
<li>This build is based off of the trunk as of 01/28/2005. Any bugs that are in builds from the 22nd will of course be in this test build as well.
<li>To turn on the inline spell checker: Tools / Options / Compose. Or Options / Check Spelling As You Type from the compose window (a per compose window setting).
<li>A misspelled word gets a dotted red line placed under it. If you bring up a context menu on that word, you'll see the first 7 suggestions for the word followed by menu items for Adding to the Dictionary or Ignoring the word.
<li>FYI, the download size is larger than an automated nightly build because I don't have the same compression tools on my developer machine that the automated build machine does.
</ul>

Please post feedback and comments to this thread. Thanks for helping test this build for those of you who choose to try it out.

-Scott

mscott · Post by **mscott** » January 16th, 2005, 6:48 pm

Screen Shot:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=171212

martinmeyer · Post by **martinmeyer** » January 16th, 2005, 9:23 pm

I've been waiting for this feature for a very long time and I'm quite glad it's finally getting closer to being added. That said, here are two initial observations:

Becasue of the way the code is implemented, I could move the system carot to the middle of a misspelled word, fix it, then move off to the end of the email again. This would result in the now correctly spelled word still having a dashed underline. Would it be possible to recheck a word when the carot moves away from it in addition to when a delimiting character is added/deleted near it?

Another problem is that if I have two misspelled words in sequence, like "frot waht." and then remove the space between the words, the line under "frot" will be removed by the line under "waht" will not be. I'm not sure exactly how this might be solved yet, but if I think of something I'll be sure to note it. It might be solved if the system carot recheck thing is done.

Still, very nice start. I hope it will eventually make its way into the trunk.

raananb · Post by **raananb** » January 17th, 2005, 6:44 am

I would like to test this version - version 0.6+ (20050116) - with the French dictionary, but it will not install.

I downloaded spell-fr-FR.xpi and then dragged it to the Extensions window; also clicked Install and selected in Extension window and selected spell-fr-FR.xpi. No way.

ChefChaudart · Post by **ChefChaudart** » January 17th, 2005, 11:18 am

Is it only for English ?

(Great idea)

rodness · Post by **rodness** » January 17th, 2005, 12:44 pm

Scott,

Can you do a zipfile build so those of us who don't want to monkey with our production installation can mess with it?

-rod

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » January 17th, 2005, 4:43 pm

mscott,

Thanks so much for working on this as many many people have be wanting this feature.

It seems that you have run up against many of the same issues as I have when I created my in-line spell check extension ( www.supportware.net/mozilla/AutoSpellCheck.xpi ) ..

Here's hoping you get all of those wrinkles worked out... ( gotta hate those contractions ! )

Good luck

Äkiidoll · Post by **Äkiidoll** » January 17th, 2005, 4:57 pm

I will also test on the next build if a .zip version is available.

mscott · Post by **mscott** » January 17th, 2005, 8:36 pm

ausdilecce wrote:mscott,

Thanks so much for working on this as many many people have be wanting this feature.

It seems that you have run up against many of the same issues as I have when I created my in-line spell check extension ( www.supportware.net/mozilla/AutoSpellCheck.xpi ) ..

Here's hoping you get all of those wrinkles worked out... ( gotta hate those contractions ! )

Good luck

Thanks. Fortunately for me, this isn't an extension but is relying on changes made directly inside of layout and editor to support inline spell checking in editor text boxes. That made things a lot cleaner than trying to hack it around the core components. That doesn't mean it won't have similar wrinkles of course.

Tessmctessy · Post by **Tessmctessy** » January 18th, 2005, 12:48 am

Ok! wow! thanks! but after I installed the new version, it wouldn't let me install any extensions. After it clicked install, it wouldn't show up in the extension list, and wouldn't appear when restarting thunderbird. So I gave up and just reinstalled my 1.0 version. But I guess installing 1.0 over this new version conflicted with it, cause afterward, when i ran thunderbird, it wouldn't appear. The TaskManager said it was running, but it wouldn't show up on the screen, so I just started 1.0 from scratch. I'll definitely keep track of this though, I can wait a little bit for it though. It's nice to see this feature is so far along. Thanks.

Tess

sylvester · Post by **sylvester** » January 18th, 2005, 10:46 am

raananb wrote:I would like to test this version - version 0.6+ (20050116) - with the French dictionary, but it will not install.
I downloaded spell-fr-FR.xpi and then dragged it to the Extensions window; also clicked Install and selected in Extension window and selected spell-fr-FR.xpi. No way.

Hello,

I downloaded also spell-fr-FR.xpi using this page

http://dictionaries.mozdev.org/installation.html

and tried to install the french dictionnary following the instructions. It also didn't work for me.
However, I have been able to use the inline spell checking with the french dictionnary by doing a clean installation of Thunderbird 1.0, installing spell-fr-FR.xpi, and then doing an installation of this developement version without deinstalling Thunderbird 1.0.

PE

supernova_00 · Post by **supernova_00** » January 18th, 2005, 5:30 pm

Thanks Scott and especially Neil Deakin! Will give this a try once a zip build is out

eu · Post by eu » January 18th, 2005, 10:33 pm

This is a really great feature! I just would like to suggest to improve navigation and add keyboard shortcuts.

On windows you have to use Shift-F10 to open popup menu, which is not very convenient keystroke, so maybe you can add Ctrl-Space that will activate this popup menu right below word under cursor.

In the popup menu, all of suggested words should have key acelerators. I'd suggest to add 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc to allow to quickly select correct choice.

mscott · Post by **mscott** » January 18th, 2005, 11:09 pm

an updated test build (both installer and now a windows .ZIP build) have just been uploaded. They should show up in the next 10 minutes. Read the "Known Issues" list at the start of the thread to read about what's been fixed.

Nietzman · Post by **Nietzman** » January 19th, 2005, 6:34 am

Is there any chance of seeing a Mac build soon, and if not, is anyone working on a simular feature for OsX? (Since the default OsX spellchecker won't word because of the whole XUL thing?)

And furthermore, (In general, Windows, Linux, Mac...) can this spellcheckingabillity be tied into FireFox as well?