SpellBound Development version

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Robert S.
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SpellBound Development version

Post by Robert S. »

Includes:
<ul><li>spell as you type for input and textarea elements as well as rich text editors</li><li>libraries for the official Win32, Mac OS X, and Linux 1.5 releases</li><li>libraries for the OS/2 contributed build and the FreeBSD.org builds of 1.5</li><li>includes the en-US dictionary</li><li>help file available from the SpellBound options dialog.</ul>
To display the spell as you type spelling suggestions ctrl+left-click on the misspelled word. I used left-click (along with the ctrl key) due to issues where right clicking a new location not placing the caret in the proper place which required a left click then a right click to display the popup.
Be warned... it is only compatible with 1.5/1.5.0.* and I need to verify a couple of things before anyone should use this with the trunk.
It removes the old spell check libraries on first run.
If your user account doesn't have write access to the app's components directory you will need to install a dictionary from http://dictionaries.mozdev.org/installation.html or http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/dictionaries.html with an account that does (this primarily affects Linux users but it can affect any Operating System).
If you install additional dictionaries it will create backups of the dictionaries and install them again if you re-install Firefox as long as you have write access.
The only locale currently is en-US.

Be sure to first check the help file if you have any questions... the web site has not been updated with any new info as of yet.

<a href="http://exchangecode.com/spellbound/downloads/spellbound-dev_20060108.xpi">Install SpellBound Dev</a>

Cheers,
Robert
Last edited by Robert S. on January 8th, 2006, 10:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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BenBasson
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Post by BenBasson »

It might be a good idea to change the GUID back now that you've made this public. I can see some nasty stuff happening if the older installed version isn't overwritten or removed first.

Otherwise, it's working great, just as expected. Nice work :)
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Post by jedbro »

Robert,

Awesome!
Has been working perfectly for me!
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XerBlade
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Post by XerBlade »

Cusser wrote:It might be a good idea to change the GUID back now that you've made this public. I can see some nasty stuff happening if the older installed version isn't overwritten or removed first.

Otherwise, it's working great, just as expected. Nice work :)

From the few tests I ran, it seemed to, though it doesn't appear to overwrite it at first due to the GUID being different, remove the older SpellBound automatically if you have it installed. I was not able to produce a case where it didn't, but I didn't do any extensive case testing.
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BenBasson
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Post by BenBasson »

Well, it definitely didn't overwrite or remove my old SpellBound install, 0.7.3, I think. An annoying bug that I just noticed:

1. Focus the "search topic" text box below.
2. Misspell a word (I typed "dsfgdfg").
3. Press tab.
4. Type something in the quick reply text area. "dsfgdfg" should be underlined in the text box below.
5. Click in the empty space on the right of the misspelled word, the suggested words menu will appear and will hijack key presses.
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Post by jedbro »

Robert:

Could yo go into detail on exactly how it works?
i.e.
I notice it will overlay/trigger on every textbox or editor in both webpages and in the firefox xul overlays, however;

1) Does it always trigger on every 'focus' of the element?\

2) Depending on #1 above, does it recheck the spelling everytime?

3) I pm'ed you about this, but I'm sure other would like to know;
Is there a way I can force spellbound to inline-check a text box? I'm having a wierd issue in a new extension I'm working on.. I'll try and get a test case for you soon.

4) Is there a way we can keep spellbound from not spell-checking a specific input/textbox/editor? I.e. I would like to be able to disable it for my extension, then in my extension's preferences allow the user to decide if he wants it enabled or not (probably enabled by default). Current behavior seems it overlays all inputs globally.

5) Awesome work! ;)

Cheers
-Jed
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GCG
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Post by GCG »

Hi Robert-
This is a very nice enhancement! Works well on my Mac. One slight problem, I can't close your Extension's Pref panel w/o restarting FFX. There's no visible <DONE>, <OK> or <CLOSE> button on the Mac version's Pref Panel. Otherwise it's a very useful addition to FFX. Thanks
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Post by BenBasson »

GCG's problem is likely due to the dialog not sizing correctly or something. I had a different but vaguely similar problem implementing a PrefWindowV style preferences dialog, in the end asqueella solved it by recommending that I explicitly specify a window height. Possibly, you need to specify a height for the the individual pref-panes as well.

Just another note, I know you don't like it that much, but it might be worth having a hidden pref to change between appending the spelling suggestions to the regular context menu (as per Thunderbird) and the current left click style, if for no other reason than to assess which is the better option. Having used this a bit more heavily, I'm finding that I'm triggering the menu when clicking in the middle of a word to manually correct a spelling. I don't remember this being a problem before, but I could be wrong.
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Post by XerBlade »

One thing I've noticed: If you click again on an underlined word after the suggestion menu has already come up, it will go away, allowing you to edit the word manually. And I said to myself, this could be useful to remember.
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Robert S.
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Post by Robert S. »

Damn... I expected more bugs than this. :)

I also forgot to mention that it works with QuickNote, ChatZilla, Pearl Comments, and partially with Deepest Sender (spell as you type only works in the sidebar but everything else should work).

Cusser - the first run also uninstalls the old version with the old id... it may cause problems for anyone that downgrades but all that should need to be done then is uninstalling the new version. I thought about keeping the old id but chose not to mainly to see how successful this is (e.g. others have been changing id's and just telling users to uninstall the old version).

Thanks for the focus issue you found... I should have a chance this weekend to look into it.

I agree about the option to use the context menu instead even with the problems the app has with focus... it will take a bit to implement but I have a previous version that has most of the code to do so including the textbox context menu.

GCG - I'll take a look this weekend at the issue with the pref panel on Mac OS X and thanks Cusser for the info on this.

jedbro - cheers and glad it is working for you... I'll respond in detail probably this weekend.

XerBlade - there is code that allows that and it is documented in the help file under Using SpellBound - Spell As You Type in the tips section.
If you don't want the popup menu to display when you left-click on a misspelled word you can click a second time when it is displayed, select the text with the mouse as you left-click, or disable Spell As You Type before clicking.


I also think it may be appropriate to remove the options that people would seldom if ever change so suggestions on this would be helpful.
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Post by BenBasson »

Not sure you need these in the UI, really (both enabled by default):
"Hide context menu when the focussed element can't be spell checked"
"Wrap long lines in the editor"

What does this do? I think it might need a clearer description...
"Disable spell check when the focussed element can't be spell checked"

Both times when you mention "Hide command in tools menu", it should probably say "menu item" somewhere for clarity.

UI is looking nice though... it's good to see PrefWindowV being used in the wild some more. That's four of my extensions now. :)
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Robert S.
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Post by Robert S. »

Thanks and you are spot on... the "Disable spell check when the focussed element can't be spell checked" should be removed. It restores the previous behavior where the toolbar button / menu item are disabled if the currently focused element can't be spell checked.

*edit* I also want to add the dictionaries select to the downloads with the ability to install new dictionaries. Since they are common to both inline and dialog spell checking perhaps on a new panel with the ability to edit the personal dictionary and import a personal dictionary.
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GCG
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Post by GCG »

"GCG - I'll take a look this weekend at the issue with the pref panel on Mac OS X and thanks Cusser for the info on this."

Thanks, Robert.
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BenBasson
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Post by BenBasson »

Robert S. wrote:Since they are common to both inline and dialog spell checking perhaps on a new panel with the ability to edit the personal dictionary and import a personal dictionary.

Hmm. Is the personal dictionary still stored in the application directory? I'm thinking this would be done better by the profile if possible, since it'll prevent loss upon uninstall/reinstall.

As I see it, the potential use cases with respect to the handling of personal dictionaries are:
1. Removing and reinstalling Firefox - what should happen?
2. Multiple users who share a dictionary (presumably this is how things are handled now?)
3. Updating personal dictionary.
4. Import / export of some kind.
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Robert S.
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Post by Robert S. »

The personal dictionary is in the profile (persdict.dat)
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