Forums Feature Suggestions Spellchecker?

Spellchecker as you type in the command stack would be nice

dll files would be better than built-in.

This doesn't seem like a very feasable thing to implement directly into mirc, the dictionary files alone would be a huge bulk to mirc (or resource hogs in the case of active online communication).

Mirc is used by so many people who speak and type in so many different languages that it would be near impossible for an internal spell checker to stay up to date.

Other problems would arise also, such as users that speak more than one language on irc, in the same channel even.

how about aspell? many win apps us it. ultraedit, gaim.

It would be nice to have a spellchecker. Most of the poeple I speak with are english and it a rather large server. I havent really came across anyone that does speak english, even the japanese speak english

As a note, it wouldn't be too much trouble to put a dialog or picwin "button" over mIRC that will check all of the words in your editbox using an online dictionary. It shouldn't even be that difficult. For that matter, you could just check it by running the text through Google's search and see if it pops up a "did you mean" link, which would mean a single search rather than searching every word in your editbox.

I don't think I'd have it do this automatically using on INPUT just for speed issues and you probably don't need every line to be checked... only ones with words you're not sure of. I think it would be better to have a button that checks your current line before you send it.

It would be nice, though just about every country that has English as a first or second language spells different words differently just the same as grammar differs.

The simplest solution to this problem is to become more proficient at typing.

add to that the increase in the tla's and other 'text talk' that people use these days and a spellchecker isn't really viable.

I like the idea of checking thru a google socket. I also like how we write scripts trying to be as memory friendly as possible, just to throw the load onto googles servers! lol

btk

I second that Riamus2..

Hotmail has theirs set up to check the first 2000 words... it does it in a split second.

Having an online editbox pre-check at the touch of a button, would make a nice feature.

perhaps there could be a plug-in to use things along the lines of Microsoft Word's (or another application's) built in dictionary? Maybe a DLL somewhere?

Oh, you can definitely use a pre-built dictionary. Many are freely downloadable, including many different languages. That's not a problem. However, as was mentioned, having all of your lines checked would really tax your cpu unnecessarily. It's much better to have a button or something to check only the lines that you care about. And using google would save cpu over using a dictionary file.

well, it could be a "check before send" since the editbox can only have 255 characters in it (sendable IIRC). to realtime check it, yeah, I agree, but to check it before send should take MUCH less time. As for using a website to check it thru, yes, there are plenty of dictionary sites out there that are trustworthy

It depends how fast you type. I type really fast and I would not want it to check every line and possible start lagging me.

Also, you can send more then 255 on most networks that I've been on... somewhere over 400 on the ones I'm on regularly.

The limit is usually 512 chars including EVERYTHING that is sent in the message (PRIVMSG, target, etc)

-genius_at_work

255 must have been an OLDER number that I was thinking of but yes, it goes into the 500 range (as pointed out). I dont know, Firefox (granted this is NOT two way communication so that on its own could be part of the potential lag issues) autochecks my spelling as I type and it doesnt seem to lag me one bit. While typing this it caught 4 errors (as of this sentence - boldfaced deliberately) and underlined them red (tho did NOT auto CORRECT). Perhaps something like this could be done where we have the option of correcting them just by visual glance.

Well, you can't underline words in red in mIRC unless some DLL I haven't heard of can do it. But you could pop something up that listed unknown words, I suppose.

The lag issue is with the methods you'd have to use to check the sentence in mIRC scripting. mIRC scripting just can't check it fast enough, afaik, to prevent some kind of lag if you're a fast typer and type really long lines of text (or paste them). A DLL would be needed to handle it fast enough for it to work well.

However, if you had a hash table filled with your dictionary words and each word was an item in the hash table, you could probably do it without lag by just checking $hget for an exact match. Still, with long lines, you'll have to loop through every word on the line, which can still cause lag. Also, you have the problems of punctuation and other symbols. What do you ignore or remove before checking for an exact match? You could remove all symbols and keep only characters when checking, but that could cause problems if certain words need apostrophes or hyphens or whatever else.

And, I don't know of any dictionary files that are formatted properly to just load into a hash table in the first place.

I would like to add my support for this suggestion. Ever since Firefox recently added a spellchecker, I have gotten used to it, and it's annoying that mIRC doesn't have one - the absence is noticed.

I've tried to make a DLL based on Aspell, this is no easy task which is why nobody has done it. It's one thing to get the spell checking right, it's another thing to have it underlined with a squiggly red line in the editbox. And then there is the issue of adding a context menu for suggested spelling corrections.

Spell checking is a natural feature for a text centric program. I would encourage khaled, if he is interested (or anyone who is capable of making a DLL), to take a look at Aspell, it's an open source library.

I don't regularly use any other chat program, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but do any other chat clients have spell checkers? I don't think they do. "Word centric" programs such as Firefox and MS Word have spell checkers because when you type documents in those programs you're probably meant to be spelling things correctly (e.g. forum posts, wikipedia entries). However, the very nature of "chat" on the Internet means words are often not spelled correctly. In fact they are often severely distorted! So Firefox might have a spell checker, but Chatzilla doesn't. MS Word does, but Windows Live Messenger doesn't (afaik).

If you want to type correctly then feel free (I certainly do), but the point of a spell checker is to prevent embarrassing or silly mistakes in documents intended for an audience that might actually care. Also it helps prevent irreversible mistakes - once you've sent that email you can't correct the typo. Once you've printed off that document and posted it, you can't get it out of the mailbox. Making a typo on IRC doesn't matter, is not embarrassing, and the "live" nature of it means you can simply correct your mistake on the next line. Er go, I don't think mIRC is an appropriate program to include a spell checker with.

Regards,

Originally Posted By: Mentality

Making a typo on IRC doesn't matter, is not embarrassing, and the "live" nature of it means you can simply correct your mistake on the next line. Er go, I don't think mIRC is an appropriate program to include a spell checker with.

I agree, this should not be added.

I don't think this is something that should be built-in to mIRC, but that doesn't discount the desirability of having the option to easily create/add one via a DLL.

I think that spelling in IRC is just as important as spelling in other mediums. Although I consider myself a fairly good speller, I often will find myself running to Firefox's Dictionary.com search-box to make sure I'm communicating effectively; I can imagine this being a great help to people who are just learning a language as well. So, it would be very useful to multiple types of people if mIRC made a spell-checking feature easier to implement.

Unfortunately, I doubt even facilitating such a feature is high in priority. For the record, though, Trillian has a plugin for spell-checking that is very useful; it also, of course, has the Wikipedia entry green underlines, which is a whole other feature entirely.

X-Chat has one.

aspell is out of the question, it's under GPL

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLInProprietarySystem

UltraEdit really uses aspell? In that case, you can demand the source code for their product-- go now.

That also leaves out many other libraries as well. If you know any good proprietary ones, let Khaled know, and maybe he'll find it cost effective to implement.

--but it really all comes back to the fact that many people of many many cultures use mIRC, meaning whatever library chosen would have to support many of those languages to be worthwhile to the userbase as a whole. It would be greedy of you to make a feature request that only the English speaking community can reap the benefits of. And while its likely that there exists such a library that supports many of those languages-- the library would then have to start being packaged with mirc, including all of the language packs, significantly increasing the download and install size-- for what? to know when you mistyped 'thier' in an IRC chatroom full of people typing things like "u r here 2 lol!"? Doesn't sound all that worthwhile to me. How many people even type full proper sentences on IRC to begin with? How can any library keep up with the multitude of IRC acronyms that exist, in every language and flavour.. what will it do about blatant punctuation? Really-- IRC is NOT a medium for proper spelling.

I urge everyone to do a little experiment of their own:

Look at (some of) the active IRC channels you log onto regularly. Count how many times you see a non-English (if you speak another language, replace English with your language) word in a line of text. Include all nickname references, abbreviations, acronyms, (most) URLs, and spelling mistakes both intentional and unintentional in your stats. Sum up the total number of invalid "words" and divide by the number of lines you counted. This won't work for all channels, but it will probably illustrate how much of IRC isn't even <insert-your-language-here>. May make you think twice about what purpose spell checking would really serve

aspell is LGPL not GPL, so that doesn't apply, and it could be used with mIRC as well for that reason (in the form of a DLL).

I have spellchecker in almost every application.

Mozilla Thunderbird and Mozilla Firefox:
have a very good way to deal with spell checking. Inside a right click menu you can chose the language for each window or mail. Thought the right click menu you can also enable and disable this status. If you download the English version of Thunderbird/Firefox then you get the English dictionary by default, with German vice versa. However, you can download any distribution and still download and install new dictionary's easy thought addons.

Pidgin (before known as Gaim):
a popular multi protocol instant messenger can also support spell checking if you install aspell.

So far about the Open Source (GPL) programs.

Opera:
a well known browser also supports spell checking, you just need to download aspell yourself. Opera is Closed Source and proprietary and it`s still no problem to download aspell yourself, them prepared everything you need.

Every of this application works very well. When you write a wrong word then it is underlined red, you click right on it and choose the correct word.

And... It does not lag and it`s not slow. So that "that would hang mirc" is really really really out of the window.

So far about the technical possibility's.

Is there some third party script out which implements spell checking? I would really need that for mirc.

A spell check script should be customly done by the individual.

In other words, there really shouldn't be a public 1 for all to use, as it wouldn't satisfy everyone's needs.

Just make your own on input event.

I made my own "grammar" script. As well as short cut.

Examples: u = you, ur = your, dunno = don't know, gimme = give me.

And add stuff like contractions.

wouldnt = wouldn't

And make contractions expand.

wouldn't = would not.

And responds to case sensitivity.

This is to make me type faster.

In other words: i r an idiot comes out to I am an idiot.

But I still think an on input event is all you need.

My 3 cents.

-Neal.

Do you know the spell checker integrated inside firefox 2.x? I am currently using it, you see I write most words in English right but it does not have grammar fixing at all.

Here is some example screenshot for you.
http://www.yugatech.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/spell-check.gif

Please try firefox and test this thing yourself.

This spell checker is very good and technically it should be possible to use it for the line in mirc where you enter your text. Just need red underlining for wrong words and a right click menu.

No software fits the needs of everyone at all. But it this the reason not to publish any software and to say program it yourself?

I think integrating a red-line spellchecker to the edit box would be a bit difficult (the line, not the spellchecker). And depending on a person's color choice for the edit box, it may not even be visible. Also keep in mind that mIRC's used by people all around the world and including dictionaries for multiple languages would be pointless, while just including an English one would be a bad idea as well.

I have to say that I think spellchecking would be best done as a script than as a built-in option in mIRC. With only a one-line edit box (most people don't use multi-line) and considering that chatting isn't meant to be perfect grammar and spelling, I really don't see any reason why it should be added.

Of course, if people could spell, there'd be no need for a spell checker.

You can just use the same system like opera/firefox do. Aspell...

With firefox you can easy download a dictionary for your own language as a addon.

I think a spell checker can not be done by a script because scripts are to slow. It need to be hardcoded. Also no good idea to reinvert the wheel because there exist already toolkits which work proven very well.

I've once written my own just too see if it was possible.

http://img235.imageshack.us/my.php?image=spellsa2.jpg

Coloring is done with rtf codes (multibyte editbox) and spell checking library is http://hunspell.sourceforge.net/ .

Very well put. I add my support too. I can't think of a single good* reason against implementing this if there is an option to turn it off.

It wouldn't slow things down & just saying that people should learn to type is like saying that people shouldn't wear seat belts because they shouldn't crash. You could even argue it should be there for an accessibility standpoint - how about helping dyslexic people for example?

fwiw I'm considering switching to pidgin because I've found the spell check so useful.


* This dosen't include any of the (anti) reasons I've read in existing threads.

Nice stuff, share it?