Forums Feature Suggestions Spellchecker?

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?