Squiggly Spell Check
OK, why? A simple question that almost never gets answered right. Well, ask yourself this, have you ever
switched platforms, or programs, only to find the one feature you rely on so much, to be the one seems to
prevent you from staying on task?
Well, that's exactly what happened to me, I recently (reluctantly) started spending some time with Windows 7
and found to my surprise, a system that seem stable and hey... even fun to use! (OK, I know I know blasphemy
by some peoples count, even in my own circles. But hey, gotta give credit when it's due!)
But then... my trouble started, coming from a platform where every text entry has built in visual spell
checking, I discovered just how much I really relied on the feature (and perhaps, the reason I flunked spelling
so bad :-)
So, my search began (after all, a good software developer is a pure form of lazy and should first see if somebody else
has done it right?). Hi and low, I looked for the feature, in just a simple text editor (and free of
course). Well, that didn't work. Some may say at this point, why not write it yourself? I refer back to the pure
form of laziness as my excuse to simply try living without the feature.
Skip ahead, two months later, that obviously failed, because I went off and wrote one... didn't I?
Implemented features
- Language sensitive custom words files
- Configurable location for custom dictionaries
- Ignore word per buffer / for session
- Turn on / off auto check per buffer / session
- Auto check document based on file extension.
- Customizable file extension list
- Ignore words in all capital letters
- Configurable number of suggestions on context menu
- Use any language that aspell supports using a simple install
- Visualize spelling issues with red squiggly underlines
- Check document with dialog box
Installation
- Download the SquigglySpellCheck.dll from the source forge page (link in the nav bar above or here)
- Put the dll in the notepad++ %installation%/plugins directory
- Install aspell's win32 version (http://aspell.net/win32/)
- Insall at least one of the aspell language packs
- Start notpad++
Possible new features
- Auto replace known words?
- Filters (i.e. sgml, cpp, etc)
- Ignore URL's option
- Speed issues; using threads and word cache's to speed up the user experience
- An install package, for non-technical users
Dependencies
- No current install is available, you must add the files by hand
- Aspell - win32 must be installed AND the dll location must be listed in the system PATH variable.
- Although statically compiled, the binary release is compiled with the open source QT 4.7 library
- Binary's are available ONLY for the Unicode version of notepad++.
Some disclaimers.
- I choose notepad++ since it's open-source, and seems to have a large following. These two features will of course help weed out any real issues long term.
- I wrote this for my own gratification, that means I used the tool kit I know (QT) and this may add undesired dependencies for the purists in the group.
- This is alpha software, there is at least one known design flaw, and some features may not work in the way you think they should, but rather in the way I thought they should... please don't be upset or complain that it's wrong
- Last point noted, I welcome constructive criticism, I make mistakes, and am grateful for any and all appropriate feedback.
Thanks for trying... have fun!