Joan - Try This Spell Check Add-On

[tex]

Joan asked about this, but of course, it's certainly available for anyone else who might be interested in a spellchecker for posts. I may use it myself, since I like the way that it suggests words to replace the ones that are misspelled.

This is the only spellcheck addition that appears to be practical for a discussion board such as this. There's another one available, but it requires viewing ads, (unless a monthly user fee is paid). I'm trying to keep this site as ad-free as possible, but I don't care to pay to keep ads out - that's sort of like paying ransom.

Anyway, try this spellchecker, and see what you think. After you write a post, just click on the "SpellCheck" button, and a pop-up window will show you any misspelled words that it finds, one at a time. Note that it takes the system several seconds to perform the check, because it has to compare every word with a couple hundred thousand words in the dictionary. Each misspelled word will be highlighted in red, (one at a time), and it will offer suggestions to replace the particular word that is highlighted. You can select any one of the suggested words that looks correct, and if you click on the "Correct" box within the "table of commands" in the pop-up window, it will replace the word with your selection, and go on to the next word. If it does not suggest a replacement word that appears to be correct, just click "Ignore", and it will go on to the next word. After you finish, you can decide what you want to do with the words that it couldn't correct.

Incidentally, for words that you want/need to look up, there's a lookup service available toward the bottom of each page on this board. If you enter the word or phrase that you want information on, and click on the "Look it up!" button, it will offer a bunch of links to places on the internet that define that word, or phrase.

The "SpellCheck" button is also available when you edit a post, but it's not available with the "Quick Reply" message window, (since that would kind of defeat the purpose of a "quick reply" option. However, you can still use the SpellCheck service to respond to existing posts, simply by clicking on the "postreply" button which is located above and below the thread, (to the right of the "newtopic" button, in order to respond by using the standard reply message window.

Note that we can "educate" the spellchecker by adding new words to the dictionary. IOW, if it finds a word that it thinks is misspelled, (because it's not in the dictionary), but you're absolutely certain that the spelling is correct, you can click on the "Learn" button, and it will add that word to the dictionary, and never designate it as misspelled again, in the future. Please don't add a word that way, though, unless you are very sure that the spelling is correct. LOL.

It seems to work quite well, and it should serve our purposes. If anyone has any questions or problems, please don't hesitate to ask.

Tex

[tex]

Okay, I changed the code so that it now works with the "Quick Reply" message box also. I don't think that doing this will significantly slow down the operation of the "Quick Reply", unless you choose to actually use the "SpellCheck" feature, of course. As long as you don't check the spelling, it should perform just as fast as before, for all practical purposes.

Tex

[barbaranoela]

great idea Galahad--specially for me---

Columbo

[tex]

But Mrs. Columbo,

What would we do without your typos - they're priceless.

Luve,
Galahad

[barbaranoela]

ratz~~~~~~ and I just corrected a bunch of them----


Mrs. C

[annie oakley]

The spell check is a good Idea Tex*****But I remember someone telling me that all of us just read between the typo's
Love Oma

[JJ]

Thanks Tex! JJ

[sunny]

This is such a great addition for us!! thanks.....again!!