Nifty Spell

[gareth@vcn.bc.ca (Gareth Jones)]

Nifty Spell 1.0
 
Gareth Jones
 
13 October 1998
 
Opinions differ on spelling checkers. Some people use them religiously;
some, never. Most people agree that it is very frustrating to want to
check your spelling when you have just created a document in a program
with no spelling checker. Programmer Chris Vavruska and publisher Joe Kohn
have heard our cries and have released Nifty Spell, a "universal" spell
checker for the IIgs.
 
It achieves part of its "universality" by being a Desk Accessory,
available from the Apple menu in any standard GS program. The rest comes
from its ability to check text in four forms:
 
1. A TextEdit window, such as the frontmost document in Teach or Hermes,
the Editor window in Spectrum,  or the first field on a HyperStudio card.
It is as easy to use in these programs as a built-in spelling checker
would be. Bring it up from the Apple Menu and click on the "Check Window"
button. Alternatively, select a word that you are unsure about and click
the "Check Word" button. It couldn't be easier if it were built into the
program.
2. A single word typed into a Nifty Spell dialogue box.
3. The system Clipboard. For example, you can cut or copy text from an
AppleWorks GS document or a HyperCard IIgs field, spell-check it, and
paste back the corrected text.
4. And for those programs that use neither TextEdit nor the standard
Clipboard, the "Check File" button will check text files on disk. This is
useful to spell-check Medley or Mercury files, for example. Both word
processors can create text files, but neither uses a TextEdit window or
the standard Clipboard.
 
INSTALLATION
 
As a Desk Accessory, Nifty Spell goes into the Desk.Accs folder of your
System folder. The dictionaries (there are three) can go anywhere, but the
manual suggests that you create a Dictionaries folder in your System
folder. Reboot after installation.
 
DICTIONARIES
 
It lets you choose a main and a user dictionary with buttons. There are
three dictionaries shipped with this DA. American, British, and Joe Kohn's
own User dictionary of Apple II terms. You can create and use your own
User Dictionary, or switch between many special-purpose ones. There is a
button in Nifty Spell to edit your User Dictionary, by the way, in case
you accidentally add a misspelling to the list.
 
XCMDs
 
Nifty Spell can be given orders by programs. The first example of this
ships with Nifty Spell: a Spectrum external command that adds a "Check
Spelling" command to the program and allows spelling commands to be
included in scripts. The Spectrum Internet Suite 1.1 and Crock o' Gold
will (an offline e-mail manager) will take advantage of this XCMD to let
users check their outgoing e-mail. 
 
Other programs which could benefit from spelling XCMDs would be the Finder
(imagine a Finder Extra to check the spelling of all selected text
files!), HyperStudio (to check the contents of any field, instead of just
the first), and HyperCard IIgs (to perform spell-checking through
scripts). I see no reason not to support Nifty Spell in your own programs,
written in GS/OS languages such as GSoft BASIC.
 
CONCLUSION
 
Nifty Spell is easily as good as the built-in spelling checkers of such
programs as AppleWorks GS or GraphicWriter III. The fact that it adds such
a useful feature to free text processors such as Hermes is amazing. I'm
likely to use this program a lot.
 
I am sure that Nifty Spell will become more useful over time. For one
thing, Spectrum is not likely to be the last program to have a Nifty Spell
XCMD written for it. And if Chris Vavruska decides to support Babelfish
translators in the "Check File" button, Nifty Spell would be a truly
"universal" utility.
 
This is good software for a very good price.
 
Nifty Spell
$20 U.S. (including shipping)

Joe Kohn
Shareware Solutions II
166 Alpine St., 
San Rafael, CA 94901-1008

http://www.crl.com/~joko