How to use spellcheck

[Paul1149]

I just want to make sure I'm not missing something. The way I see it, CHS's spellchecker is used by copying a selection to clipboard, then running spellcheck on it within the CHS window. There is no way to use CHS to spellcheck text while it's within the target application, specifycally on the fly there.

I ask because I'm considering the need for a system spellchecker.

Thanks.

[mouser]

Hey Paul.
You are basically right -- although there was a feature added to CHS to let it check some external windows edit boxes directly.
It's in the Hotkey options under "Spell Windows Object".
Set a hotkey and trigger the hotkey when you are in the other program's text edit box, and see what happens.
Let me know if you can get it to do anything in different programs -- some may work and others not -- it's not a feature i've used in many years.

[Paul1149]

Hi mouser,

I don't see either Hotkey options or Spell Windows Object. I'm on v2.29.0.

Thanks

[mouser]

Hotkeys is the second tab of options.

[Paul1149]

Ah, sorry I missed that! I was looking for something more than one line.

I got ctrl-alt-s to work in metapad, my text editor. At first it didn't work, then I first Selected the text and it worked, and thereafter I didn't even have to Select the text first and it worked.

I couldn't get it to work in Slimjet (Chromium) or IE10, even with selecting the text. I'm on Win7 x32. It says Spellcheck Completed, but does nothing.

What started me on this quest was a program I use a lot that doesn't have spell check. I got TinySpell Free and it works quite well (except the popup is way out of place in Slimjet). I began to see the benefits of having a system-wide spell check - it would hit every program, and there would be only one dictionary to maintain. TinySpell has a nice feature where you can set it to either generally off or generally on for applications, and then make exceptions. It also does live spellcheck, which is great, but it doesn't correspond with MS Office dictionaries as CHS does (very nice).

And so I'm considering getting the Pro version of TinySpell, but would rather use what I already have first if possible.

[mouser]

makes sense.
the only thing i would advise is that for a text editor, if the one you use doesn't have a good live spell feature, ween yourself off it and move to a different text editor.  for other apps something like tinyspell might be worth getting.

[Shades]

Aspell is what I use and that is a system wide spell checker. It's open source and very, very light on resources. Dictionaries for a lot of languages are already available.

[Paul1149]

Thanks, but aspell doesn't seem to be very good for windows. No interface that I could see, and didn't work on the text file I dropped on it.

[Shades]

I should have been clearer. After installing Aspell, my browsers (FF & Iron) and text editor (notepad++, SQL Developer, SQLTools, TOAD) suddenly support spell-checking. Notepad++ comes with a spell-checker, but when it sees that Aspell is there, it asks you if you want to use that one instead. From my own experience I can tell you that Aspell functions like this on XP Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 2012.

Because of how Aspell functions it hasn't got its own interface, instead your standard text editor should now be able to do the spell-checking you need (if it couldn't do this before).

I took a look at the Metapad FAQ page and question 30 covers the use of Aspell with Metapad.

[Paul1149]

Thanks, Shades. I appreciate that info. Metapad would be nice, but what I really needed spellcheck for was theWord, a Bible program. And I don't think there's any way to integrate it with aspell. I also don't see how to integrate Aspell with the Slimjet (Chromium) browser. SJ already has spell checking built in, and it's in real time, but I'm beginning to appreciate having one spell check for everything, so I probably will transfer the chore over to TinySpell, which will hit all progs and function within them in real time. When I tried a file drag and drop onto the Aspell icon, only an empty file was produced. Nothing was accomplished, and at that point I gave up on it.

BW,
Paul