DONE: Text editor with good spell checker

[Midnight Rambler]

I've been using Polysoft's Crypt Edit 4.1 but the program's not been updated since Y2K.

Haven't found anything approaching this.

[mouser]

We wrote a big review of text editors a while ago, but the program we recommended (Ultra Edit) doesn't have INLINE spellchecking.

Allen swears by EditPad Pro which does have inline spelling - might be worth the price of the program alone:
http://www.editpadpro.com/

[allen]

Inline (and on demand as well) spell checking -- syntax aware spell checking, if you do a lot of coding (spell checks text blocks, ignoring code bits) and a really flexible/configurable editor.

It has a lot of features.  Another feature I feel is worth mentioning is its find/replace interface -- it's a resizable pane with multiple lines for find/replace text for better readability on bigger, more complex querries.  The find/replace dialog even has syntax highlighting for regular expressions.

It's sad. The application has been making me giddy for the better part of a decade.  Still under active development, the latest version is a real zinger -- while other editors seem to each have great features that differentiate them from the competition, EditPadPro seems to have them all.

Mouser--did I mention that the new version fully supports standard I/O calls to external applications/scripts? Seems that was a feature that was missing previously that you needed.

[housetier]

I can't let this go past without mentioning vim I am a vim fanboi after all. The new version vim7 has (inline) spell checking support now as well!

Vim 7 is ready! After years of development this feature packed editor
is waiting for you.

Since Vim 6.4 many new features have been added. To mention a few:

- Spell checking support for about 50 languages
- Intelligent completion for C, HTML, Ruby, Python, PHP, etc.
- Tab pages, each containing multiple windows
- Undo branches: never accidentally lose text again
- Vim script supports Lists and Dictionaries (similar to Python)
- Vim script profiling
- Improved Unicode support
- Highlighting of cursor line, cursor column and matching braces
- Translated manual pages support.
- Internal grep; works on all platforms, searches compressed files
- Browsing remote directories, zip and tar archives
- Printing multi-byte text

Just to let you know 

However, you still should use what you are most comfortable with. And if your current editor is satisfying, don't change! I wouldn't switch to something else either.

Choice is Good!

[sri]

PSPad. It has auto correction and spell checker. Free.

Here's a review: http://www.bestfreeapps.com/pspad.html.

[jgpaiva]

I can't let this go past without mentioning vim I am a vim fanboi after all. The new version vim7 has (inline) spell checking support now as well!

I hereby cast my vote for vim too.
Although i never do anything very fancy regarding text editing (i mean making documents or such, i produce mostly code and .txt help files or notes), i've been using vim for about 2 months now and i feel very confortable using it.
It isn't the "average" text editor because of it's user interaction based in "modes". But sure can be way faster to use, with much less effort. On the other hand, to use it's most advanced features, you have some studying to do  
(also, some of the keyboard shortcuts, although customizeable, are made for english-layout keyboards and don't go very well with my portuguese layout )

I definitelly think that it's a good piece of software!

[housetier]

some of the keyboard shortcuts, although customizeable, are made for english-layout keyboards and don't go very well with my portuguese layout

I wonder if there are "layout translations" as well as there are "language translations". I am thinking of localized keyboard shortcuts; so basically the finger movements are the same, so the keys are different. This would be very convenient for us Germans too... I shall try to find out.

[jgpaiva]

I wonder if there are "layout translations" as well as there are "language translations". I am thinking of localized keyboard shortcuts; so basically the finger movements are the same, so the keys are different. This would be very convenient for us Germans too... I shall try to find out.

Well.. I already changed some of the most important ones, but if you find anything about it, please report back!! 

[app103]

If you get a copy of As-U-Type, then everything has spellcheck. 

And it corrects as you type it.

[rjbull]

I wonder if there are "layout translations" as well as there are "language translations". I am thinking of localized keyboard shortcuts; so basically the finger movements are the same, so the keys are different. This would be very convenient for us Germans too... I shall try to find out.

How about remapping the keyboard with one of the hotkey utilities?  E.g. PC Magazine's TradeKeys (you need to be a subscriber, but it's cheap) ;

TradeKeys, Version 2.0
Copyright (c) 2002 Ziff Davis Media, Inc.
Written by Gregory A. Wolking
First Published in PC Magazine, US Edition, January 14, 2003, v22n01
http://www.pcmag.com/utilities/
________________________________________________________________

PLATFORMS:
Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP

DESCRIPTION:
Sometimes the keys on your keyboard just aren't in the right place. Many of us who are familiar with the original 84-key IBM PC keyboard layout have it ingrained in our muscle memory that the Ctrl key is right next to the A key. This drives us nuts on most newer 102-key keyboard, on which the positions of the Caps Lock and Ctrl keys are reversed. We find ourselves toggling CapsLock on and off instead of typing a Ctrl+Key combination. Perhaps you'd like to have your keyboard laid out more like a typewriter, with CapsLock at the bottom, Shift above, and Ctrl above that. You might even want to disable that pesky left Windows key, because you keep hitting it by mistake when you want the left Alt key.

TradeKeys 2 makes all that possible; you can remap your keyboard almost any way you want. Under Windows 95, 98, and Me, you can change, swap, or disable any of the standard keys (those that existed on the original 84-key keyboard layout). Under Windows 2000 and XP, you can also remap extended keys such as the Right Ctrl and Right Alt keys, the Windows Logo key, and the navigation cluster. You can save your mappings to a file for later reloading. This lets different users on a system switch quickly between different mappings. TradeKeys 2 is an update of our earlier keyboard mapping utility, ZDKeyMap.

[Perry Mowbray]

PSPad. It has auto correction and spell checker. Free.

Here's a review: http://www.bestfreeapps.com/pspad.html.

I'm a PSPad user and coldn't live withot the spel checkiing!

- Perry

[brett]

Similar to Apps suggestion....

You could use Tinyspell.
http://www.tinyspell.m6.net/
I have used it every day for years now to check my spelling in the Accounting package MYOB, but works with all windows programs.

vers 1.4 has two versions available

Features:   
tinySpell (totally free - no adware/spyware/nagware/etc.)
    Checks spelling in any Windows application
    Uses little system resources
    Checks spelling on-the-fly (alerts if the last typed word was misspelled)
    Checks spelling of a word that is copied to the clipboard
    Optionally beeps on error (now with hot-key control - new in v1.4)
    The beep sound can be easily set to any wav file (new in v1.4)
    Opens replacements list with a simple mouse click or a hot-key
    Optionally copies the selected replacement word to the clipboard
    Optionally inserts the selected replacement word into the document
    Allows you to add words to the dictionary
    Easy Enable/Disable

tinySpell+  in addition to the above features (new in v1.4)
    Remembers the last error (even if it is not the last typed word)
    Allows you to add auto-replacements to the dictionary
    Allows you to add a list of words to the dictionary
    Additional options:
    - Check Capitalization
    - Mixed CaSe is an error
    - Ignore UPPERCASE words
    - Ignore words with numbers
    - Ignore Internet & email addresses and file names
    - Ignore Windows password fields (NOT in web-forms!)
    Supports change of dictionary (unofficial): click here for details

And the + version works similar to donation coder.
Starts at $5 but you can pick your price above that if you want.

I have always used the freeware version, but 'Donation Coder' has altered my thinking.
Will buy the plus version tommorrow.

Thanks
dB
doublebogey

[Eóin]

This thread prompted me to go looking for a new general purpose editor, one which has a spellchecker would be especially useful for making webpages.

I tried the mentioned PSPad but when spellchecking was turned on the whole app slowed tremendously, scrolling through a file was particularly bad.

So I went searching for alternatives and I found

RJ TextEditor
CPad
Syn Text Editor

Personally I settled on CPad but all are worth checking out.

[AndyM]

Been using Boxer for years, couldn't live without it  The author is completely accessible, like the people around here.

http://www.boxersoftware.com/

[Eóin]

That does seem nice alright, but $60 is a bit expensive for an editor.

[urlwolf]

another vote for vim.

[AndyM]

That does seem nice alright, but $60 is a bit expensive for an editor.

It's shareware, so you get to try it out to decide if it's worth $60.  Over the last 14 years, including discounted upgrade charges, it's probably worked out to 2-3 cents/hour for me.

[app103]

Similar to Apps suggestion....

You could use Tinyspell.
http://www.tinyspell.m6.net/
I have used it every day for years now to check my spelling in the Accounting package MYOB, but works with all windows programs.

Way back when we were making jokes about everyone speaking fantastic Typonese in my chatroom, we went in search for the solution that would provide spell checking in our chat clients.

One of the programs we tried was TinySpell, which we all ditched in less than 20 minutes. It was just annoying. It would beep and you'd be typing so fast you were at the end of the line before you could react to it and try to figure out what it was that you misspelled.

At least with As-U-Type, you could set it to auto-correct and it was also good for setting up text shortcuts to make things even faster, which came in handy with us for those stupidly long strings of text to perform admin duties in the channel. It even makes sure you capitalized the first word in every sentence.

You really wouldn't believe how great this is till you try it. Download the demo...you'll love it.

There is a way to save the additions you make to the dictionary in the demo, but it will cause you to have to save it before closing it each & every time, and loading it when you start it next time.

On the main program window there are 2 buttons, one for spelling dictionaries and one for correction databases. Go to each one and click export and save it as either spelling.txt or corrections.txt before closing the program. Then the next time you run it, do the same thing but click import and select the correct file that you saved before.

What is great about this is that you build a universal dictionary that goes with you from application to application and this works in EVERYTHING you can type in...from e-mail to messenger clients to forums to Windows Notepad. The more you use it, the more accurate it becomes.

Now the bad things about it...

It's only for Windows...and only for English. (sorry)

[allen]

I've installed tinyspell because of this thread -- and I guess nearly a week later, I love it.  The keyboard shortcuts are great and thus far it's proven more help than hurt.  You should hear it beep when I'm drunk, though . . .

[elpresi]

Crypt Edit seems more of a wordpad replacement.
QJOT is similar and can spell check with TinySpell:
http://www.xtort.net/xtort/qjot.php
I believe that Crypt Edit is now PolyEdit:
http://www.polyedit.com/overview.shtml