Navigating the spellcheck interface

[ElMiko]

In a recent thread, user BetterRead was flagged as an expert in keyboard navigation; hopefully, he (or another pro!) has some insights on how to navigate the spellcheck interface.

Specifically...

1. When I open the Spellcheck interface (either by the icon ribbon or ALT-Q) a new window pops up with a complete list and count of potentially misspelled words.
2. As I scroll down the list, if I identify a potential problem-word, I double-click it, which highlights the word in situ in the html editor, but doesn't actually switch windows (i.e., I'm still in the spellcheck window).
3. To actually edit the word, I have to click (single-click) in the Main Sigil window, but I need to do so in one of the small neutral areas (e.g. the top or bottom borders of the window) or else the selected word will be deselected.

Is there a way to do step #2 without double-clicking? I've tried "Enter", "Space", "TAB", "CTRL+G"... as well as verbal encouragement. All to no avail.

Likewise, is there a way to do step #3 without using the mouse? Again, "TAB" and "ALT+TAB" were where my instincts took me, but no luck.

[KevinH]

There is a keyboard shortcut to set focus on CodeView but it may not work from inside the SpellCheck dialog. But since most cases involve seeing the word in context in CV and seeing the suggested replacement in the Spellcheck dialog (or typing in your own) and hitting replace, you never have to move focus to CodeView at all.

[BetterRed]

You can't switch from the Spellcheck to Codeview (or Book browser, Preview etc) via the keyboard, IIRC Reports is the same. I get why, but not sure of the terminology; Codeview, Preview etc are 'embedded' in the main window (even though some are dockable), Spellcheck, Reports etc are non-modal child windows.

Originally Posted by KevinH

There is a keyboard shortcut to set focus on CodeView but it may not work from inside the SpellCheck dialog. But since most cases involve seeing the word in context in CV and seeing the suggested replacement in the Spellcheck dialog (or typing in your own) and hitting replace, you never have to move focus to CodeView at all.

That one can enter a replacement value is not immediately obvious.

I prefer the calibre spell checker. It has a couple features I find useful - Undo last correction, Save word list to CSV, and I can do most everything, including apply corrections from the word list context menu.



I use the CSV when I want to change the manuscript - DOCX, ODT, WPD.

BR

[KevinH]

Yes just type directly into the box under Change To. It is a combobox with pulldown. You can also save word lists to csv.

There is no frequent reason to click in the CV field from inside the SpellCheck dialog unless you need to merge adjacent words or make other adjustments that you just notice during spellcheck. And when that happens I click directly on that highlighted word in CV and do what I want and click back to SpellCheck and refresh.

But again, to each their own.

[ElMiko]

Thanks, gents.

Quick follow-up: how should one handle misspellings that aren't a misspelling in all cases? For example, "bam" is a common OCR error for "barn"... but 1/10 times it's actually intended, as in "And then 'bam!' went the gun." As per the user guide the "Change Selected Word to:" button applies to all instances of the word.

(My thinking is to make the changes via a one-by-one Search/Replace in the Code View, but I'm wondering if there's a "replace current" versus "replace all" toggle in the "SpellCheck" dialog that I missed.)

[KevinH]

There is not a toggle. Spellcheck by definition is finding a letter sequence that does not exist in the dictionary and replacing all occurrences of that incorrect letter sequence with an actual word. It is not meant to replace a recognized word with another recognized word. That is Search and Replace. If you want to do replacements one by one then either use search and replace or use the red squiggle misspelling underlines (to mark misspelled words that can be turned on and off in Sigil Preferences) and manually scan and fix them one by one.

Hope this helps.

[ElMiko]

Yup, that tracks! Thanks, KevinH