e-Book Tools - a Word add-in

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@Toxaris - How do I set the Hunspell dictionary - I was hoping I could 'use' the dictionaries I have in Sigil - that's the real dictionaries (dic and aff).

When I replace a word from the suggested list, I am then asked to confirm the replacement, can there be an option to suppress that.

I don't understand this:

Attachment 146973

The various spellcheck windows/dialogue-boxes appear at top right corner of monitor. If the taskbar is positioned vertically on right edge, as mine is, the windows/dialogue-boxes are under the taskbar, to use them they have to be dragged out. Given the last used positions are not saved I suggest it would be better to centre them.

More too come.

BR

Adding words to the dictionary can only done by right-clicking on the word. The + sign is for creating a new custom dictionary (as indicated in the manual...). However, I do see that this might not be to intuitive.

You can use the same dictionaries that you use for Sigil. At the moment however they need to be in %appdata%\Toxaris\Lang. That is also mentioned in the manual. As the list of languages is automatically determined, I am not sure I will change that shortly.

It should remember the last position it held, just like all the other screens I use. I will look into it.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Verified

Could keyboard shortcuts/accelerators be added to the Spellchecker buttons and checkboxes, and could the word list context menu be made to work with the Menu key

Shortcuts can be difficult, since the screen is not forced to keep focus. I will see what I can do about that. The same goes for the menu key. I never use it, so I need to see if that can be done. I guess it is possible.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I have had a couple of instances where the 'building word list' process is either very, very slow or its 'wedged'. Then when I exit the spell checker I get the Word message about having a large amount of data in the clipboard, with options to save, discard etc. Its not document related because I can exit Word and open same document and its OK.

It can be slow, but usually it is rather fast. It depends on the source of course. Getting the words is fast, checking if they are correctly spelled not so much. The Hunspell is much faster than the Word engine. The message about the clipboard is correct. The fastest way to retrieve all words is to actually copy all text to the clipboard and then split it into words. I can use a loop that asks Word for each word one by one, but then it will take about half an hour to get all words. This is the fastest way. I can clear the clipboard of course.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Sometimes, not sure how or why, when I exit the spellchecker the entire text is selected - as if I'd done a ctrl+a. If one doesn't hit escape immediately one could easily overtype or delete the text with the press of a single key.

See above for the reason. As soon as you click on a word in the list, the selection should become the first occurence in the selected word. I will make sure the text is unselected first.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

The spellchecker window is minimisable, is that wise? I am not suggesting it should be modal, as that would preclude one from editing the body of the text manually. But if it's minimisable it could get 'lost' amongst taskbar 'clutter', FWIW the Office, Sigil and Calibre spellcheckers are not minimisable.

Wise or not, it is the responsibility of the user I guess.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Adding words to the dictionary can only done by right-clicking on the word. The + sign is for creating a new custom dictionary (as indicated in the manual...). However, I do see that this might not be to intuitive.

I do recall you saying that you would have a feature to add new custom dictionaries from the spellchecker - at the time I thought 'that's a bit extravagant'

Could the Add word to (custom) dictionary context menu option offer the list of configured custom dictionaries

Originally Posted by Toxaris

You can use the same dictionaries that you use for Sigil. At the moment however they need to be in %appdata%\Toxaris\Lang. That is also mentioned in the manual. As the list of languages is automatically determined, I am not sure I will change that shortly.

Hmmm - I'll put symlinks in %Appdata%\Toxaris\Lang referencing %ProgramFiles%\Sigil\hunspell_dictionaries items - they'll break when I install a new version of Sigil but I have a symlink repair tool.

Originally Posted by Toxaris

It should remember the last position it held, just like all the other screens I use. I will look into it.

No biggie - I have other programs that do the same

BR

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Shortcuts can be difficult, since the screen is not forced to keep focus. I will see what I can do about that. The same goes for the menu key. I never use it, so I need to see if that can be done. I guess it is possible.

For me at least, something like you have in S&R would be more than OK for primary operations such as (F)ind next, (R)eplace, (I)gnore, (A)dd to dictionary etc - they don't have to be Alt+key accelerators - I quite like your one finger quick-keys But wherever possible use context menus via the Menu key.

Originally Posted by Toxaris

It can be slow, but usually it is rather fast. It depends on the source of course. Getting the words is fast, checking if they are correctly spelled not so much. The Hunspell is much faster than the Word engine. The message about the clipboard is correct. The fastest way to retrieve all words is to actually copy all text to the clipboard and then split it into words. I can use a loop that asks Word for each word one by one, but then it will take about half an hour to get all words. This is the fastest way. I can clear the clipboard of course.

All my testing so far has been on the one document of ~21.5K words, with a dozen or so 'spelling mistakes'. Building the word list is mostly quick, sub 2 seconds (with Word's AU, or Sigils GB dicts). But on a couple of occasions it just sits there with the progress widget displayed, no i/o or cpu usage, its not a 'Not Responding' condition, I can terminate the spell checker normally. However once it happens I have to exit Word, otherwise it just keeps happening. When I restart Word and open the same document the word list builds in the blink of an eye.

Originally Posted by Toxaris

See above for the reason. As soon as you click on a word in the list, the selection should become the first occurence in the selected word. I will make sure the text is unselected first.

Yes that part is fine, one word is selected when one is using the spell checker. But on some occasions when I exit the spell checker I have had the entire document selected - it's disconcerting, if the selection isn't dismissed one could hit the Del key and end up with an Empty document. I'm not sure if this is related to the 'wedge' condition - I think it could be.

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Wise or not, it is the responsibility of the user I guess.

IMO that statement is inconsistent with having epub-tools ask the user to verify they really want to correct a spelling mistake on which they just clicked Replace - that seems a tad nanny-statist. You can add Dspell to the list of spell checkers that don't offer a minimise button on the equivalent dialogue.

BR

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I do recall you saying that you would have a feature to add new custom dictionaries from the spellchecker - at the time I thought 'that's a bit extravagant'

Could the Add word to (custom) dictionary context menu option offer the list of configured custom dictionaries

The creation of new custom dictionaries should now be done in the settings, where it should... The word will be added to the current selected custom dictionary. At the moment (at least) there will not be an option to choose the custom dictionary directly with the add action.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

For me at least, something like you have in S&R would be more than OK for primary operations such as (F)ind next, (R)eplace, (I)gnore, (A)dd to dictionary etc - they don't have to be Alt+key accelerators - I quite like your one finger quick-keys But wherever possible use context menus via the Menu key.

Done. The context menu was actually the most difficult one...

Originally Posted by BetterRed

All my testing so far has been on the one document of ~21.5K words, with a dozen or so 'spelling mistakes'. Building the word list is mostly quick, sub 2 seconds (with Word's AU, or Sigils GB dicts). But on a couple of occasions it just sits there with the progress widget displayed, no i/o or cpu usage, its not a 'Not Responding' condition, I can terminate the spell checker normally. However once it happens I have to exit Word, otherwise it just keeps happening. When I restart Word and open the same document the word list builds in the blink of an eye.

I cannot explain that as of yet and I have never experienced this. I have added some more logging points so that if it happens again it should give me a clue where to look.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Yes that part is fine, one word is selected when one is using the spell checker. But on some occasions when I exit the spell checker I have had the entire document selected - it's disconcerting, if the selection isn't dismissed one could hit the Del key and end up with an Empty document. I'm not sure if this is related to the 'wedge' condition - I think it could be.

No problem, the selection is now collapsed after it is used so this should not occur anymore.

I checked and for me the screen position of the spelling form is retained as designed. The actual points are stored in the configuration file (CS1x and CS1y).

[BetterRed]

to make this spell checker best of breed, provide a button to add a word to the Exclusions list - that would be handy because Word always regards excluded 'words' as an error when it's typed - ie it'll red underline it.

I am going to hold off on trying to discern a pattern on the 'funny' behaviour until you publish a new version.

Thanks for your efforts in making your tool box 'user friendly' towards the keyboard-centric fraternity, I for one really do appreciate it.

BR

[Toxaris]

I will add an option to put a word on the Exclusion list, but it will be in the context menu only and if the checkbox for all words is selected. I don't think it 'deserves' a specific button on the main form as it will be rarely used for the vast majority of the users.

I have implemented you 'mark' procedure, including editor. You can also enter the name of the marker you want to use and select a color if you use colorcoding.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

I will add an option to put a word on the Exclusion list, but it will be in the context menu only and if the checkbox for all words is selected. I don't think it 'deserves' a specific button on the main form as it will be rarely used for the vast majority of the users.

Eminently sensible - most folks don't know about Word's exclusion lists.

Originally Posted by Toxaris

I have implemented you 'mark' procedure, including editor. You can also enter the name of the marker you want to use and select a color if you use colorcoding.

Sounds great

I think I've said this before. Your add-in deserves a wider audience, the name suggests it's specifically about creating epubs, and that was certainly the impression I had before I installed it. As I recall it was a post about dialogue checking that caught my eye and made me look beyond the name.

BR

[BetterRed]

@Toxaris - spell checker appears to include all custom dictionaries - rather than only those checked off in Options->Proofing.



Can you confirm that, and can it be 'fixed'.

BR

[Toxaris]

No, with the Hunspell engine only the one selected will be used. You can select another of course, but only one can be used.
Now, for the Word spelling engine it is a little different. In the Word options you can select more than one custom dictionary to be active at the same time. Those will be active, combined with the one selected in form.

[BetterRed]

In the screen shot I posted you'll see I am using the Word Engine.

I intend retaining Word's dictionary (engine) as my primary spell checker source, the hunspell dictionaries will remain as a secondary option. So I'm currently focusing my attention on the Word Engine option.

In Word Options->Proofing>Custom dictionaries my Finance, Economics and Law custom dictionaries are unchecked, so I was surprised to see them in the Custom dictionary drop down. Are they being be used in the checking process - it doesn't appear so (nor should they be), can you confirm that?

If/when you provide an 'Add word to dictionary' I definitely don't want the ability to add a word to an 'unchecked' dictionary - e.g. to my Finance dictionary when I'm spell checking Swift's 'A Modest Proposal'

BR

[Toxaris]

All custom dictionaries are identified and placed in the dropdown. However, only the one actually selected should be used. Now, if there are multiple custom dictionaries in the Word settings are selected, I *think* they will be used as well. It depends on how the function is programmed. I will look into a possibilities to find all the selected custom dictionaries, unselect them and at exit of the spelling procedure restore old setting.

If you choose 'add to dictionary', it will add to the selected custom dictionary in the dropbox, so the one you see.

[BetterRed]

As far as I can tell from observation (using the Word Engine), only the selected (active) dictionaries in Word->Options->Proofing->Custom Dictionaries are being used in the actual spell checking process, which is consistent with Word's built in spell checker. Are you able to confirm this from a developers perspective?

However, in a nutshell my main concern is this:

In your implementation of the "Add Word to dictionary" feature, I would only want to see dictionaries listed that I have activated in Word->Options->Proofing->Custom Dictionaries.

IMO the best-of-breed implementation of this particular function, from a UI perspective, is the spellchecker in the calibre editor - in that it only offers 'active' custom dictionaries in it's "Add Word to dictionary" option :



Which custom dictionaries are 'active' is defined in the Calibre Editor's Preferences, much like they are in Words Options->Proofing

BR

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

As far as I can tell from observation (using the Word Engine), only the selected (active) dictionaries in Word->Options->Proofing->Custom Dictionaries are being used in the actual spell checking process, which is consistent with Word's built in spell checker. Are you able to confirm this from a developers perspective?

However, in a nutshell my main concern is this:

In your implementation of the "Add Word to dictionary" feature, I would only want to see dictionaries listed that I have activated in Word->Options->Proofing->Custom Dictionaries.

IMO the best-of-breed implementation of this particular function, from a UI perspective, is the spellchecker in the calibre editor - in that it only offers 'active' custom dictionaries in it's "Add Word to dictionary" option :

Attachment 147054

Which custom dictionaries are 'active' is defined in the Calibre Editor's Preferences, much like they are in Words Options->Proofing

BR

No, the selected custom dictionary is used, both for Word and Hunspell. They do not have to be added to Word itself. In fact, I programmed it like that on purpose. I don't want to force user dictionaries to be added to Word if you only want to use them for Hunspell for example. If you want, you can add them to Word easily via the button in the settings.

The 'Add to Dictionary' will add the word only to the selected user dictionary in the dropdown box. As this is also the used user dictionary, this avoids confusion and makes the most sense as this is the custom dictionary actually used.

I do not know what the checkbox does in the Word settings for custom dictionaries, although I can guess of course. As far as I know I cannot influence that with programming nor check if a custom dictionary is checked there. There is no property to check that. I have looked into the documentation, but so far found nothing. When I retrieve the list of active custom dictionaries from Word, I get them all, checked and unchecked.
Even worse, if you add words to a custom dictionary in Word, you need to restart Word before it gets active for Word itself. Since my spelling procedure works differently, that is no need for a restart.