Re: Re: Dictionary

Anthony Hoffman wrote:
> Received from Tim Doty on 15/09/2007
>
>>; You can create customized dictionaries, but right below "American" in
>> the language drop down I see "British". (I went to the menu Edit/Check
>> Spelling...) Admittedly I'm using the linux version, not Amiga, but I
>> suspect it is included there as well.
>>
>
> Hi Tim,
>; As you mentioned, various language options were selectable, but when I
> tried spellchecking with them, it would flag every word as an error.
>
The dictionaries are missing, but the ability to generator your own
dictionary is built in as is the other language module functions such as
date/time, moon phases , and more.
> Turns out that only the American language dictionary is supplied as
> standard, so while you can select other languages, you can't spellcheck
> them.
>
That is correct. The application archive file sizes are big enough, and
the dictionaries don't change that often. Do non-American users find it
offensive or even just troublesome that their language is not included?
It might even be possible to add to the download code on our website to
archive up selected dictionaries.

> As Ernest mentioned, I located the British language dictionary from the
> downloads section of pagestream.org and it all appears to be working OK.
>
>
> Interestingly, you can assign a different language to different blocks
> of text within the same document. Would be very useful if you were
>; publishing a document which contained text in different languages.
>
Thanks for noticing! Obviously you will want to set your default
language in prefs to British so that you do not need to highlight and
change your text each time. Changing your prefs however will not change
your previous documents which will remain in the language you created
them in.. BTW, I am happy to produce Australian, Canadian and other
English variants for any user would would care to help with the differences.

Deron
>
> Thanks,
> Anthony.
>

--
Deron Kazmaier - support%40pagestream.org">supportpagestream.org
Grasshopper LLC Publishing - http://www.pagestream.org
PageStream DTP for Amiga, Linux, Macintosh, and Windows

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Received from PageStream Support on 16/09/2007

Hi Deron,
Thanks for your reply.

>> Turns out that only the American language dictionary is supplied as
>> standard, so while you can select other languages, you can't
>> spellcheck them.
>>
> That is correct. The application archive file sizes are big enough,
> and the dictionaries don't change that often. Do non-American users
> find it offensive or even just troublesome that their language is not
> included? It might even be possible to add to the download code on our
> website to archive up selected dictionaries.

I don't at all mind the fact that British English doesn't come as
standard. In fact most software (e.g. Final Writer, online dictionaries,
etc) tend to default to American English, so it was expected that PgS
was the same.

Perhaps a way to improve the current spellcheck system, is that if the
user attempts to spellcheck in whatever language, but there is no
dictionary file, the program can show an info requester saying that the
dictionary file for that language cannot be found, with a reference to
the PgS download page to obtain the dictionaries.

That's what confused me, it wasn't immediately obvious that you needed
extra bits and where to get them from.

>> Interestingly, you can assign a different language to different
>> blocks
>> of text within the same document. Would be very useful if you were
>;> publishing a document which contained text in different languages.
>>
> Thanks for noticing! Obviously you will want to set your default
> language in prefs to British so that you do not need to highlight and
> change your text each time. Changing your prefs however will not
> change your previous documents which will remain in the language you
> created them in.. BTW, I am happy to produce Australian, Canadian and
> other English variants for any user would would care to help with the
> differences.

We're the same as Australia in that British English is the standard,
though there are many Maori words we often use (NZ's 2nd language) and a
few silly specific things. Nothing that the user dictionary can't
quickly handle once you teach it, and probably not worth making a
separate language file for.

For plain old word processing, I often use Final Writer 97 and I admit
to have being spoilt by it's spellchecker.
I'm unsure of the algorithims SoftWood used, but it does a good job of
filtering out words which usually shouldn't be spellchecked.
For example, phrases containing numbers. If I'm spellchecking a
technical report, it's half full of things like "VR2 = 34.5mV" where PgS
will show VR2 and 34.5mV as an error.

Other things like acronyms (words all in capitals like "VSWR") are often
ignored by spellcheckers, or at least have the option to. Would be nice
if PgS could do the same.
Same applies for single characters. If you had the phrase:
"i.e. measure", it would flag both the i and e as errors.

While PgS's spellchecker does do a good job, I believe it would benefit
greatly from these small improvements.

The only other small annoyance, is that when you first do a spellcheck,
it appears that the entire dictionary is loaded into memory. The only
problem with that it is tends to take a very long time, approx 1-2
minutes on this 68060 box and PgS 4.1.5.6. Is that normal, or
something bad in my setup?

Thanks again for maintaining the best DTP software in existance and
for your outstanding support!

Regards,
Anthony.

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Greetings "PageStream Support&quot; < deron%40pagestream.org">deronpagestream.org>
On 16/09/2007 at 14:35 you wrote concerning
Re: [PageStreamSupport] Re: Dictionary

Hi Deron,

<<snip>>
PS> .... Do non-American users find it
PS> offensive or even just troublesome that their language is not included?

I did not find it offensive, but was delighted after finding out how other
dictionaries could be used. I use the British dictionary now because it is more
consistent with the spellings that are used in Canada. Now that all my paragraph
styles have been switched to British, I no longer see 'favour' and 'stye' etc.,
flagged as in error.

However, what I do find annoying is how the spell checker works. The guesses
that are made are amazingly poor. Word entered was 'margi' instead of 'margin'
and although 'margi' was caught, the Suggest list did not contain 'margin'. I
could give other examples but ....

Also it seems that if I highlight a paragraph and call for a spell check --
expecting that only the highlighted para will be checked -- the spell check
begins at the very beginning of the document. Maybe I'm doing something wrong,
but if not, then that behaviour is really obnoxious. I'm on page 20 and
highlight a para and the spell check begins at the start of page 1!!!

However, now that I've been critical, let me add positive notes. The spell
checker has been called out and you've checked page 1. After the last correction
on page 1, you want to skip to page 7 to continue. So move the cursor into page
7
at the proper place and select "Ignore", then the spell checking will continue
from the cursor location on page 7. Very nice, but 'Ignore' is not a very
intuitive choice in that setting. It would be better (I think) if there were a
'Start' button which when clicked would initiate spell checking from the cursor
location.

However, the real gem is being able to style even a single paragraph for another
language. That was really looking ahead Deron. Splendid!

PS> It might even be possible to add to the download code on our website to
PS> archive up selected dictionaries.

Do you mean all the dictionaries would be downloaded or that the user could
select which would be included in the download? If the latter, then fine.

<<snip>>
PS> Thanks for noticing! Obviously you will want to set your default
PS> language in prefs to British so that you do not need to highlight and
PS> change your text each time. Changing your prefs however will not change
PS> your previous documents which will remain in the language you created
PS> them in.. BTW, I am happy to produce Australian, Canadian and other
PS> English variants for any user would would care to help with the differences.

Well .... one might consider including the "Newfoundland Dictionary of English&quot;!
Ye will find some neat words therein! What do the Newfoundlanders on this list
think????? -------- Still listening for an answer!

Cheers Don (Green Dragon)
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