Spell Checker

[David]

Hello

I have encountered a small problem with spell check on Thunderbird.

If you type the misspelled word mecano ( correct spelling is meccano) you
get a rather unusual selection of correctly spelled words when performing a
spell check ( right click on word ). None of which have anything to do with
this word. After I add the word (meccano) in the dictionary and again
misspell the word, I receive the same selection of words. This has happened
to a few words. Another word is my last name. Weintraub. If I add my name
to the dictionary and then misspell It, I get an unusual assortment of words
to choose from, none of which are Weintraub.

Anyway to fix this?

Thanks

David Weintraub

[Nir]

works fine here. I have opened a new compose windows and typed 'Weintraub' . TB shows a spell error
as expected. Then i right click on the word and select 'Add to Dictionary ' . Then closed the
compose window. Then i have opened another compose windows and type that word (Weintraub) again and
find no spell error.

[Melchert Fruitema]

On 13-07-2006 20:44 CET, David composed this enchanting statement:

No. The words which you've added, do not have any associated misspellings.

--
Kind regards,

Melchert

MacOS 10.3.9/Firefox 1.5/Thunderbird 1.5

[Kerouac Cleary]

I believe you just answered this, but I'm making sure I'm clear; is it
possible to add possible misspellings to the dictionary once you have
added a new word? Is the dictionary editable in any way?

--Kerouac

[Chris Ilias]

_Kerouac Cleary_ spoke thusly on 13/07/2006 3:56 PM:

> I believe you just answered this, but I'm making sure I'm clear; is it
> possible to add possible misspellings to the dictionary once you have
> added a new word? Is the dictionary editable in any way?

To add words to your dictionary, click on "Add word" in the spell
checker window. [Options-->Check Spalling]
--
Chris Ilias
mozilla.test.multimedia moderator
Mozilla links <http://ilias.ca>
(Please do not email me tech support questions)

[Kerouac Cleary]

On 7/13/2006 5:09 PM, Chris Ilias wrote:
> _Kerouac Cleary_ spoke thusly on 13/07/2006 3:56 PM:
>> I believe you just answered this, but I'm making sure I'm clear; is it
>> possible to add possible misspellings to the dictionary once you have
>> added a new word? Is the dictionary editable in any way?
>
> To add words to your dictionary, click on "Add word" in the spell
> checker window. [Options-->Check Spalling]

I understand that. I'm sorry, I was unclear. Or maybe I misunderstood
the previous post.

I thought he was saying that in order for the spell-checker to catch
misspellings of an ADDED word, there had to be entries for possible
misspellings of that added word.

Example:

If I add the word "thunderbird", the dictionary currently will never
offer that as a possible "Replace with:" option.

Is it possible to edit the dictionary to "learn" possible typos that
should be replaced with my new word "thunderbird"?

Is this any clearer?

--Kerouac

[Telmo Amaral]

Here's a work-around, but it's far from practical... Remove the
word 'meccano' from your personal dictionary. To do that, open a
new compose window, press Ctrl+k, click on Edit, select the word
from the list, and click Remove. Close Thunderbird (TB). Now, go
to TB's installation folder (on Windows, it's something like
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird). In the sub-folder
components\myspell you will find the installed dictionary .dic
file (in my case it's en-GB.dic, but it may differ for you). Open
that file and add a line at the end with the word 'meccano',
without inverted commas. Save the file and start TB. Now, if you
misspell 'mecano' and right-click the word, the only suggestion is
appropriately 'meccano'.

It seems like whatever algorithm is used to determine the
suggestions, it takes into account only words contained in the
installed .dic file, and disregards those in the personal .dic
file (located in the user's profile and containing words added by
the user). This would probably justify an enhancement bug - which
may well have been reported already. But I'm not sure it would be
a matter for TB's developers, because I don't know whether the
spell-checking feature is native TB code or not.

[Telmo Amaral]

Just a small clarification: after opening a new compose window,
you must click on the message-body area before pressing Ctrl+k,
otherwise nothing happens.

[Al Bert]

Kerouac Cleary wrote:

You should be able to edit the dictionary by going to <C:\Program
Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\components\myspell> and opening the applicable
DIC file (eg. en-US.dic) with a text editor. Find the misspelled word,
correct it and save the file as a DIC file back to the same folder. As
a precautionary note, make a backup copy of the dictionary file before
you edit it.

Similarly, for the personal dictionary, go to <C:\Documents and
Settings\xxxxx\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\d36wrojs.default>
and find the <persdict.dat> file. Use a text editor to open it. Edit
it and save it back as <persdict.dat> in the same folder you originally
found it. Again make a backup of the file before editing it.

al

[Kerouac Cleary]

Telmo answered this below. Thank you very much!

That does raise a question for the developer types though. Why doesn't
the spellchecker use the personal dictionaries for possible replacements?

[David]

Thank to all for the information. Maybe I will just buy a good dictonary
.....:)

"Telmo Amaral" <tam...@computing.dundee.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:Cu2dnY3-gLKsQCvZ...@mozilla.org...

[Marshall Price]

It would be nice if Thunderbird's spell-checker ignored other people's
spelling. I rarely want to correct other people's spelling, unless
that's what I'm writing about.

Also, and more obviously, I never want to spell-check users' names. So
the quote-line at the beginnings of quotations, at least, should be
skipped. In other words, lines like "On [date], username wrote:" ought
to be skipped entirely.

--
Marshall Price of Miami
Known to Yahoo as d021317c

[Moz Champion (Dan)]

Marshall Price wrote:
> It would be nice if Thunderbird's spell-checker ignored other people's
> spelling. I rarely want to correct other people's spelling, unless
> that's what I'm writing about.
>
> Also, and more obviously, I never want to spell-check users' names. So
> the quote-line at the beginnings of quotations, at least, should be
> skipped. In other words, lines like "On [date], username wrote:" ought
> to be skipped entirely.
>

Thunderbird doesnt attempt to change any spelling in the text of the
message you are replying to. It does activate on the /TO/ line (such as
mine 'Marshall Price wrote:' because they are creations of the program
at that point in time.

Since the "on [date], username wrote:" can be changed to read almost
anything you want, it was thought prudent to keep the spell checker
enabled on such. Some examples follow

"On Or About Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:54:52 +0530, Without Any Hesitation
Or Thinking Twice, Nir Stumbled Over To The Keyboard And wrote The
Following In The mozilla.support.thunderbird News Group:" (Old Gringo)

"On 3/28/2007 6:28 PM On a whim, Old Gringo pounded out on the keyboard"
(Terry)

[Ron Hunter]

Marshall Price wrote:
> It would be nice if Thunderbird's spell-checker ignored other people's
> spelling. I rarely want to correct other people's spelling, unless
> that's what I'm writing about.
>
> Also, and more obviously, I never want to spell-check users' names. So
> the quote-line at the beginnings of quotations, at least, should be
> skipped. In other words, lines like "On [date], username wrote:" ought
> to be skipped entirely.
>

This seems to come up often, and doesn't seem to stay fixed. I agree,
spellchecking the quoted portion, and/or attribution line is a waste of
cpu cycles.

--
Ron Hunter rphu...@charter.net