Spellswell for BeOS

Installation

and

Operation Guide





Working Software, Inc.

P.O. Box 1844

Santa Cruz, California 95061-1844

Internet World Wide Web page: http://www.working.com

Internet E-mail: info@working.com

America Online: WORKINGSW



The most recent version of this manual is always available on the web by clicking here




Installing Spellswell for the First Time

Decompress the "Spellswell.zip" file that you received by e-mail or on disk.

Hilite the name of the file and use a "Tracker Add-On" such as ExpandMe or Xplode to cause it to decompress automatically, creating a folder named Spellswell Folder.

ICONS PICTURE

To obtain the ExpandMe or Xplode add-on visit Be's BeWare web pages. Follow their installation guides.



Adding Spellswell to Another Program's Menus

Spellswell is automatically added to the menus of programs that support the "Word Services Suite".

When you first get Spellswell, run it one time. This registers Spellswell with the BeOS so that programs looking for "Word Services" programs will know it is there. From then on any program that uses "Word Services" will have "Check Spelling" added to their menus.

Adam - To use Spellswell with Adamation's Adam e-mail program place the WordServices/Adam add-on into the "add-ons" folder, located in the Config folder which is located in the Home folder ("Home/Config/adam/add-ons"). The next time you run Adam a Word Services item will be available in Adam's Actions menu.



Using Spellswell

What Spellswell Does

Spellswell proofreads documents for spelling mistakes and typographical errors.

You can use Spellswell's Clipboard Checking feature to check text from any program, even non-word-processing programs.

Spellswell "looks up" each word of your document in a Spellswell dictionary. If Spellswell encounters a word that does not appear in the dictionary, Spellswell displays the paragraph containing the unrecognized word with that unrecognized word highlighted.

Spellswell gives you several ways of dealing with a questioned word:

If an unrecognized word appears in a document several times, Spellswell gives you the option of automatically replacing or skipping subsequent occurrences of the word in that particular document.

Spellswell protects documents checked from Word Services programs by preserving all formatting, pictures, font, and style information.



Types of Errors Spellswell Detects

In addition to simple spelling errors, Spellswell alerts you to typographical errors with punctuation and spacing.

Below, we have listed common typing and spelling errors that Spellswell catches. Most of these checks are optional. Spellswell is flexible. You can customize it to suit your personal needs.



Everything About Spellswell Dictionaries

A 93,000+ word dictionary is included on the Spellswell disk. This dictionary contains common English words and abbreviations. If you have more specialized spelling needs, contact Working Software, Inc. We publish a variety of Add-On spelling dictionaries, including an Expanded Dictionary with over 103,000 English words--10,000 more plural and plural possessive forms than the "Dictionary-93,000+". We also publish Medical, Legal, Science, Business, and Geographical dictionaries.

Macintosh Spellswell dictionaries work on the BeOS.

To use a Macintosh dictionary you need to set the filetype. To set the filetype use the Tracker's File Type add-on to set the type to:
"application/x-vnd.Working-DICT

You can customize your Spellswell dictionaries by adding words to or removing words from them. You can add as many words as your disk space allows.

You can change dictionaries using the Dictionary menu.

In addition to its main dictionary, Spellswell can maintain separate document dictionaries. These contain words you use in specific documents that you do not wish to add to the main dictionary.

Spellswell dictionaries are "spelling dictionaries" not "definition dictionaries".

When you run Spellswell it first tries to open the dictionary it used the last time it ran, if there was a last time. If it can't find a dictionary this way it then looks in the same folder as the Spellswell application and opens a dictionary located there. If these two methods don't work it asks you to locate a dictionary.

Note- Once you open a Spellswell dictionary, Spellswell remembers the dictionary's location. You need not locate this dictionary again unless you do any of the following:

If you move or rename your dictionary, Spellswell looks for a dictionary in its folder and failing to locate one re-prompts you to "Please locate and open a dictionary."



The Dictionary Menu

Spellswell builds a Dictionary menu containing the names of the dictionaries in the folder as Spellswell. It also adds the name of the dictionary it is currently using, if that dictionary is from a different folder. You can change dictionaries when you are not currently checking a document by choosing the new dictionary from this menu, or choosing other dictionary from the menu and locating a dictionary to open.

Switching dictionaries- In the future if you decide to use a different dictionary such as an Add-On Dictionary, look in the Dictionary menu. This menu lists all the dictionaries in Spellswell's folder. If there are none listed or you wish to choose one from a different location choose Other from this menu. Spellswell then tells you "Please locate and open a dictionary", and you can open the other dictionary.



Document (User) Dictionaries

Document Dictionaries are not (yet) available when using Word Services and Clipboard spellchecking.

Document dictionaries are lists of words you skip in specific documents. Use document dictionaries to ignore words in certain documents without adding the words to the permanent main dictionary.

Suppose you check a document named "MyFile". Spellswell asks if you want it to remember the skipped words. If you plan to re-check "MyFile" later, click Yes. Then, Spellswell saves the skipped words in a document named "MyFile.dict". (The ".dict" suffix tells you this is a "document dictionary".) The next time Spellswell checks MyFile, Spellswell asks if it should use "MyFile.dict" to remember the words it skipped before. Click Yes to use the ".dict" file.

Note- Spellswell does not create Document Dictionaries when it checks "Word Services" programs.



Using Different Document Dictionaries

To use a different document dictionary, hold the [option] key when you select a document to check. Then, Spellswell asks you to choose which document dictionary to use with the document. You can continue to open different document dictionaries until you click the Cancel button in the Open Dialog. (After choosing the first document dictionary, you no longer need to hold the [option] key.)

If you open several document dictionaries to check a particular document, all the words (in all opened document dictionaries) appear in the new document dictionary Spellswell creates after checking the document.



Add-On Dictionaries for Spellswell

The following add-on dictionaries are available from Working Software, Inc.'s sales department, which can be reached at our web page at http://www.working.com or by calling (800) 229-9675. +1 (408) 423-5696

Macintosh Dictionaries work with the BeOS version of Spellswell.

You can use these dictionaries to check documents containing words that do not appear in a "common English" spelling dictionary.

Add-On dictionaries contain specialized terms, and complicated words or abbreviations that contain upper- and lowercase letters, periods, hyphens, and numbers.

To use Spellswell with an Add-On dictionary, copy your Add-On dictionary into your Spellswell folder. You must tell Spellswell to open a different dictionary. Read the next section, "Opening Different Dictionaries", for dictionary changing instructions.



More Details

The Spellswell Dialog

Spellswell questions words that do not appear in its dictionary. Spellswell highlights questioned words and lets you see the words in context. If you are checking a "Word Services" application, you might need to drag the Spellswell dialog and/or the text editing window around the screen until you can view both the Spellswell dialog and the text editing window. (Click the title bars of the windows to drag them.)

SPELLSWELL DIALOG PICTURE

Through the Preferences dialog, you can set Spellswell to suggest replacement words automatically.

Spellswell displays the questioned word in the "Unknown" box. In the "Replace with" box, Spellswell displays a list of correction suggestions or dictionary entries alphabetically closest to the "Unknown" word. This might be the word you want to use as a replacement. To choose a different replacement, scroll through dictionary by clicking on the "up", "down", "right", or "left" arrows, or click the Alphabetic or Correction Suggestions radio buttons.



The Alphabetic and Correction Suggestions Viewing Area

The "Dictionary" list of words in the center of the Spellswell dialog is the Dictionary window. This window displays either the alphabetic spelling dictionary or a list of correction suggestions (guesses) for the questioned word.

If you want to view the dictionary, but Spellswell is displaying correction suggestions, press the Alphabetic radio button. If you want to view guesses, but Spellswell is displaying the dictionary, press the Correction Suggestions radio button.

You may search/read the dictionary in three ways:

First, you can click the vertical & horizontal scroll bars on the dictionary window. The vertical scroll bar ("up" and "down" arrows) advances the dictionary word by word. The horizontal scroll bar ("left" and "right" arrows) advances the dictionary approximately 150 words at a time.

Second, you can click the word in the "Unknown" box. Spellswell copies the unknown word into the "Replace with" box. The dictionary scrolls toward the word in the "Replace with" box. This feature simplifies correction of errors such as "wordsruntogether".

Third, you can type a correction in the "Replace with" box. The dictionary scrolls toward the word you type. Usually, before you finish typing the word, the replacement word appears in the dictionary window.

Press command-period (-.) or click anywhere to stop a guess in progress.

If you click once on a word in the dictionary window, the word copies into the "Replace With" box.



Making a "Wildcard" Guess

Spellswell can make a "wildcard" guess. If you type "comm?er" in the "Replace with" box and press the Correction Suggestions button, Spellswell lists all the words that begin with the letters "comm" and end with the letters "er". Be as specific as possible with a wildcard guess. A guess using "t?" can take a very long time.

Press command-period to stop a guess in progress.



The Context Window

Spellswell allows you to see words it questions in context. The context window displays the portion of the document containing the questioned word with the questioned word highlighted.

"Word Services" Context Window

When checking a "Word Services" application, Spellswell displays the questioned word in one of two ways. Either it highlights the questioned word in a "scrollable" context window attached to the bottom of the Spellswell dialog, or it highlights the questioned word in the background application's text editing window. If your "Word Services" application uses the latter method, drag the Spellswell dialog and the background application's text editing window around the screen until you can view them both. (To move windows, click their title bars, then drag.)



Editing the Unknown Word

Sometimes Spellswell cannot correctly suggest a word's spelling. When this happens you can type in a replacement word.

You can also move the questioned word into the replacement word text area. Click in the "Unknown" box to copy its contents into the "Replace with" box.



The Buttons

Replace

To replace the "Unknown" word in your document with the word in the "Replace with" box, click the Replace button. You can also replace a word using the keyboard instead of the mouse by simultaneously pressing Command and R.

Another way to replace a word is by double-clicking the replacement in the Alphabetic or Correction Suggestions view window. This automatically replaces the questioned word in your document with the double-clicked dictionary word.

If you click on a word in the dictionary window, or if you type a word in the "Replace With" box, the Replace button becomes "double-outlined". This means you can replace the questioned word by pressing the [return] key.

If you type a correction that is not in the dictionary, Spellswell asks if you want to add it to the dictionary.



Replace All

To replace all occurrences in your document of the "Unknown" word with the word in the "Replace with" box, click the Replace All button.



Skip

If Spellswell stops on a word you do not wish to change, you may choose to skip the word by clicking the Skip button. You can also skip a word with the keyboard by simultaneously pressing Command and S.ButtonsDouble-Outlined

If you have not clicked or typed anything, you can skip the word by pressing [return] because the Skip button is "double outlined". This means that pressing [return] produces the same action as clicking the "double outlined" button. Once you click on a word in the dictionary or type a letter, Spellswell outlines the Replace button instead of the Skip button.



Skip All

To skip all occurrences in your document of the "Unknown" word, click the Skip All button.



Add

You can add the word in the "Unknown" box to the dictionary by clicking the Add button. Spellswell accepts words up to 31 characters long.

If the disk with the dictionary is "write-protected" or the disk if full, Spellswell cannot add words to the dictionary.

Adding Abbreviations

When Spellswell does not know an abbreviation, it assumes the final period ends a sentence.



Remove

You can remove a word from the dictionary as long as it appears in the "Replace with" box. First, locate and click once on the word in the Dictionary window. This copies the word into the "Replace with" box. Click the Remove button. Spellswell asks "Are you sure?" you want to delete the word. Click Yes to delete the word from the dictionary. Click No to cancel the deletion.

If the disk containing the dictionary is "write-protected", Spellswell cannot remove words from the dictionary.

If you choose to remove a word while the "Unknown" word is capitalized, you must convert the "Replace with" word to lowercase before pressing the Remove button. This is because Spellswell automatically capitalizes a replacement when it stops on a capitalized word--even if the dictionary entry is not capitalized.



Preferences

You can change the Spellswell preferences by choosing Preferences from the File menu. You then see the Preferences dialog with boxes for activating/disabling the Preferences. If an 'X' appears next to a preference, that preference is active. Click the box to add or remove an 'X'.

PICTURE OF PREFS DIALOG

A Word is Uncapitalized After a Period

If this preference is active, Spellswell checks the capitalization of the first word following a period, question mark, exclamation point, or carriage return/new line character (an invisible character that tells the text editor to advance to the beginning of the next line).

Spellswell cannot distinguish a period ending a sentence from a period ending an abbreviation. It might suggest that you capitalize a word following an abbreviation. Press the Skip key in this event.

If the unknown word is capitalized, Spellswell automatically capitalizes the replacement word. You can override the capitalization by editing the replacement word in the "Replace with" box.

If you wish to emulate ee cummings and avoid capitalization, or if you often press the [return] key to begin new lines without capitalizing the first word, turn off this preference.

NOTE - Spellswell dims the Skip All, Replace All, Correction Suggestions and Add buttons when stopping on this. The way to stop questioning this is to turn this option off in the Preferences.

Proper nouns are Uncapitalized

If this preference is active, Spellswell suggests that you capitalize proper nouns such as "Friday" or "August". If Spellswell encounters an uncapitalized proper noun, Spellswell questions the word.

NOTE - Spellswell dims the Skip All, Replace All, Correction Suggestions and Add buttons when stopping on this. The way to stop questioning this is to turn this option off in the Preferences.

Words Appear to be Repeated

If this preference is active, Spellswell questions repeated words such as "the the".

NOTE - Spellswell dims the Skip All, Replace All, Corrections Suggestions and Add buttons when stopping on this. The way to stop questioning this is to turn this option off in the Preferences.

There is Only One Space After a Period

If this preference is active, Spellswell questions periods, question marks, or exclamation points followed by only a single space (represented by a square in the "Unknown" box). The "Replace with" box displays the punctuation mark followed by two squares.

PICTURE

Require 2 Spaces After Period is Demonstrated with Squares

If you turn off the "Require 2 spaces after period" preference , Spellswell stops only when no spaces occur between words or when no spaces follow a period, question mark, or exclamation point.

NOTE - Spellswell dims the Skip All, Replace All, Correction Suggestions and Add buttons when stopping on this. The way to stop questioning this is to turn this option off in the Preferences.

There is a Space Before Punctuation

If this preference is active, Spellswell flags occurrences of spaces before a punctuation mark (comma, semicolon, colon, period, question mark, or exclamation point).

NOTE - Spellswell dims the Skip All, Replace All, Corrections Suggestions and Add buttons when stopping on this. The way to stop questioning this is to turn this option off in the Preferences.

There are Extra Spaces Between Words

If this preference is active, Spellswell questions occurrences of extra (more than one) spaces between words.

NOTE - Spellswell dims the Skip All, Replace All, Correction Suggestions and Add buttons when stopping on this. The way to stop questioning this is to turn this option off in the Preferences.

An "a" is Before a Vowel or "an" Before a Consonant

If you activate this preference , Spellswell checks usage of the indefinite articles "a" and "an" so you can check that "a" precedes words beginning with consonants and "an" precedes words beginning with vowels. For example, Spellswell questions "a orangutan" and suggests "an orangutan" as a replacement. The letter 'h' poses problems because someone can have "a happy" time receiving "an honor", so this preference ignores words beginning with 'h'.

NOTE - Spellswell dims the Skip All, Replace All, Correction Suggestions and Add buttons when stopping on this. The way to stop questioning this is to turn this option off in the Preferences.

Treat Hyphenated-words as Two Words

If this preference is active, Spellswell treats improperly hyphenated words as separate words. For example, Spellswell checks "back" and "up" separately if it encounters "back-up". This hyphen-option is readily-available for clicking-use by compulsive-hyphenaters.

Allow both Numbers and Letters in Words

If this preference is active, Spellswell checks words containing both numbers and letters. Spellswell always skips numbers such as "346".

"1st" is a word that contains a number. If you use a lot of words like this, you should turn on this preference .

"2,4-dinitrophenol" is also a word containing a number. If you want to check such words, turn on this preference .

If you turn off this option, Spellswell checks a word like "word1second" as two words, "word" and "second".

View Suggestions First

If this preference is active, Spellswell automatically makes a guess for each questioned word.

HTML Checking

This preference allows you to turn off the checking of text between brackets "<>"when checking the spelling of Web pages.

Make a Copy of Disk Documents

If this preference is active, Spellswell automatically creates a "backup" copy of your original document. The copy does not contain any of the spelling or typing corrections you make during your Spellswell session. This backup has the same name as the original document with ".sbk" appended to the filename. The suffix stands for Spellswell Backup. In other words, if a file you check with Spellswell is called "MyFile", Spellswell creates a copy of the original document and names it "MyFile.sbk". "MyFile" contains the spelling and typing corrections.

Quit after Word Services Spellcheck

This preference lets you choose whether Spellswell stays running in the background after checking with a Word Services program, or quits.



Reference

Text Documents

Spellswell can check documents created by applications using the "save as plain text" option.

Plain text documents do not have pictures, and do not contain multiple fonts or styles.



Clipboard Checking

"Clipboard Checking" allows you to spell-check sections of text created in programs that Spellswell normally cannot read, such as page layout or graphics programs (that do not support "Word Services").

The Clipboard is the temporary holding area for text (and/or graphics) you have highlighted and copied or cut using the Edit menu's Copy or Cut commands.

After you copy the text you want to spell-check into the Clipboard, open the Spellswell program. Choose Check Clipboard from Spellswell' File menu. Spellswell then checks all the text in the Clipboard. After checking the text, Spellswell places the corrected text back into the Clipboard automatically. Then, you may paste the corrected text back into the application in which you were working.



Closing a Document or Exiting Spellswell

Non-Word Services Operation:

You can close a document before Spellswell has finished checking it. Select Close from the File menu if you want to check a different document. Select Quit if you want to exit Spellswell.

If you Close or Quit before Spellswell completes the check of a document, the document contains only corrections made before the selection of Close or Quit. Even if you instruct Spellswell to replace all occurrences of an error, Spellswell cannot replace all occurrences if you Close or Quit before completely checking the document.

To Quit Spellswell while viewing the Document Open Dialog, you must press Cancel before you can access the File menu.



Unprintable Characters

Occasionally squares appear in the middle of words in the context "window". These squares represent "unprintable" characters, such as "soft hyphens". (Soft hyphens, typed by holding the command key while typing a hyphen, print only when a line-break splits a word.) You can see these characters in the Spellswell context "window" but they do not affect the operation of Spellswell in any way.

Squares before or after punctuation marks or between words represent spaces.



Double Dashes

Spellswell treats words connected by double dashes as separate words.



Copies and Copyrights

You may make copies of this program for your use only. Giving away "trial copies" or keeping a copy and selling the original are a violation of our copyright. You can encourage people to behave honorably by pointing out the reasonable price and the good support you receive. Suggest that others buy their own copies of Spellswell or call Working Software for information.

Spellswell is sold for use on one computer at a time. If you plan to use Spellswell on more than one computer at a time, you must purchase other copies of Spellswell rather than copying one Spellswell and distributing it.



Limited Warranty and Disclaimer

Working Software, Inc. warrants that this product will perform as documented in this manual when used on a typical computer system, or we will fix it or return your money.

To obtain this warranty you must send in your registration card.



If There's a Problem - Tech Support

If you have a problem with Spellswell:



Credits

Spellswell was originally designed by Dave Johnson and Mike Greene.

The Word Services Suite was developed by Michael D. Crawford and Dave Johnson.

BeOS version programmed by Michael D. Crawford.

BeOS icons designed by Pierre Fujiki.

Programming by Michael D. Crawford, Mike Greene, Dave Johnson, and Virginia D. McCulloh.

Manual written by Dave Johnson, Virginia D. McCulloh and Mike Greene. Edited by Anne Hull, Mark Galvin, Barbara Regis, Kevin Norris, with assistance from Judd Stiff, Pat Thompson, and all the customers who complained about the other Spellswell manuals.

Caffeine provided by Jahva House, Cafe Bene, the Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company, and Espresso Royale Caffe--all conveniently located in beautifully rebuilt downtown Santa Cruz, California (in this Milky Way Galaxy).

Spellswell™ © 1988-1997 Working Software, Inc.

Spellswell is a trademark of Working Software, Inc.



Questions and Answers

Q) I'm a poet, so I press the [return] key a lot, but I do not like to capitalize the first word on every line. Why does Spellswell insist that my words are incorrect?

A) If the "Capitalize after period" preference is active, Spellswell checks for capitalization of each word following a period, question mark, exclamation point, or carriage return/new line character (an invisible character that tells the text editor to advance to the beginning of the next line).

If you wish to emulate ee cummings and avoid capitalization, or if you press the [return] key and begin new lines without capitalizing the first word, then turn off this option.

Q) If I enclose a word or phrase in single quotes, Spellswell often stops on the last word and includes the closing quote. In the case of the phrase 'this word', Spellswell stops on "word'". Why?

A) A single quote is also an apostrophe. Spellswell might "think" you are trying to spell "word's". Use the Skip button when this happens.



One More Time

Spellswell is sold for use on one computer at a time by one person. If you plan to use Spellswell on more than one computer at a time, you must purchase additional copies of Spellswell rather than copying one Spellswell and distributing it.