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Text File | 1993-03-04 | 11.6 KB | 276 lines

AZSPELL ------- The Amiga spelling checker -------------------------- by Danny Hartley Copyright © Danny Hartley, 1990. AZspell and AZmerge can be used and distributed freely, but they are not public domain. The author retains copyright. They may not be sold for profit, or included with any commercial product without prior permission from the author. This document must be supplied with the programs and must not be modified. AZdictionary is supplied 'as is' for public domain, and may be modified and redistributed in a modified form - no guarantee is expressed or implied as to the correctness of the words contained in the file. AZspell and AZmerge were written in 68000 assembly language using the excellent HiSoft Devpac2 assembler. The files supplied are: AZspell - The spelling checker program AZmerge - The dictionary update program AZassign - A script to assign AZspell: AZdictionary - The dictionary and their associated icons (.info files) If you, like me, have great problems with spelling and/or your typing fingers tend to hit every key except the one that your brain told them to hit, then this is the program for you. A quick and simple to use spelling checker. All the files supplied have icons attached so that they may be moved from volume to volume from the Workbench screen. When a document is checked, words that cannot be found in the dictionary can be simply added to the dictionary so that they are remembered for the next time. The program uses an intermediate file called AZupdate to allow you to check the words, should you need to, before committing them to the main dictionary. The intermediate file also has several more uses (see AZmerge and AZspell:Special Mode). INSTALLING THE SPELLER ---------------------- For the speller to be most useful, that is, to allow words to be added to the dictionary, it is best installing it onto a separate disc. Installation is very simple. If you require the speller to be kept on it's own disc, then format a disc (initialize it), and rename it to AZspell. Once you have done that then copy the files AZspell, AZmerge and AZdictionary onto the disc (by dragging the icons from this drawer onto the new disc). As the disc is called AZspell the program AZassign is not needed. If you require the speller to be in a drawer on part of a disc, as you would for a hard disc, then create the drawer for it (dragging Empty from a Workbench disc would do), and copy the files AZspell, AZmerge, AZassign and AZdictionary into the drawer. AZassign has to be in the same drawer that AZdictionary is in, AZspell and AZmerge could in fact be anywhere you choose to place them (except the bin!). If you use AZassign then you will also need the following Workbench V1.3 commands (in the C: directory) : Run, FailAt, Execute, CD, IconX, Assign and Echo. AZassign -------- To allow maximum flexibility of speller configuration, ie. where it is - from it's own separate floppy disc to a directory on a hard disc, the speller uses a logical device name of AZspell: to store the dictionary and update files on. If the speller resides on it's own disc with a volume name of AZspell then you can ignore this program. If not then copy AZassign along with AZspell, AZmerge and AZdictionary to the drawer where you wish the speller to be. Whenever you need to use AZspell or AZmerge then run AZassign first by double clicking on the AZassign icon. After AZassign has run then whenever you run AZspell or AZmerge they will be able to find the dictionary. NOTE: AZassign only has to be run once and of course after the Amiga has been reset/turned off etc. AZspell ------- AZspell is the spelling checker program. To run it just double click on it's icon. Once it has loaded the dictionary a window will appear prompting you for the name of the document that you wish to check. Just type the name of your document then press Enter, the name will normally have to include the drive and/or directory of where the document is, eg. df0:reports/report1. If the file could not be found or could not be loaded an error message is displayed along with an AmigaDOS error code, to allow you decide what is wrong. The main part of the program is the checking window. It consists of several sections. The first section is the word stats, how many words are in the dictionary and document (file). How many words have been checked so far, how many were not found and how many are only used once. Please note to make the checker check words quickly and only stop at words it can't find the last three stats are only refreshed whenever the program has to wait for a response from the user (you). Underneath the stats is a correction box that allows you to type in a new word whenever a word cannot be found. At the bottom is a line from the document with the current word being checked highlighted in the centre. On the right hand side is a suggestions box. When a word can't be found then a list of thirty closest possible words is generated. The list takes words from the dictionary (including the word(s) added) and any from the words ignored (they are remembered). This process takes several seconds to complete. When the list has been compiled the words are listed in order from the closest word at the top. To move the list up and down use the Up and Do boxes respectively. Usually the word you are looking for will be in the top few. If you wish to use one of the words from the list of suggestions then just click on the word. It will then be copied into the correction box, to allow it to be used for correction. A valid word (one that will be checked) is defined as a group of two or more characters, the initial character must be alphabetic, the remaining characters can be alphabetic, an apostrophe or a hyphen. Anything that is not a valid word is not checked by the program. The final section is the four boxes in the middle. These are for instructing the program what to do when it can't find a word. Add to dictionary - If the highlighted word in the document is not already in the dictionary then it will be added to the dictionary (via AZupdate). Ignore word - Ignores the highlighted word but remembers it. If you ignore a word then any further occurrences of the word will also be ignored. Correct word - Corrects the word with the word(s)/characters in the correction box. If the correction box contains a single valid word that is not already in the dictionary then it will be remembered. Correct word also has another mode. If the correction box is empty then the word will be completely ignored and not remembered. Correct and Add - As Correct word but the correction box must only contain a single valid word. If the word is not already in the dictionary then it will be added to the dictionary (via AZupdate). The spelling checker can be stopped before all the words have been checked by clicking on the close gadget. When all the words have been checked (or you have stopped the speller part way through) and words in the document have been corrected then a window will appear asking you for the name to save the document under. If words have been added to the dictionary then the words are saved to the AZspell disc/directory in the file AZspell:AZupdate. If you click on the close gadget when asked for the name to save the document under then the document save AND the AZupdate save will both be aborted. Special Mode AZspell has a special mode that allows the automatic collection of mis-spelled/not found words in a document. This mode is only available from the CLI/Shell as normally the machine would be left unattended, controlled from a script. The command line format is: AZSPELL [<file> [!]] If the filename <file> is not specified then AZspell behaves as normal just as if you had run it from the Workbench. If <file> is given then it is loaded but otherwise nothing different. If a ! is given after the filename, then the file is loaded, the checking window appears, but if a word can't be found then it is automatically added to the dictionary just as if you had click in the 'Add to dictionary' box. When AZspell has completed then the file AZupdate can be examined to find any suitable words for adding to the dictionary. In this way a large and thorough dictionary can be easily built up. If you do use this on a lot of documents and leave your Amiga running while you watch Neighbours, then the script below should provide a suitable starting point. echo >ram:fried_egg "** file1 **" azspell file1 ! join azspell:azupdate ram:fried_egg to ram:spam echo >>ram:spam "** file2 **" azspell file2 ! join azspell:azupdate ram:spam to ram:fried_egg echo >>ram:fried_egg "** file3 **" azspell file3 ! join azspell:azupdate ram:fried_egg to ram:spam and so on... AZmerge ------- This program merges the words in AZupdate with the main dictionary AZdictionary. After checking a document and you are sure that the words that you have added to the dictionary (using Add to dictionary/Correct and Add) are all correct then run this program by simply double clicking on it's icon. A window will appear to tell you that it is running. If you wish to add many words to the dictionary and don't want to go through AZspell clicking 'Add to dictionary' all the time, then using your favourite text editor, create a file of words and save it as AZspell:AZupdate. There must only be one word per line, each word must have two or more characters, the initial must be alphabetic, each remaining character can only be alphabetic, a hyphen or apostrophe - case doesn't matter, any lower case letters are converted to upper case. AZupdate does not need to be sorted. Once AZupdate has been created then run AZmerge. Any words that are already in the dictionary will be ignored, similarly if a word occurs two or more times then only the first occurrence will be used.(This could be used to join another dictionary with the main one) AZdictionary ------------ This is the actual dictionary that AZspell uses to determine if a word is correct or not, or isn't in the dictionary. The dictionary has currently almost 12000 words which is hardly the whole English language but does contain the most used words, so should be good for most of the time unless you use very exotic words a lot. I should like to point out that even though I have personally checked the whole dictionary, a task only slightly more interesting than watching paint dry, the odd word or two may have slipped past my bleary eyes, so I make no claim that the dictionary is 100% correct. ** YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED ** You should always have a dictionary close to hand in any case. The dictionary is purely a simple text file, and can be viewed (and edited) with any text editor. All the words contain two or more characters, are in upper case with one word per line and in strict ASCII ascending order. If you decide to edit the dictionary then ensure that the above is still true, particularly ensure there are no empty lines, especially at the end of the file. Any queries, suggestions, spare cash, beer, etc. to: Danny Hartley 1 Alexandra Drive Prestatyn Clwyd LL19 8BW U.K.