I just added CFDev's ActiveSpeller to MetaFilter's comment pages

May 22, 2002 3:53 PM

I just added CFDev's ActiveSpeller to MetaFilter's comment pages. I'll eventually add them to every textarea form on the site. Let me know if you run into any bugs.
posted by mathowie (staff) to Feature Requests at 3:53 PM (22 comments total)

I wrote "britney spears is a bitch" (a sentence that's correct, both grammaticaly and semantically;). I pressed the "Spell Check" button, and the window pops-up (screenshot)...

(1) How come I can't see the word that I have (supposedly) mispelled in the first ("Not in Dictionary") field?
(2) I choose the term "Pitney" and press the "Change" button. The window closes and guess what happens... The whole sentece in my textarea is replaced by that single word! Imagine the consequences this bug would have in a post like this.
(3) "Britney" isn't recognized by the spell-checker. I consider this to be a serious flaw..

I'm using Opera 6.01 - WinXP Pro. If there's something else you want me to clarify, let me know.

Also, if there are any spelling mistakes in this post, don't blame me - I just couldn't use the buggy spell checker ;)
posted by kchristidis at 5:31 PM on May 22, 2002

I'm going to have to work on the shipping spellcheck interface, it's optimized for IE on windows.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:33 PM on May 22, 2002

Very nifty, and it works fine in Win/Mac.
posted by donkeyschlong at 5:33 PM on May 22, 2002

It appears to be working under Mozilla, although the word "Mozilla" doesn't appear in the dictionary. Nor does the word "MetaFilter." The latter, at the very least, seems like it would be a highly useful addition to the dictionary file.
posted by majick at 7:10 PM on May 22, 2002

I just noticed something I hate about the interaction design of the popup. It has a "done" button, and if you click on a corrected word, but don't click "change" and click "done" nothing happens. Effectively, the done button means "cancel" unless you'd like to quit out of the spellchecking process having made some corrections (but not all).

Anyone got any ideas for getting rid of the Done button? Should a single click on the list of words automatically hit "change" for you, or would that be bad as well? How about a double click?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:18 PM on May 22, 2002

On my Mac IE 5, the Change and Ignore buttons overlap with the scroll bar. When I scrolled back up through a list, I accidentally selected Ignore. screenshot one - screenshot two.
posted by gluechunk at 7:41 PM on May 22, 2002

Er, that should have been: screenshot two.
posted by gluechunk at 7:43 PM on May 22, 2002

Just curious: is ActiveSpeller a charity? Does one pay to use it on for a Web site? Cost?
posted by ParisParamus at 7:44 PM on May 22, 2002

Grrr...that spell check button is very annoying...can't y'all just learn to spell?
posted by rushmc at 8:18 PM on May 22, 2002

Luks gud to me. Grait jobb Meatfilter!
posted by thatweirdguy2 at 8:50 PM on May 22, 2002

paris, I paid the $100 or so for it because I was sick of copying posts to my email app for spellchecking.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:57 PM on May 22, 2002

i dunno, i don't expect a change to occur until i hit change, if i hit done before i hit change i would assume no change would happen. but i may be scarred by too many bad computer interfaces.

i think clicking on the list=clicking change would be weird though, i definitely wouldn't expect that to happen.
posted by rhyax at 9:05 PM on May 22, 2002

Matt, the spell-checker is very cool, and I think the "Done" button is a save and quit, as opposed to the "Cancel" button, which would simply quit. The interface seems okay to me, though it might take some getting used to. The "Done" button would allow for intentional misspellings.
posted by BlueTrain at 9:22 PM on May 22, 2002

Works fine for me. I guess it would have been nice if it didn't offer 'webster' as the corrected spelling of 'website'.

It also recommends changing british spellings into Americanspeak which people on the other side of the Atlantic may not like much!

But its a great addition! Thanks.
posted by justlooking at 11:38 PM on May 22, 2002

I think a single-click should simply highlight the word in the menu, but not select it (like when you're at the grocery store and you've picked up a box of cereal and now you're reading the label or whatnot). A double-click should indicate that you've selected the word (you like the fact ColoRooter is really high in fiber, and so you've put a box of it in the basket). NOTE: A single-click plus clicking on the change button should be the equivalent action as a double-click. Hitting the done button indicates you've completed your decision-making process for your entire entry and that you are accepting whatever words you have (you're ready to pay for everything in the basket whether you've read the labels or not).

Um, I just went and looked at the interface for the spell checker app and it's already doing what I recommended above so I'll just shut up. I think it's all pretty logical and a nice addition to the site. Thanks!
posted by mosspink at 11:43 PM on May 22, 2002

Hey, what ever became of the company that was giving away the free spellchecker that mefi used to use? I remember hearing predictions that they'd go belly up once they switched to pay-only. I'd check myself, but I can't remember their name.

Also, I vaguely remember you mentioning when you took away the old spellchecker code that some other company had donated their product to Mefi. Just out of curiosity, what ever became of that?

the new spell checker wants me to change "mefi" to "mafia."
posted by crunchland at 4:05 AM on May 23, 2002

Perhaps the free spell checker was done by the same company that powered the former Blogger spellchecker... If so, they went under, I believe.

the new spell checker wants me to change "mefi" to "mafia."

No wonder why I feel like an outsider around here. That explains all those posts about The Sopranos. How do you join? I might not be Sicilian, but I've got a good Louis Prima collection...
posted by insomnia_lj at 4:49 AM on May 23, 2002

Suggested substitutes for FPP: PP, pop, pap, pep, pip, pop, pup, FTC, PCP, foppery, foppish, papa, paps, peps. I love it, thanks.
posted by iconomy at 5:03 AM on May 23, 2002

insomnia_lj: don't think they've gone under because the paid for version powers the Blogger Pro spellchecking at present.
posted by nedrichards at 5:19 AM on May 23, 2002

I just used this to spellcheck my mini-paper. Thanks.
posted by ODiV at 5:31 AM on May 23, 2002

Actually, MH, they should pay you for offering a better spell check.
posted by ParisParamus at 6:30 AM on May 23, 2002

Also, I vaguely remember you mentioning when you took away the old spellchecker code that some other company had donated their product to Mefi. Just out of curiosity, what ever became of that?

That spellcheck app required me to run some extra java services, which would entail running tomcat and apache just for the damn spellchecker. It seemed like a misuse of resources so I didn't end up using it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:39 AM on May 23, 2002