MicroSpell Release Notes

v9.1h

Changes From v9.0 Beta 5x to v9.1

The changes are listed here in chronological order:

• Fixed a bug that occasionally resulted in a word other than the first suspect being highlighted in the main window when the Spell Check dialog was first opened. (The correct word was shown in the Spell Check dialog.)
• The dialog that the speller displays when you attempt to exit with unchecked files now includes the file names (up to 5).

Changes From v9.1 to v9.1a

• Fixed a bug which caused the Inbox to remain permanently maximized if you said OK to the speller's offer to rearrange the windows when the Inbox was maximized.
• Layout commands 1 and 2 no longer adjust the main window width (unless restoring from a maximized state). Also, they will now resize the main window's height if it is occupying more than one-half of the available screen height.
• When you finish checking a document file, the speller now closes it (even if there are no more files to be checked) so it will not remain in the edit window. This does not apply if you stop the spell check by clicking the Spell Check dialog Close button or the Inbox window close icon.
• If you drag a suspect word from the Spell Check dialog to a user dictionary, MicroSpell now clears the guess list and sets the first line to "-Suspect OK-"; as before, it also recolors the suspect using the known word color.
• Added a new icon to the MicroSpell program group that makes it easier to run the Web Lookup command for the word on the Clipboard when MicroSpell is not running. Simply click this icon and MicroSpell will start up and show it's Web Lookup dialog with the word from the Clipboard automatically inserted into the search box. The installation program now offers you the option of putting this icon on the Start Menu. The Epsilon support adds a command for looking up the word under or before the cursor.
• Modified the suspect coloring feature so that most suspects that are considered "probable misspellings" are colored using the "unknown word" color instead of any other possible rendering. This makes certain errors more noticeable and simplifies the coloring.
• Changed the Open Previous Unchecked Doc File command to open the previous file regardless of whether or not it has been checked. Renamed the command to be Open Previous Doc File. This makes it easier to "back up" to a previously checked document. The Open Next Unchecked Doc File command has not been modified, except that it, like the "Open Previous" command now wraps past the end of the document list, if necessary.
• Added a "Menu" button to the Document List dialog.
• Corrected a problem with "muspell.el" that prevented the "Complete word" command from working in Emacs.
• Fixed some broken links in the documentation.
• Changed (slightly) how scrolling by page works in the Inbox and Outbox when only one line is selected. When you scroll down, the selection jumps to the last line that was (fully) visible on the previous page, which will normally be the first line on the new page. This provides a little more visual continuity. Also, when you reach the end of the list, the selection shows where to continue scanning visually, since the last page usually contains at least some items form the previous page.

Changes From v9.1a to v9.1b

• Added an "Automatically Apply Last Layout Command" option to the Window menu. When this option is enabled, MicroSpell automatically issues the layout command you gave most recently whenever the Inbox opens. This maintains a neat appearance when the size of the main window changes.
• Fixed "bookmark" bug that prevented speller from automatically scrolling to first bookmark set during a spell check.
• The size and position of the main window are now saved whenever you exit from the Inbox or the Spell Check dialog. The settings are saved independently for both and restored next time you open the corresponding spell check window. The settings are also save when you close MicroSpell and associated with the currently active (Inbox or Spell Check dialog) mode.
• Modified the "Add" function on the Document List dialog to use the standard Windows File Open dialog instead of the Add Files dialog.
• Added a "Quick Start" dialog which enables you to easily perform some common tasks. While you can do all of these things (sometimes more directly) in other ways, you might prefer this dialog, especially if you are a new or infrequent user.

Changes From v9.1b to v9.1c

• The Document List dialog now appears automatically after you finish checking a group of (two or more) files. This provides word count statistics and confirms that the operation completed successfully. There is a new checkbox to disable this behavior if you prefer not to see this dialog.
• The standard file open dialogs are now resizable.
• Modified the strategy used to avoid flickering when the Spell Check dialog is open and the syntax coloring is enabled in the main window. The speller now uses two different strategies, depending on whether the Spell Check dialog overlaps the main window or not. If your screen is large enough to give you a choice, you might want to try both possibilities to see which you prefer.
• Removed the "Outbox/Inbox Alternate" toolbar button and replaced it with a "Check linked HTML files" button. The former command is still available on the main window "View" menu.
• Fixed a bug that caused the speller to attempt to use Location and Document-Specific Dictionaries even when the document resided on a read-only medium such as a CD-ROM.
• Added an internal web browser to the Web Lookup dialog. This will appear if you have Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher installed on your system. Otherwise, your default browser will be used as before. When the internal browser is available, MicroSpell always invokes the Web Lookup dialog no matter how you request a web lookup. MicroSpell's Web Lookup shortcut now places an entry on the taskbar while it is running so you can find it more easily if it disappears behind other windows.
• By default, MicroSpell now automatically propagates the contents of the LSD when you are checking a group of files (such as a web site) and they are spread over two or more (sub)directories. This keeps you from having to re-accept (and save) a word that is known from an earlier "Save" to an LSD in a different subdirectory. You can disable this behavior on the "User Dictionaries" tab of the "General Preferences" dialog.
• When you check a file using MicroSpell's Emacs or Epsilon support, the speller does not attempt to check linked or "included" files, i.e., it checks just the file requested. This avoids the potential problem (in Emacs, at least) of changing a file on the disk without updating the same file in memory.

Changes From v9.1c to v9.1d

• When you create a new dictionary, the "View/Edit" dialog is now launched automatically. Use the "Browse for File" button to add a list of words to the new dictionary.
• MicroSpell now saves three different sizes (and positions) for the main window: one for when a spell check is not in progress, one for when the Inbox is open, and one for when the Spell Check dialog is open. The saved data are updated when windows are closed.
• Fixed a bug associated with automatically showing the Document List dialog after closing the Spell Check dialog. If you experienced any crashes under these conditions, this was likely the cause. This problem only affected the previous version, i.e. v9.1c.
• Added an option to the Web Lookup dialog that enables you to look up a whole list of words at once. MicroSpell's internal browser caches the results which you can view rapidly using the "Forward" and "Back" buttons.
• Modified the hotkey spell checking function to create and use script files with names specific to the application which created the window whose text you are checking. This means that you can now have different copy and paste scripts for different programs even if they use the same window class. If a copy scrip with a new "extended" file name does not exist, the speller uses the old one. Currently, this new naming convention is not available if MicroSpell is running under Windows NT; in this case, the old scheme is used. We've used this extension to provide hotkey spell check scripts for Netscape (web page edit boxes) and Opera e-mail subject and text fields.
• When a hotkey spell check finds no misspellings, MicroSpell briefly shows the main window along with the self-closing "No Misspellings" dialog. This provides visual feedback on exactly what was checked and makes the behavior of the main window consistent with respect to keyboard focus which is important for a few of the hotkey copy/paste scripts.

Changes From v9.1c to v9.1e

• The "Open Previous File" and "Open Next Unchecked File" arrow buttons on the main speller window toolbar are now active during spell checking whenever there is a "next" or "previous" file available to be opened. The "next" button ends the current spell check immediately, gives you an opportunity to save any changes you have already made, then opens the next unchecked file. The "previous" button works similarly except that it does not initiate a spell check when the previous file is opened, even if the "Auto Spell Check on File Open is Enabled" and the file has not yet been checked. (This prevents the speller from quickly checking and closing files that have no suspects.)
• Changed the text that appears in the title bar when the current document has been changed form "(modified)" to "(unsaved changes)" which is more accurate.
• You can now select multiple lookup destinations in the Web Lookup list box. The internal browser will visit each of the selected sites and cache the results. You can view the results using the "back" and "forward" arrows. You can only visit multiple sites if the internal browser is available; if the speller has to launch your default browser, it will visit only the first selected site.
• Tweaked the algorithm the speller uses to color recognized word fragments to reduce the number of irrelevant colorings.
• Fixed a bug that caused an "Accept All" command to be issued for a suspect that you dragged from the Inbox and dropped on a user dictionary, even if the "Remove" checkbox was enabled. The suspect is now accepted only if the "Remove" checkbox is not checked.
• When adding user dictionaries to pop-up menus, the speller now first adds the open ones followed by the ones that are closed, up to the limit of 10. This enables you to be sure the one you want is present by simply opening it. (Note, this will only affect you if you have so many user dictionaries that some were not being listed on the pop-up menus before.)
• Fixed a bug that caused the "Dictionary Advice" dialog to be shown again if you chose the "Do It for Me" option when the "Dictionaries" dialog was not open.
• The speller now handles accented characters in HTML mode.

Changes From v9.1e to v9.1f

• When you accept a noncontiguous group of suspects, the speller shows the locations of the first and last lines removed from the Inbox using the selection highlight (for the first) and a heavier grid line (for the last).
• Added an optional mouseover selection margin to the Inbox and Outbox. This appears as a colored area to the left of the icon. Rolling the mouse cursor into this region toggles the selection state of the corresponding line, i.e. deselects the line if it was selected, and vice versa. You can enable/disable this option for both Inbox and Outbox using "Show | Inbox/Outbox Mouseover Selection Bar" on the Inbox right mouse button pop-up menu.
• The "Learn Remaining Words" dialog is now off by default. Most of its functionality has been duplicated on two new Inbox buttons: "+Accept" and "+DSD" (or "+LSD" when appropriate). These buttons are colored and function just like the "Done" button, except that they save the remaining Inbox suspects first, i.e. they work exactly like the analogous buttons on the "Learn Remaining Words" dialog. If you prefer to continue using the dialog, you can enable it using the Inbox right mouse button pop-up menu "Show" command.
• Fixed a problem with Epsilon support under certain versions of Windows NT. If you experienced problems launching the speller from inside Epsilon under NT, install the updated version of "spell.e" included in this distribution. (Search for "Epsilon" in the on-line help for details.)
• A new "Contains 'Uncommon' Words" property can now be associated with compressed (main) and user dictionaries. Suspects matching entries in these dictionaries will not be silently accepted; instead, they are listed in the Outbox with the "newly recognized" icon (green light with letter "N" inside). Also, these words will generally appear lower on the guess list. This helps address the conflicting requirements of having a large dictionary to minimize the number of false alarms while at the same time having a more limited dictionary to catch typos that accidentally match obscure words. For informal writing, you can mostly ignore this distinction; when you want to be more careful, you can simply review the "uncommon" words in the Outbox, which will be grouped at or near then end. In other words, you don't have to remember to set any options or change any modes to take advantage of this feature.
• It is now even easier to apply MicroSpell's grouping commands. When the Inbox is sorted in any way except by category icon (in other words, when the grey square icons are used), clicking on a grey square icon next to a suspect will select and group that and all similar suspects. If a particular suspect can be grouped several ways (e.g. upper case, short word, etc.), clicking the same icon repeatedly will show them. The word whose icon you clicked will be moved to the top of the list; this makes it easy to find if you need to click it repeatedly. The title bar now shows the grouping criterion.
• MicroSpell can now create an auto-correction pair automatically whenever you give a Replace All command; to activate this, click the new Make Auto-Correction entries following "Replace All" commands option on the Options | General Preferences | Spell Checking dialog. This enables the speller to learn the errors you tend to make and correct them automatically, if you wish. When this option is enabled, you can make changes without creating auto-corrections by using the "Replace One" command, or simply remove the auto-corrections after they have been created in the Auto-cor.AC user dictionary (see the following item). Even if you use the speller often, it will probably take a month or more before you notice frequent auto-corrections. This option is available only in registered versions of the speller.
• You can now remove entries from auto-correction dictionaries via drag-and-drop or cut-and-paste. You need not set the Remove checkbox for this operation because Remove is the only option available when you drag or paste Clipboard text into an auto-correction dictionary. This is an easy way to remove an occasional automatically created auto-correction if you forget or choose not to use the "Replace One" command (see previous item). There is also an Outbox pop-up menu item that does the same thing (see below).
• When you collapse a multiline selection in the Inbox by clicking anywhere or pressing ".", the speller now displays a small dialog which gives you an opportunity to reselect the lines that were deselected. You can do this even after making corrections or accepting suspects; this is very handy when you are grouping suspects. For example, you can fix a few errors, then quickly regroup to accept all of the remaining suspects.
• For greater consistency with standard list box behavior, the Inbox and Outbox now clear their selections when they lose focus and restore them when they regain focus.
• When you edit a user dictionary and save the results (via the View/Edit dialog), the disk file is updated immediately. Previously, the disk version was not updated until you closed the speller.
• If you are running two instances of MicroSpell with the same user dictionary open in each one, they will attempt to ensure that both instances are using the same list of words even if you modify it in only one of them. They check for changes before and after a spell check, before opening and after closing the View/Edit or Lookup/Replace dialog, and automatically read in or write out the changes, as appropriate. If, despite these checks, you mange to change a user dictionary (differently) both on disk and in memory, the words in memory will overwrite those in the disk file when you exit from the speller (as in previous versions).
• A new installer option enables you to place a MicroSpell icon (a red check mark) in the taskbar system tray so the speller remains readily available but without an intrusive taskbar button. You can display the speller anytime by clicking the tray icon. If you double-click the tray icon, the speller will check the contents of the Clipboard if it contains text. If you press <Alt> while double-clicking, the speller will perform a web lookup of the word on the Clipboard using the default lookup destination. You can also right-click on the tray icon to see a menu of commands. Most of these duplicate the functions just described, but let you decide, for example, whether the speller will do a normal spell check or display the Lookup dialog. Before this menu is displayed, the word on the Clipboard (if any) is spell checked and a menu option inserted that either verifies that the spelling is OK or leads to a submenu of suggested alternatives. The "Shut Down Speller" command will close the speller and remove the icon from the system tray (this is the only way to temporarily remove the tray icon). While you are running the speller from the system tray, the normal speller close commands (e.g. the "x" in the upper right corer of the main window) hide the speller window(s), but do not remove the icon from the system tray. The speller remains available for hotkey spell checking and other functions. The tray icon feature is controlled by a MicroSpell shortcut in the StartUp folder: you can remove it to permanently remove the tray icon or add a new shortcut to enable it if you did not have the installer add one. If you create a new shortcut, be sure to add the "-b" option separated from the speller name (ms32.exe) by a space.
• A new "Do Once" checkbox on the Dictionaries dialog lets you set one or more of the options that remove, split, or convert words to lower case so that they take effect only for the word(s) you are currently dragging-and-dropping or pasting and then automatically switch off.
• A new Outbox popup menu item ("Remove Selected Auto-Correction") enables you to easily remove an entry from the auto-correction dictionary. You'll find this useful if you unintentionally make an auto-correction as a side-effect of a Replace All command. This option is disabled unless you have selected a single Outbox line and there is an auto-correction entry in the current default auto-correction dictionary for that word.
• For greater consistency, the same coloring scheme that is used to color suspects in the Inbox and Spell Check dialog is now used in the Replacement Box of the Lookup/Replace dialog.

Changes From v9.1f to v9.1g

• Modified the (optional) auto-accept function for web related suspects to match suspects containing one or more backslash characters (e.g. "foo\bar") and two or more forward slashes (e.g. "foo/bar/bas").
• Fixed a bug which could cause a crash when the tray icon was right-clicked while the Clipboard contained certain long text strings.
• Added a dialog to report Auto-Corrections and "uncommon" suspects that have been accepted. This dialog displays information that is already available via the Outbox, however users of the Spell Check dialog do not normally see the Outbox so this dialog shows potentially important information. If you normally use the Inbox for spell checking, you might still want to see this dialog to force your attention to the fact that MicroSpell performed auto-corrections and/or accepted "uncommon" words. If you are checking important documents, it's a good idea to always scan the "uncommon" words because occasionally a typo will convert the word you intended to write into a correctly spelled, but inappropriate, word. You can control whether or not this dialog appears via the "Options | General Preferences | Spell Checking" dialog or by using the new "Fussiness" control (see below).
• Added a button to the statistics dialog that the speller displays after you finish correcting a document using the Spell Check dialog. The "Show Outbox for Review/Undo" button works exactly like the "Show List" button on the Spell Check dialog, but it gives you the option to "back up" after you have finished the spell check. This is especially useful if the only suspects were auto-accepted and you did not have an opportunity to give any Spell Check dialog commands. In earlier versions, your only option at this point was to either save the document or not. Now you can view the Outbox and undo one or more of your earlier actions, or simply review how all of the suspects were handled. This capability gives users of the Spell Check dialog the same degree of control that users of the Inbox/Outbox combination already enjoy.
• The Dictionaries dialog now displays a status message that changes as you move the cursor during a drag-and-drop operation. The message tells what will happen if you drop the Clipboard contents as that point. Similarly, the "Paste" item on the pop-up menu has additional text that tells what will happen if you paste where you clicked.
• The Status Message Log function has been improved by color-coding certain types of operations. For example, "Replace" commands (which modify the document) are shown in red; user dictionary additions are shown in green. A "View Doc. List" button displays the Document List dialog which has a list of all the documents you've checked plus those waiting to be checked. Clicking the newly added "Details" button for a document you have checked will display the Status Message Log window and scroll to the details for that document. The Log window is now a modeless dialog so you can leave it open if you want. There is no longer a 32K size limit on the log.
• Added a "fussiness" dialog with a slider control that makes it easier to modify spell checking options. The slider settings range from "Strict" to "Lax" and let you easily adjust the balance between the amount of effort required (more suspects) and the possibility of a misspelling or inappropriate word slipping by (fewer suspects). Virtually all of the settings controlled by the slider can also be controlled from other dialogs, but not as easily or conveniently. There are also three presets so you can quickly change the pickiness to match the task. One of the presets can be automatically (and temporarily) applied during hotkey spell checking. The dialog, which you can launch by clicking the toolbar button next to the red spell check button, contains a help box with additional information.
• Fixed an obscure bug that caused abnormal spelling tooltip and user dictionary behavior if you edited the main dictionary and used the spell check function without closing and restarting the speller.
• When you create a copy script for hotkey spell checking, you can now have the speller save the current setting of the option that controls whether rich text is accepted (if available) from the Clipboard. This saved setting will temporarily override the current setting whenever you run the script. This means that you can have the speller automatically refuse rich text when you are checking a browser screen. This might be necessary to get hotkey spell checking to work properly with certain versions of Internet Explorer, and it generally improves things by reducing the visual clutter no matter which browser you are using. On the other hand, if you are losing formatting information during hotkey spell checking, you can ensure that rich text is not refused in that situation.
• Fixed a bug that caused a crash or other unusual behavior when the keyboard shortcut <F4> was used to close the Inbox under certain conditions.
• Fixed a bug in the code used to import Ispell words lists that caused invalid cross products to be created when a prefix flag without a '*' attribute was encountered.
• While checking a document, you can now switch to the main window and edit the text without explicitly cancelling the spell check. If you modify the text, the document will be rechecked automatically when you return to the Inbox/Outbox or Spell Check dialog. This enables you to easily make changes (such as removing a space that accidentally divides a word) that you cannot do by editing or replacing the current suspect. If the document is quite long and requires numerous such edits, it would be more efficient to use the Inbox to set a bookmark on each suspect that must be edited, then do them all during one long edit session to avoid rechecking the document many times. You can use the shortcut Alt+/ to set a breakpoint on the currently selected word, and Alt+J to advance ("jump") through the bookmarks.
• Made many small changes, such as clarifying tool tip text and fixing some minor bugs.

Changes From v9.1g to v9.1h

• While checking a web site by following links, MicroSpell will now attempt to open (and check) a file named "index.html" or "index.htm" if the link does not contain a file name.
• Modified the installation program to install for either the current user or for all users.
• If you are adding a MicroSpell tray icon, the program now checks for a running version and will not add a duplicate.
• Added a Web Lookup option to request that MicroSpell use an external browser instead of the built-in one when Web Lookup is launched in certain ways (e.g. by using the <Ctrl+W> hotkey). This can be useful to work around a bug that sometimes causes the browser control to hang on certain sites (see the FAQ for more information).
• Removed the "Quick Start" dialog button from the toolbar and disabled it by default. (If you were accustomed to using it, you can still launch it by pressing <F1> in the main speller window.)
• Fixed a few obscure bugs and made several minor changes.