* To obtain a 25,500+ word dictionary file, the full Amos source code for the program, and more, have a look at the "ReadMe.Doc" on this disk. _ __ __ __ __ __ __ / \ | \ | | | / \ | | | / \ | / | | \ \ / | | \ | / | | | | | | | | |/ | | / \/ | o | \ |_/ | |-- | | |--| | | |\ |-- |_/ ~~~~~~~~~~~ \ | | | | | | | | | | \ | | \ © D.Schofield \_/ | |__ |__ |__ \__/ | | | \__/ | \ |__ | \ 1994 ********************************************************************** * * * Splel Chicker V1.1. Coded in August 1994 by Dave Schofield * * Spell Checker and General Dictionary Utility * * * ********************************************************************** CONTENTS ~~~~~~~~ Section 1: Disclaimer Section 2: Introduction Section 3: Loading and System Requirements Section 4: Main Menu Options Section 5: General Information Section 6: Credits ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. DISCLAIMER ~~~~~~~~~~ Splel Chicker and it's associated files are supplied "as-is"; no warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, is given. The program and it's files are to be used solely at the program user's own risk. The program user is therefore liable for any damage, loss of data (or data being rendered inaccurate), or any other losses sustained by either the program user or a third party. IN NO EVENT WILL DAVID SCHOFIELD BE LIABLE FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES RESULTING FROM THE USE OF THE "SPLEL CHICKER" PROGRAM, EVEN IF HE HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITIES OF SUCH DAMAGES. It is recommended that you only use data that has been previously backed up with the program, and that you do not write over any other file when either saving a dictionary file or specifying the output for a spell check operation. Although I have tried to make sure the spelling of words in the dictionary file are correct, there may well be misspelt words in there. You are also advised to check any new words that you add to it with a conventional dictionary. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. INTRODUCTION ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Are you occasionally careless with your spelling? Do you enjoy word games and crosswords? Do you have better things to spend you money on than expensive word processors, but want to make sure that your letters and projects are spelt correctly? Then the answer to your needs is on this very disk. This program was created mainly out of necessity. I already have a spell checker, but this has several faults. Not least of these was the way that it wouldn't load Scribble! files properly, and it bugged up at frequent intervals. This program can cope with Scribble documents, it is faster in nearly all of the searches, and it comes in six attractive colour schemes. If you haven't already had a look at the program, it offers much more than your run of the mill spell checking facilities. You can interrogate the dictionary in many ways: finding anagrams, subgrams, pattern-matching (crosswords), and so on. Read section 2 to find out how to use it properly. After reading this text, have a look at the ReadMe.doc, for details of how to obtain the AMOS source code for it, together with a 25,500+ word dictionary. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. LOADING AND SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Loading ~~~~~~~ Boot from the disk. Double click on the disk icon, then on the "SplelChicker" icon. If the default dictionary can't be found, you will be asked to find another dictionary. Either click on "Quit" to start with a blank dictionary, or find a dictionary file using the file requester (see below for how to use it). The default file is "SC.dict", and should be in the same directory as the main Splel Chicker program. System Requirements ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This program requires an Amiga with at least 1 megabyte of memory. It has been tested on Workbenches 1.3 and 3.0, and works on them both. Presumably it will work on Workbench 2, and hopefully WB 1.2 as well. If you are using WB 1.3, then make sure your boot disk has the "Ram-Handler" in it's L directory. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. MAIN MENU OPTIONS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Spell Check A Document ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is the most complicated and potentially the most useful option offered by the program. Firstly, two files are chosen separately. The first is the input file: the file that you want to be spell checked. This can be any uncompressed ASCII file, saved out from a word processor or text editor using a "Save as ASCII..." function or similar. The second is the output file. This will be created during the spell check process, and at the end will be the spell checked document (ie. a copy of the original file, but with all the corrections made to the spelling). IMPORTANT!!! If you choose a file that already exists as the output file, that file will be deleted, erased, finished, no more, etc. and replaced with the spell checked document. An extremely important point is to NOT SWAP ANY DISKS BETWEEN SELECTING THE TWO FILES. This is because both files are continually accessed by the program during spell checking. If, for instance, you have only one floppy drive, you will have to output onto the same disk as the original document. Please remember to only use backups of your documents. If the input file is compressed, or contains illegal characters (binary), then the operation will be cancelled. If binary is found, however, you will also be given the chance to remove the offending characters, after which the spell checking procedure will continue as normal (but special formatting characters (e.g. underline, bold, etc.) may be lost). The spell checker will now zoom along, displaying which part of the document it is up to as it does so. This will stop as soon as an unknown word is come up against. The unknown word will now appear in the word box, where it can then be edited (by clicking on the box and using as a standard Amiga string gadget). A number of choices are open to you now as to what to do with it, selected by the panel of buttons at the bottom of the screen. "Add to Dict" : This adds the word in the unknown word box to the dictionary, and continues with the spell check. "Ignore" : Ignores the original word, and continues with the spell check starting with the next word. "Ignore All" : Ignores all occurences of the original word in the rest of the document. "Replace" : Replaces the original word with that in the unknown word box. "Replace All" : Replaces all occurrences of the original word with the word in the unknown word box. NB. The same casing is kept for the replacement word, eg.: splel would be replaced by spell Splel would be replaced by Spell SPLEL would be replaced by SPELL "Suggestions" : Brings up a list of suggestions as to what the word in the unknown word box might have meant to have been. The 'depth' of these is determined by the appropriate Preferences setting. Examples of suggestions: Splel could suggest Spell Chicker could suggest Checker (or Chicken) The suggestions are placed in the suggestions list. If the list has more than five entries, then it can be scrolled by using the scrollbar and arrows next to it. Again, suggestions try to have the same casing as the original word (see 'Replace All'). By clicking on one of the words in the suggestions box, the word in the unknown word box is replaced by this. This can then be Replaced into the document, or whatever. By clicking on the document itself, the original unknown word is put back into the word box. "Exit" : This is used to terminate the spell check. This can be used at any time, not just when an unknown word is found. To clarify some of the functions described here, you should try to spell check the "Spell_Check_Me!" document: read it as it is checked, and do what it says. This will explain all the functions of the spell check process, in an interactive tutorial type thing. Anagrams ~~~~~~~~ Enter a word using keyboard and cursor keys in the normal way. All the known anagrams of it will be found. E.g. Entering the letters "nomady" would give you two anagrams, MONDAY and DYNAMO. Subgrams ~~~~~~~~ Enter a word, and all the known subgrams will be listed. The subgrams that it finds will be governed by the preferences set. E.g. Entering the word "Manchester" will give a large list of words such as REST, TEASE, CHEER, etc. All of these words can be made by using only a certain amount of the letters in the original word, in different orders. Crosswords ~~~~~~~~~~ This will find words that match the pattern that you enter. Enter your word, typing in "?"'s for letters that are unknown, e.g.: ?e? will find all three letter words with E as the second letter. ???? will find all four letter words. r??e will find all four letter words beginning with R, and ending with E. Search For A Word ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Simply searches the dictionary for the word that you have entered. You will then be told if it is found or not. Add A Word ~~~~~~~~~~ Adds the word that you have entered to the dictionary in memory. Delete A Word ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Deletes the word that you have entered, if it is part of the dictionary in the first place. You may find that it is quicker to use the "Browse" function if you want to delete more than one word. Begins with... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Searches for all the words that begin with the letters you have entered. E.g. entering "fre" could give you FREQUENT, FRESHEN, FRETFUL, and so on. Ends with.... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Searches for all the words that end with the letters you have entered. E.g. entering "gate" could find CONGREGATE, OBLIGATE, RELEGATE, etc. This function is quite useful for finding rhymes for words. Contains.... ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Searches for all the words that contain the sequence of letters you have entered. E.g. typing in "lop" could return the words SLOPE, GALLOP, XYLOPHONE, etc. Browse ~~~~~~ Allows you to browse through the dictionary. On the left of the screen, there is a list which can contain about 20 words. Clicking on a word enters it into the 'Current Word' box. Once it is in there, it may be deleted by clicking on the 'Delete Word' box. You can scroll up and down the list of words (if there is more than 20) by using the slider bar and scroll gadgets immediately to the right of the list. These work in much the same way as Workbench sliders do. The list of words is governed by two parameters: the initial letter and the length of the word. These can both be changed by either using the appropriate arrow buttons, or by clicking on the boxes containing these parameters and entering the new parameters via the keyboard. Please note: the lists of words are not in alphabetical order. This is due to the fact that when a new word is added, it is stuck onto the end of the word lists. This is because it is actually quicker (and easier) to add them this way. Merge Dictionary ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **** This allows you to merge a standard dictionary with the current SC * dictionary. * * The dictionary you want to merge should conform to the following * standards: * - Pure ASCII file * - Each word should be separated by a CHR$(10) (a single ). * - No words over 40 letters long. * * For example, the file should look a little like this: F * E * Aardvark A * Antelope T * Banana U * Happy R * Joy E * Log * Zymurgy D * I * They don't have to be in any order, but each word should be on it's S * own line. As most PD dictionaries are in this format anyway, you A * shouldn't have too much trouble finding a file like this. B * L * Using this system, you could create a range of 'supplements', each E * based on a particular theme (e.g. medical, chemical, etc.). These D * could each contain words that could be used in these contexts, but are * otherwise fairly redundant. This will then save space in the main ! * dictionary, and just before checking a Chemistry project, you would * merge the supplement in. * * Saving the dictionary any time after this will save everything: the * original dictionary AND the merged dictionary, so it can be used just * to increase the size of your SC dictionary (see the dictionary notes * for the maximum size). * * THIS FEATURE IS NOT AVAILABLE IN THIS VERSION. **** SEE README.DOC FOR DETAILS OF LATEST VERSION. Clear Dictionary ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Clears the dictionary from memory. Use with care. Load A Dictionary ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Loads an SC dictionary. Please note that it can only load dictionaries previously saved with Splel Chicker: it won't understand standard ones (see Merge Dictionary, and also Dictionary Notes below). Save Dictionary ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Saves the dictionary in memory to disk in SC format. If you find that it's taking far too long to save the dictionary, try saving to a 'cleaner' disk (i.e. one with less files on). This speeds things up enormously. Preferences ~~~~~~~~~~~ Brings up the preferences screen. Here you can toggle the type of text loaded into it (ASCII or Scribble!), change the subgram format, alter the colour scheme, change the depth of the suggestions, turn the sound on and off, and load and save the settings. Whatever word processor you use, try both the file settings, to see which gives the best results. Changing the subgram format will speed up the search for subgrams, by only showing the ones you want to see. You can choose to: "All": show all the subgrams, regardless of length. "= Limit": only those that are the length specified as the 'limit' "<= Limit": the ones of length less than or equal to the 'limit', or "=> Limit": those that are larger or equal to the 'limit'. For example, setting 'less than or equal to' and changing the limit to 4, it will only display words that have 4 or less letters. To set the limit, simply click on the box, and type in a new value. To change the colour scheme, click on one of the six presets. The most pleasing ones (in my opinion) are Strawberry and Aqua-Marine. Changing the depth of the suggestions changes the amount of suggestions the program will come up with during a spell check. The deeper the level, the more suggestions it will come up with, but it will take a longer time to come up with them. You can turn the sound on and off using the tick-box (When the box is ticked, sound is turned on). When it is on, there will be a tone sounded when a search is completed, a page of a search is completed, or an unknown word is found in the spell check. You can also load and save the preference settings. The filename you give will automatically have the extension ".Pref" appended to it, and the file will only be 6 bytes long. Quit ~~~~ Ends the program, and returns to Workbench. You are first offered the chance to save the dictionary in memory to disk. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. GENERAL INFORMATION ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The File Requester ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A number of options in the program will require you to use the file requester. As this has been written from scratch, it will be unfamiliar to you. Using it should be fairly intuitive, but here are the full instructions anyway: * Single clicking a filename: If the name in the scroll list was white, it was a directory: the current directory will now change accordingly. If it was a normal file (ie. it was blue), the name of the file will now be put in the filename box. Either clicking on the filename again, or by pressing "Select", the file will be selected as the one that the program will use. * Clicking in the filename box This will allow you to edit the filename in there. Use this if you want to create a new file when you are saving something (get to the correct directory using the scroll list, then type in the filename and press "Select"). * "Disks" Button This will bring up a list of the currently available devices. Select one as you would a normal directory. This list can also be brought up by pressing the right mouse button. * "Parent" Button Takes you to the parent directory, if one is available. * Device Buttons (eg. DF0:, Ram:, DH0:) Click on one of these to go to the root directory of the device displayed on the button. * "Quit" Button Quits the requester and cancels the operation. Dictionary Format ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Splel Chicker uses a completely non-standard dictionary format. Using this format has allowed me to speed up all the searches and spell checking, but has the disadvantage of being incompatible with other dictionaries you may already have (See the "Merge Dictionary" option for details of how to remedy this). The dictionary can handle word lengths up to 40 letters. A quirk of the format is that the words aren't held in alphabetical order. This is again to help speed up the searches, but the lists of words you get back won't be in strict alphabetical order (they are sorted on their first letter and their length only). Apologies if any of these restrictions are an inconvenience. To make the program compatible with as many Amigas as possible, the maximum size of the dictionary is 250K. (This can be changed with a copy of Amos and the source code...) Stopping Searches ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Certain searches in the program (Subgrams in particular) can take a long time to complete. If you change your mind about a search, or just get bored, you can stop any search by pressing both mouse buttons at the same time. Memory ~~~~~~ When the program is started, it automatically grabs a 250K block of memory: if it is not available, then an appropriate error message will be displayed. If you are having problems with this on a one-meg machine, reset your Amiga before loading the program. Adding Words ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Be careful of what words you add to your dictionary. For example, when checking a letter, and the date is something like "26th August", the word "th" will come up as an unknown. Do not add this to your dictionary. If, in another document, you have mis-typed "the", and left the E off, it would go unnoticed by the checker. Remember that the program is basically stupid: it has no idea of what context a word is used in, it just checks for the spelling. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. CREDITS ~~~~~~~ Splel Chicker is © 1994 D. Schofield. Written in compiled Amos Basic by Dave Schofield in 1993-94, using the following software: Amos, Amos Professional, DPaint 3, Scribble!, and TransWrite Jr, on an Amiga 1200. If you have any bugs to report, suggestions for improvement or anything else, please contact me at the address in the ReadMe.doc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------