[OS X Emacs] Check Spelling for English and Bulgarian in Aquamacs

Wed Jul 15 12:38:10 EDT 2020

Hi Nathaniel and Win,

I'm very happy that you are taking this seriously!

and:
Hi David, by assuming that you are reading this, or will do so, at some
point,

Aquamacs is a wonderful working friend. I write everything with it, not
only LaTeX. I was quite distressed the last few days, by getting it in
trouble. We all want everything better-and-better.

Best Regards,
Roussanka

On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 4:46 PM Nathaniel Cunningham <
nathaniel.cunningham at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Roussanka and Win,
> I wrote most of the elisp code to tie NSSpellChecker into the Emacs ispell
> functionality. (Using C code by David Reitter.) I would be happy to look
> into this at some point in the future, but I don't have time this summer.
> How easy it would be (for me) to add your requested features depends on
> which level of code needs updated. Anyway, keep me posted with issues,
> fixes, requests, etc.
>
> Nathaniel Cunningham
>
> On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 9:34 AM Win Treese <treese at acm.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi, Roussanka. I’m glad that the system is working better for you now.
>>
>> I’ll put the language question on the list for future work. At the moment
>> I don’t know enough about the Apple spelling code to know what it would
>> take to do that.
>>
>>  - Win
>>
>> > On Jul 14, 2020, at 4:18 PM, Roussanka Loukanova <rl.stpuu at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi Win,
>> >
>> > A quick check: have you rebooted since uninstalling cocoAspell? Since
>> it installs with a preference pane, it’s possible that a reboot would clean
>> up some more after uninstalling it. If that works, great!
>> >
>> > I had done that, but it didn't help. I think uninstalling cocoAspell
>> took away some of the settings of Aquamacs that I had. Here is what I did,
>> thanks to your explanations, and solved the major problem for spelling
>> English, and Swedish, to some degree.
>> >
>> > By default, Aquamacs uses the Mac OS spelling software, and it does so
>> through the usual “ispell” interface code in Emacs.
>> >
>> > You can verify that you are using the Mac spelling system by looking at
>> the value of ispell-program-name, which should be “NSSpellChecker”.  One
>> way to see it through the menus is Edit->Spelling->Customize, and then
>> looking for “Ispell Program Name” in the buffer that pops up.
>> >
>> > Yes, it is NSSpellChecker. Thanks! Without telling me this, I was
>> confused about it, because I had expected Aspell.
>> >
>> > From what you described, that may not be the problem. As far as I know,
>> the cocoAspell distribution is a bit old, and may not work correctly on
>> Catalina. A quick google search didn’t find anyone talking about that. The
>> problem you mentioned was installing dictionaries, and it seems likely that
>> Catalina made it harder to do things like that.
>> >
>> > Yes, indeed.
>> > If rebooting doesn’t help, and Aquamacs is set properly, then you could
>> try typing in TextEdit to see if you see the same problem with bad
>> suggestions.
>> >
>> > This is a good test, which I had tried, but it didn't help me with what
>> Aquamacs.
>> >
>> > The languages use for the checking are set for the Mac (which then
>> apply to Aquamacs) in the System Preferences->Keyboard->Text pane.
>> >
>> > Now, after already knowing that NSSpellChecker is the right
>> ispell-program-name, I've solved the major problem for spelling English
>> text with it. But there are issues that puzzle me. Here is what I did:
>> >
>> > In System Preferences->Keyboard->Text pane:
>> > I had in the pull-down menu:
>> >  Spelling: Automatic by Language
>> > But, by opening any file in Aquamacs, even only with English text and
>> with misspelled words for tests, I had:
>> >
>> > - misspelled words underlined
>> > - "Esc $" didn't give good suggestions, and, often, gave no suggestions
>> >
>> > That was because despite selecting Spelling: Automatic by Language,
>> the default language was all the time with Swedish, by looking at the top
>> bar of Aquamacs:
>> > ... dict: sv -- prog: NSSpellChecker
>> >
>> > Now, after your explanations, by knowing that NSSpellChecker is the
>> correct program, I focussed on fixing the value dict: sv to en_GB, by:
>> >
>> > (1) selecting en_GB, from Aquamacs' menu:
>> > Edit > Spelling > Change Dictionary...
>> > but that set only the local dictionary to en_GB, and in a next session
>> with Aquamacs, it still was dict: sv.
>> >
>> > (2) System Preferences->Keyboard->Text pane:
>> > in the pull-down menu, I selected:
>> >  Spelling: British English
>> >
>> > I quitted Aquamacs, rebooted the Mac, opened the same file with text in
>> English and misspelled words, and spelling was fine, to my great relief!
>> >
>> > After that, I set:
>> >
>> > (3) System Preferences->Keyboard->Text pane:
>> >  Spelling: Automatic by Language
>> >
>> > The dictionary is globally set to British Language.
>> > I open a file having portions of English and Swedish texts, and
>> misspelled words in both languages. All words get spell checked for British
>> English. When I get to a misspelled word, and know that it's in Swedish, I
>> can get it spelled by changing to Swedish dictionary sv, in two alternative
>> ways:
>> >
>> > (a)
>> > Edit > Spelling > Change Dictionary...
>> > (b)
>> > Edit > Spelling > Show Spelling Panel
>> >
>> > Each of these alternatives changes the spelling to Swedish, sv, or what
>> I select, for the entire session, in case I do not change it again. But, at
>> least, after Quit, Aquamacs keeps the en_GB, as the global dictionary, and
>> it also keeps:
>> >
>> > System Preferences->Keyboard->Text pane:
>> > Spelling: Automatic by Language
>> >
>> > For Automatic by Language, I'd expect that the program would recognise
>> language dictionaries by words. There should be a pane to select several
>> languages, i.e., dictionaries, for automatic look up through their
>> dictionaries (at least, for the selected languages). Apple has the option
>> Spelling: Automatic by Language.
>> >
>> > At least, this is my wish for a future Aquamacs. (This works very well
>> in Gmail!)
>> >
>> > Finally, you could install the command line aspell program with
>> Homebrew, and then customize ispell-program-name to use that.
>> >
>> > I'll see if I can dare that, because it seems more adventurous to me,
>> and I do not want to get Aquamacs messed up, again, while I have work.
>> >
>> > It would be great if future Aquamacs has Aspell as an option, by some
>> selections. So, for now, I have two wishes for Aquamacs.
>> >
>> > If you have some suggestions, esp. for Automatic by Language, it would
>> be great. It's already great that you've helped with NSSpellChecker.
>> >
>> > Thank you very much!
>> > Best Regards,
>> > Roussanka
>> >
>> > - Win
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > > On Jul 12, 2020, at 8:25 PM, Roussanka Loukanova <rl.stpuu at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > Dear Win, Dear All,
>> > >
>> > > I hope you can help me to fix the Check Spelling in Aquamacs. Up to
>> recent, it used to work excellently for English: with LaTeX, in plain text
>> (.txt files), with html. I think I had it with Aspell, or with what it was
>> by downloading and installing Aquamacs. I only set Fly mode, and few other
>> things.
>> > >
>> > > I'm with:
>> > >
>> > > MacBook Air, 13" (2017)
>> > > macOS Catalina, v.10.15.5
>> > >
>> > > Aquamacs 3.5
>> > >
>> > > The spell checking in Aquamacs has become messed up, i.e., worsened,
>> after my attempts to get spelling for Bulgarian and Swedish, and in
>> particular, by attempts to get that by cocoAspell.
>> > >
>> > > I downloaded, unpacked, and installed cocoAspell (by giving it
>> permissions). But then the Spelling pane in System Preferences couldn't
>> install any dictionaries, not even for English. I uninstalled cocoAspell,
>> by the instructions on its website. After that Spell Checking has worsened
>> in Aquamacs.
>> > >
>> > > Now, by random tests, I get misspelled words, underlined as
>> misspelled, but with inappropriate suggestions, or without any choices.
>> E.g., for "unsucsessful", with "Esc-$", the list of offered corrections is
>> empty. I only get "C-h or ? for more options: ..."
>> > >
>> > > Before these attempts, I used to get good optional choices for
>> misspelled words of English, with Fly Spell.
>> > >
>> > > Now, my questions are:
>> > >
>> > > (1) How to fix the spell checking for English?
>> > > Perhaps Aquamacs came with GNU Aspell, and now it's with something
>> else. The dictionary for EN is STANDARD:
>> > > Edit > Spelling > Customize...
>> > > Subgroups: FliSpell
>> > > Flyspell Default Dictionary: Value Menu Default
>> > >     State : STANDARD.
>> > >
>> > > (2) How to get Spell Checking for Bulgarian in Aquamacs?
>> > >
>> > > Here is what I've tried, without cocoAspell:
>> > >
>> > > I downloaded aspell6-bg-4.1-0.tar.bz2 from:
>> > > https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/aspell/dict/0index.html
>> > >
>> > > I unzipped and tried installation of the dictionary
>> (aspell6-bg-4.1-0) from the Terminal:
>> > >
>> > > - by instructions inside aspell6-bg-4.1-0/README:
>> > >
>> > > $ ./configure
>> > > Finding Dictionary file location ... /usr/local/lib/aspell-0.60
>> > > Finding Data file location ... /usr/local/lib/aspell-0.60
>> > >
>> > > After that, I get the following error, which I do not know how to fix:
>> > >
>> > > $ make
>> > > xcrun: error: invalid active developer path
>> (/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools), missing xcrun at:
>> /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/xcrun
>> > >
>> > > Spell Checking and Grammar works in some of the applications:
>> > >
>> > > - Gmail (I'm especially pleased, as of now)
>> > > - MS Word: even if I have very limited experence  with MS, I could
>> easily check the Help menue how to do it.
>> > >
>> > > (3) After I fix (1)-(2), I would like to have Aquamacs with spell
>> checking Swedish (Svenska).
>> > >
>> > > Best Regards,
>> > > Roussanka
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > _____________________________________________________________
>> > > MacOSX-Emacs mailing list
>> > > MacOSX-Emacs at email.esm.psu.edu
>> > > https://email.esm.psu.edu/mailman/listinfo/macosx-emacs
>> > > List Archives: http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.macintosh.osx
>> >
>> >
>> > _____________________________________________________________
>> > MacOSX-Emacs mailing list
>> > MacOSX-Emacs at email.esm.psu.edu
>> > https://email.esm.psu.edu/mailman/listinfo/macosx-emacs
>> > List Archives: http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.macintosh.osx
>> >
>> > _____________________________________________________________
>> > MacOSX-Emacs mailing list
>> > MacOSX-Emacs at email.esm.psu.edu
>> > https://email.esm.psu.edu/mailman/listinfo/macosx-emacs
>> > List Archives: http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.macintosh.osx
>>
>>
>> _____________________________________________________________
>> MacOSX-Emacs mailing list
>> MacOSX-Emacs at email.esm.psu.edu
>> https://email.esm.psu.edu/mailman/listinfo/macosx-emacs
>> List Archives: http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.macintosh.osx
>>
>
> _____________________________________________________________
> MacOSX-Emacs mailing list
> MacOSX-Emacs at email.esm.psu.edu
> https://email.esm.psu.edu/mailman/listinfo/macosx-emacs
> List Archives: http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.macintosh.osx
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://email.esm.psu.edu/pipermail/macosx-emacs/attachments/20200715/a23a34db/attachment.htm>