[Mac OS X TeX] Notes from CocoAspell Author

[Richard Koch]

Folks,

I wrote the author of cocoAspell, Anton Leuski. His spell checker
is based on Aspell, a Unix spell checker by Kevin Atkinson.
Leuski told me he does not read the Mac OS X TeX mailing list.

He then wrote:

"I am aware of some problems with cocoAspell. There seems to be a
mysterious incompatibility with cocoAspell and German. I'm trying to
track this down."

"Aspell does not know about a lot of LaTeX commands. I'm working
on this problem. There will be an interface for extending the TeX command
list in the next version."

I told Leuski that sometimes when I choose "Spelling" to bring up the 
spelling panel
and then ask it to "Find Next," nothing happens even if there are
misspelled words. He wrote

"This may happen. The original Aspell was designed to check whole
documents at a time. Apple's spelling services are interactive."

Leuski has added a FAQ to his web page with interesting information. Note
that cocoAspell is a work in progress.

TeXShop has no special code for cocoAspell. The spelling panel is the
standard Cocoa panel, which automatically detects the presence of 
additional
spelling services and allows users to choose another one. There is no
special support code in TeXShop for that behavior.

Some users report that TeXShop reverts back to the Apple spell checker
after quitting. I cannot reproduce that behavior or explain it. On my 
machine, when
cocoAspell is chosen it becomes the default spell checker in ALL cocoa
applications. Reverting back to Apple's checker in another application
(like TextEdit) reverts back in TeXShop. Maybe I haven't looked long 
enough,
but I see no Cocoa API to pick a particular spelling service.

I'll move Excalibur up on my web page to equal billing with cocoAspell. 
Is there a chance
that Rick Zaccone could convert it to a NSSpellServer?

Dick Koch
koch at math.uoregon.edu




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