4 replies to this topic

[scottop]

1) I am using Mellel 1.7 because it supports unicode (which drives the built-in Apple System Spell Checker crazy). I was hoping Spell Checker would simply replace the Apple thing. It doesn't. (what does "fully integrated" mean?). Is there a way to make this happen?

2) So since it isn't replacing the Apple Spell Checker, I have to diable the interactive spelling in Mellel or the two systems compete. With Mellel not invoking the Apple spelling, SCX gives me the audio feedback, but not the visual feedback (no little red dashed underline). Is there a way around this?

3) Since I can't go back and tell what is misspelled, I tried to select a paragraph and "Check Selection" in SCX. Fine, but when I pasted it back in, it clobbered my footnotes, turning them into regular text. That won't do.

4) Since it takes over the Input, I loose my US Extended keyboard which allows me to access Unicode. This was the whole reason for buying Mellel which made me want to buy SCX. Is there a way around this?

5) This is a general error (I mention it here because perhaps it is related): I can use the interactive features, but the icon never changes to an eye as it said it should in the manual (what? someone reads those????). The checkmark appears next to "Interactive Checking" in the menu, but the menu icon doesn't change.

So I've had this program a half hour, and it just ain't working for me. Help! btw, Mac OS 10.3.2, SCX 10.0.2

[Evan Gross]

scottop, on Feb 6 2004, 03:49 PM, said:

1) I am using Mellel 1.7  because it supports unicode (which drives the built-in Apple System Spell Checker crazy). I was hoping Spell Checker would simply replace the Apple thing. It doesn't. (what does "fully integrated" mean?). Is there a way to make this happen?

2) So since it isn't replacing the Apple Spell Checker, I have to diable the interactive spelling in Mellel or the two systems compete. With Mellel not invoking the Apple spelling, SCX gives me the audio feedback, but not the visual feedback (no little red dashed underline). Is there a way around this?

3) Since I can't go back and tell what is misspelled, I tried to select a paragraph and "Check Selection" in SCX. Fine, but when I pasted it back in, it clobbered my footnotes, turning them into regular text. That won't do.

4) Since it takes over the Input, I loose my US Extended keyboard which allows me to access Unicode. This was the whole reason for buying Mellel which made me want to buy SCX. Is there a way around this?

5) This is a general error (I mention it here because perhaps it is related): I can use the interactive features, but the icon never changes to an eye as it said it should in the manual (what? someone reads those????). The checkmark appears next to "Interactive Checking" in the menu, but the menu icon doesn't change.

So I've had this program a half hour, and it just ain't working for me. Help! btw, Mac OS 10.3.2, SCX 10.0.2

Answers:

1) Choose Edit -> Spelling -> Spelling... Choose a Spell Catcher language from the language popup menu. Now it's working with the spelling panel, and in the case of Mellel, you should probably choose your keyboard layout from the input menu and NOT use the input method for interactive checking, but use the Spelling Panel and check spelling as you type instead.

2) See 1).

3) Have to look into this. Mellel must be doing something special that is "upsetting" the OS X RTF translators. Tell me whether you chose Check Selection from the input menu, or from the Services Menu (preferred), or from the SCX Dock menu.

4) See 1).

5) Make sure the item "Interactive Checking" has a checkmark next to it (this is in Spell Catcher's input menu).

[scottop]

1) 2) 4) Thanks, that works!

3) Curious. It breaks differently depending on what method I use. I can no longer use the menu because of 1 & 2, but that is what did not work before. Choosing the Dock "Check Selection" does the same thing... it puts a *1* where the footnote is in the text, another *1* at the bottom with the footnote text, but when it Pastes the corrections back, it does so with the *1* and the footnote text immediately following instead of making a fottnote again.

When I choose it from the Services menu, the text in your spell check window has a funny character noting the position of the footnote. When I Paste the correction, the old footnote iss replaced with the words "(missing note text)". It also looses the formatting (Perhaps a style sheet problem, this didn't occur with the other methods).

5) Yes, yes it does. I said that in the original note. Since things are working better now, this is not that important. If you can solve the other unicode problem (my other post) I will be cookin' with gas!

[Evan Gross]

scottop, on Feb 6 2004, 10:11 PM, said:

1) 2) 4) Thanks, that works!

3) Curious. It breaks differently depending on what method I use. I can no longer use the menu because of 1 & 2, but that is what did not work before. Choosing the Dock "Check Selection" does the same thing... it puts a *1* where the footnote is in the text, another *1* at the bottom with the footnote text, but when it Pastes the corrections back, it does so with the *1* and the footnote text immediately following instead of making a fottnote again.

When I choose it from the Services menu, the text in your spell check window has a funny character noting the position of the footnote. When I Paste the correction, the old footnote iss replaced with the words "(missing note text)". It also looses the formatting (Perhaps a style sheet problem, this didn't occur with the other methods).

5) Yes, yes it does. I said that in the original note. Since things are working better now, this is not that important. If you can solve the other unicode problem (my other post) I will be cookin' with gas!

The problem is, that it's not Spell Catcher or the Check Selection function/command/window that's putting these odd characters in place of your footnotes - it's Mellel that's doing this.

Try this to prove it to yourself:

Open TextEdit.
Select the same text in Mellel you were using Check Selection with.
Copy to the clipboard.
Paste into TextEdit.

I bet it looks exactly like it does in Spell Catcher - i.e. not quite right.

If an app doesn't put all the information in the selection on the clipboard (publicly, for other apps to "digest"), then it's not possible for all formatting to be maintained.

That said, perhaps Mellel is putting some extra proprietary-format information on the clipboard that SCX *could* theoretically deal with somehow so that pasting doesn't blow it away. Once I'm done getting version 10.1 out the door, I'll see if that's the case.

[scottop]

3)Yes, you are right, and there are certainly bigger issues to work on. I would be surprised if this ever works smoothly because I cannot copy and paste text with footnotes between any applications (MS Word, Mellel, AppleWorks, TextEdit... no combination seems to work) and have the footnotes come through. So I guess its a larger global Mac issue.

And I can simply use the Mac spelling panel to walk through the errors now anyway, so this isn't an important feature.