Subject: Re: Spell checking with pine

From: [email-masked] (Peter Whittaker)
Date: 7 Mar 1996 16:52:56 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Bill Jenuwine  <[email-masked]> wrote:
>So if by default, Pine uses the simple Unix spell checker, how can I 
>change this default AND/OR specify my own alternate dictionary for words 

It took a bit, but I found the answer in the pico man page:  set the
environment variable SPELL to the name of an external spelling checker
which reads stdin and writes to stdout.

Sadly, this is not the most useful way of doing things:  IWBNI pico
could pass the spell checker a file, then suck that file back in once
the spell checker exited successfully.

pww

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From: Bill Jenuwine <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 10:08:39 -0500

When composing a message the help screen indicates that:

"Pine can call an external spell checking program to look over the message
you are composing.  By default, Pine uses the simple Unix spell checker."

So if by default, Pine uses the simple Unix spell checker, how can I 
change this default AND/OR specify my own alternate dictionary for words 
not found in the main dictionary list.  I can see nothing in SETUP CONFIG 
that tells how to do this or how to specify a non-default spell checker.  
I hope I wouldn't have to do this via compile time switches.

I am using Pine V3.91

=========================+============================
Bill Jenuwine            | Internet: [email-masked]
Ford Motor Company       |
=========================+============================

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From: [email-masked] (Paul L Schumann)
Date: 8 Mar 1996 00:16:14 GMT

Bill Jenuwine ([email-masked]) wrote:
: So if by default, Pine uses the simple Unix spell checker, how can I 
: change this default AND/OR specify my own alternate dictionary for words 
: not found in the main dictionary list.

Most Unix systems have a program called ispell, which is a good,
interactive spell checker program that allows one to add words to a
custom dictionary.  The only "trick" is to get Pine to use ispell.

Here's an easy way:  go into the Pine configuration screen and turn on
enable-alternate-editor-cmd.  Then, after you have composed your
message, hit CTRL+_ (that is, hold down the control key and hit the
underline -- remember to get the underline you need to hold down the
shift key, so you're actually holding down both the control key and the
shift key).  This will pop up the question "Which alternate editor?"
Type ispell (and hit enter) and the ispell program will spell check
your message, and allow you to make corrections and add words to your
personal dictionary.

By the way, this method also lets you use other editors besides pico for
composing your e-mail.  For example, I prefer to use the vi editor.  So,
when I compose a message, after I've filled in the header information, I
hit CTRL+_, then type vi (and hit enter), compose my message in vi, exit
vi using the usual vi command (:wq), hit CTRL+_ again, then type ispell
to spell check it.

Hope this helps.

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  Professor of Management   |  Office Phone:              (507) 389-5349
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From: [email-masked] (Peter Whittaker)
Date: 8 Mar 1996 14:28:07 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
>vi using the usual vi command (:wq), hit CTRL+_ again, then type ispell

That's a bit labour intensive (where "labour intensive" is defined as
having to do anymore that absolutely necessary).  Try the following vi
macro:

    % grep ispell ~/.exrc
    map S :w
:!ispell %
:e %

Edit the file in vi, hit escape to get back to command mode (as you
would prior to entering :wq), hit S to spell check the file, then enter
:wq to quit vi and return to pico/pine.

Note:  ^M is entered using vi's escape mechanism:  ^V^M.  And of course
you can use almost any keys you like to invoke the macro, e.g., ^Xsp.

pww

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From: [email-masked] (Aaron M. Scarisbrick)
Date: 12 Mar 1996 02:46:42 GMT

Paul L Schumann ([email-masked]) wrote:
: Most Unix systems have a program called ispell, which is a good,
: interactive spell checker program that allows one to add words to a
: custom dictionary.  The only "trick" is to get Pine to use ispell.

Yes, I spent a fair amount of time porting ispell to Pyramid's DC/OSx, and
found out the hard way that there is no easy way (that is obvious to me) to 
integrate ispell with pine's editor, pico.  The only way I can see is by
someone hacking up spell.c in pico's source to write out to a temp file as
it normally does, then pass that file as an argument to ispell, and then
re-read the file after ispell exits.

Unfortunately this is just beyond the scope of my skills just just now, but
I can recognize what exactly needs to change, and where to change it.  If
somebody out there has already been this route, I'd appreciate whatever help
they would be willing to lend, and/or their diff against spell.c ;-)

Thanks in advance,

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aaron M. Scarisbrick              The smoker you drink, the player you get.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
[email-masked]                           http://www.xmission.com/~aaron
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

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From: Clifford Wesley Fulford <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 13:30:25 +0000 (GMT)

Aaron

You can use ispell within the editor by going to (S)etup (C)config from 
the main menu and selecting 'enable_alternate_editor_cmd'. If you never 
want to use any other commands you can then set 'editor' to 'ispell'. Now 
the command ^_ when composing will run ispell. If you want to run other 
commands on your composition eg vi then leave 'editor' blank and the 
command ^_ will prompt you with the value of VISUAL (or EDITOR I'm not 
exactly sure which of the top of my head) and you can overwrite this 
with 'ispell'.

> they would be willing to lend, and/or their diff against spell.c ;-)

Clifford W Fulford
University of North London
ISS-UNIX development
E-mail:     [email-masked]
            [email-masked]
            [email-masked]
Telephone:  0171-607-2789 x 7314. Home 0181-986-5239

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From: David L Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 15:15:35 -0800 (PST)

> custom dictionary.  The only "trick" is to get Pine to use ispell.

In the current Pine 3.92 release, you cna go to the Setup/Config
screen and set

	speller=ispell

|\ |  |\/|  David L. Miller    [email-masked]  (206) 685-6240
|/ |_ |  |  Software Engineer, Pine Development Team   (206) 685-4045 (FAX)
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