text editing

[masque]

I agree with Jens. If you have an application with a spell checker then type into that then copy and paste to Xara in manageable chunks of text that can be placed as you wish etc.
I produce various text heavy items in Xara from booklets to menu's (you try spell checking a menu for a Chinese or Indian restaurant), and I produce the text so it can be spell checked in Word and paste in as needed.
I could use Quark, but then I'd have to paste in the graphics; or CorelDraw which would do everything (sort of), including ring the creativity bell and blow a whistle, but the best option I find for sanity and work flow is Xara coupled with Word.
Seriously a spell checker would be useful, so would the ability to scan direct into Xara and a number of other things too, but then you end up with 'XaraDraw Graphics Suite' which would be another 'jack of all trades, master of non' instead of undisputed master of what it does do ...... draw pictures.

derek

[SABvdF]

lfdow, masque,

just have a look at:
www.microspell.com

That should do the job, gives you only one custom dictionary for any program (able to copy text to the cliboard) too http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Charles Moir]

Back in the mists of time when we did our first word processor (1983 - the total program took just 8KBytes, less than a small JPEG) we proposed that the spelling checker should be part of the OS, so that there was one common spell checker program and one common dictionary and user dictionary available to all programs. So here we are 20 years later and still Microsoft haven't got the point. At least Apple have - wrong platform though.

But I can't spell to save my life and so would love to have one in Xara X and a plug-in is the way to do it. The trouble is that there's nothing for it to plug-in to. We'd have to do the work of accepting a plugin and talking to an external spell checker and that's probably 90% of the work required to implement full spell checking anyway. It's on the wish list - just lower than a lot of other things.

[raynerj]

Jens,

Like the coffemaker idea... Kill switch no... Suicide switch, now that is something to think about...

I want to add a... Erk http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Charles,

thanks for the answer. Adding the hooks for the plugin would be the hard part. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[RAMWolff44]

Charles,

It's too bad you couldn't figure out a way to plug in to the spell checker that plugs into Outlook Express. I think it's a pretty intuitive spell checker. It, most of the time, can figure out my most convoluted attemtps to spell correctly! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

You can download it from here:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2952

I see no way to contact this guy but the plugin is really great!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[roman]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Charles Moir:
Back in the mists of time when we did our first word processor (1983 - the total program took just 8KBytes, less than a small JPEG) we proposed that the spelling checker should be part of the OS, so that there was one common spell checker program and one common dictionary and user dictionary available to all programs. So here we are 20 years later and still Microsoft haven't got the point. At least Apple have - wrong platform though.

But I can't spell to save my life and so would love to have one in Xara X and a plug-in is the way to do it. The trouble is that there's nothing for it to plug-in to. We'd have to do the work of accepting a plugin and talking to an external spell checker and that's probably 90% of the work required to implement full spell checking anyway. It's on the wish list - just lower than a lot of other things. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

How high is national keyboard and accentuated characters? ;-)

[jens g.r. benthien]

The perfect word processor and spell checker companion for Xara is NoteTab Pro (http://www.notetab.com).
Open as many documents you want, create your own clips and snippets, just download free plug-ins for many languages, html, php, css coding, use the clipboard function to edit, pasted and copy text back and forth between NoteTab Pro and any other app. It's small, sleek, fast, stable, offers the best find & replace functions in any text editor. You can do everything with it - except formatting text. But on the other hand you can compare the content of 2 docs, view and edit 2 docs side by side - with the free plug-ins there is no limit. Install it on a USB mem stick and you'll have your swiss army knife for any text & coding always available.

Last but not least: it's easier to use the clipboard function than to code a plug-in interface, and it won't increase the file size of Xara.

Less than US$ 20 !


Just my 2 cents.

[RAMWolff44]

Yes, that's a good little app there Jens. I think it might be a good idea though for Charles to contact one of these smaller software makers and see if a plugin could be created just for Xara X1 or extend the capabilities of one program already in the mainstream to plug into Xara X1 like the spell checker I use in OE. It's tiny, around 500 Kb's!

Just an idea, mind you!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[raynerj]

Ummm... Guys,

The problem is xara has to be rewritten to allow the text globs to be automatically found by a plugin. Remember xara is a graphics program and the text globs are treated a little different here than in a wordprocessor, where most of the file are type globs.

I could just see it now. I would type "can't" but misspell it as "cun't" When I ran the spell checker it would change my mispelling but change all my shapes to livid green. See the problem, and is it really worth it when we do have a work around.

You would have to have an option to have it automatically check every word when it is typed. Would this slow down xara? How about with a large custom dictionary?

[jens g.r. benthien]

John,

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> You would have to have an option to have it automatically check every word when it is typed. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Use NoteTab Pro - it'll solve your problem on the spot in combination with Ultima Shell. Maybe someone can install Ultima Shell and try to run it with Xara X?