File: spellswell.tgz
        Author: Mike Crawford crawford@scruznet.com
       Release: 1.0d5 May 6, 1997
 Compatibility: DR8
      Location: contrib/productivity
   Description: Spellswell and BeMail with support for Word Services
         Notes:



Spellswell 1.0d5

Mike Crawford
Working Software, Inc.
crawford@scruznet.com

This is an early version of Spellswell for BeOS, with support for 
the Word Services BMessage Suite.  While the user interface is 
far from complete, and it has some bugs and unimplemented features, 
it is nonetheless available for public downloading at:

http://www.scruznet.com/~crawford/spellswell.html

We have also added the Word Services Suite to BeMail so you can 
use Spellswell with BeMail.  This special BeMail is also available 
at this web page, and is enclosed with the full source code as an
aide to implementing Word Services in your applications

To use Spellswell with BeMail, place the "spwdict" dictionary, the 
"AboutModule" and "SpellswellModule" files in the same folder with 
Spellswell, and launch Spellswell.  The two modules are AppSketcher
modules; ordinarily they would be merged into Spellswell but there is
a bug that requires me to leave them as separate files.

The first time Spellswell runs, it places a WordService table in 
the BeOS file system database, with a record for Spellswell. 
If you do a "Find" in the Browser, looking for "WordService" 
Spellswell will be found.  Note that its "MenuString" property is 
"Check Spelling".  

Because Word Services is a public protocol, other Word Service 
programs can register themselves by adding records to this database 
table, and applications that have Word Services in them, as BeMail 
does here, can automatically use these other Word Services programs 
the same way as they use Spellswell.

Now launch BeMail with Word Services.  Type some misspelled text 
into the message body, and select Check Spelling from BeMail's 
Services menu.  BeMail will launch Spellswell if necessary, then 
ask Spellswell to check the message text.  Press skip or replace in 
Spellswell as desired.

This is an early version of Spellswell.  We have concentrated on 
getting the basics working, and completing the core technology of 
Word Services.  It is not yet a pretty program - that will come later.
Word Services is presently based on Jon Watte's proposed scripting 
standard; the final standard will be based on the scripting standard
implemented in DR9.

Among the things left to do is to have Spellswell tell BeMail to 
highlight erroneous words in the original document as they are checked.  
Then the misspellings can be seen in their context rather than in 
Spellswell's window.

Several developers have committed to supporting Word Services in 
their applications.  It is our hope that the protocol will be widely 
adopted, and that it will be established as the way text services 
such as spelling and grammar checking, as well as any operations on 
text such as encryption, are done.

The draft protocol specification is available on the Web at:

http://www.wordservices.org/Developers/bespec.html