Spellcheck for Notepad++

[Bookwyrme]

Anyone know of a good spellcheck to go with Notepad++? I've found a couple searching, but it'd be nice to know what people thought of tthem.

[cmorgan]

I use the aspell libraries with one or two of them (Jazzy, I think?) but I ended up creating a custom dictionary that included the weidu stuff and FR-related stuff. I would send you the file, but my little thumbdrive has hidden itself somewhere - I can probably recreate it over the next few weeks if I can't find it.

[Bookwyrme]

These: http://aspell.net/win32/ ?

 

Of course, a custom dictionary would always be welcome

 

I am *loving* the Highlighters, btw.

[cmorgan]

Yes - hold on...

 

http://sourceforge.net/projects/npp-plugins/files/Spell-Checker/

 

with the related http://aspell.net/win32/

 

Jazzy is for JEdit! (Sorry - I use NotePad++ at hiome and for all the heavy stuff, but JEdit is very portable and I can run it off my usb stick on macs when I have no PCs available wherever I am).

[berelinde]

Is there some article somewhere that compares the differences between ConTEXT, Crimson Editor, and NotePad++? I've been using Crimson Editor forever, but I'm curious.

[Bookwyrme]

Me too, now. Notepad++ was a recomendation, not a researched matter.

[cmorgan]

I don't know, other than this:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_code_editor

 

and more specifically this:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_text_editors#Programming_features

 

Why use these rather than a word processor? Well, several reasons - they don't clean up quotes and elipses into the wrong sort of ascii character, they easily allow controlling the newline and encoding, they can merge and separate lines, they can indent easily (and unindent as well), they allow regexp search and that search can have a navigatable "point and click on the entry and jump to the actual document line", they have project management tools and group opening/closing functions - many allow column input rather than just singoe line input, which is extremely useful for mass creation of code. As programmer's editors, many have user-added (modded) support for creating templates accessible by a single keystroke or by selecting from a menu. Most have good flexible spellcheck, but none that I have tested have the dreaded "grammar check". All support line numbering that does not get put into the regular document, and all understand commenting (if you enable syntax highlighting). Most of these editors have crude comparison tools or plugins, so if you have multiple copies of things you can do a line-by-line comparison of versions. Most of them are one-stop-modder-shops, meaning you can do everything in a mod package from .tpp/.tph/.tp2/.d/.baf to HTML and PHP cleanup and recheck of code for mod docs, putting out Win package materials using windows newline and mac using mac and unix(linux using that newline.

 

 

I personally have found JEdit to be the most useful cross-platform (Java based) and the simplest to create syntax editors for. But when I get home to my PC, I immediately load up NotePad++ - it feels simple, easy to use, and has a huge raft of the available features.

But:

 

Crimson is the one first recommended - easy to use, low profile, simple syntax highlighting, and it does the job. It's free.

 

TetEdit/WildEdit is powerful and easy to use, especially with regexp help, but it costs money and is not as powerful as JEdit

 

ConTEXT is about the same as Crimson, but one of them allows easier column selection and access; I switch to one of them if I am doing things like

 

IF ~~ a173 SAY ~[ARAN] Hey, <PLAYER2> is getting a little tired... how about we stop for the night?~ IF ~~ THEN EXIT END

IF ~~ a173 SAY ~[ARAN] Hey, <PLAYER2> is getting a little tired... how about we stop for the night?~ IF ~~ THEN EXIT END

IF ~~ a173 SAY ~[ARAN] Hey, <PLAYER2> is getting a little tired... how about we stop for the night?~ IF ~~ THEN EXIT END

IF ~~ a173 SAY ~[ARAN] Hey, <PLAYER2> is getting a little tired... how about we stop for the night?~ IF ~~ THEN EXIT END

IF ~~ a173 SAY ~[ARAN] Hey, <PLAYER2> is getting a little tired... how about we stop for the night?~ IF ~~ THEN EXIT END

 

where I can type the sentence once, then modify the thing quickly to read

 

IF ~~ a173 SAY ~[ARAN] Hey, <PLAYER2> is getting a little tired... how about we stop for the night?~ IF ~~ THEN EXIT END

IF ~~ a174 SAY ~[ARAN] Hey, <PLAYER3> is getting a little tired... how about we stop for the night?~ IF ~~ THEN EXIT END

IF ~~ a175 SAY ~[ARAN] Hey, <PLAYER4> is getting a little tired... how about we stop for the night?~ IF ~~ THEN EXIT END

IF ~~ a176 SAY ~[ARAN] Hey, <PLAYER5> is getting a little tired... how about we stop for the night?~ IF ~~ THEN EXIT END

IF ~~ a177 SAY ~[ARAN] Hey, <PLAYER6> is getting a little tired... how about we stop for the night?~ IF ~~ THEN EXIT END

 

which is how I survived creating all those scroll-creation lines in Aran.

If you do find good comparisons, please let me know. All I know is that the switch to using any of these is a change in mindset. The materilas you type into a word processor are processed into a particular format. Every single one of these editors gives you the tools and lets you do the processing yourself, managing words as if they were code elements, and giving you immensely powerful access to your entire project. And that is before you start adding the plugins and modifications users have made to make them even more powerful.