Bug 75843 - as-you-type spell checking does not work
Summary: as-you-type spell checking does not work
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: kmail
Classification: Applications
Component: general (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: RedHat Enterprise Linux Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: kdepim bugs
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2004-02-22 16:47 UTC by mail4xxxx
Modified: 2007-09-14 12:17 UTC (History)
0 users

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Description mail4xxxx 2004-02-22 16:47:27 UTC
Version:            (using KDE KDE 3.2.0)
Installed from:    RedHat RPMs
OS:          Linux

In kmail, even with As-you-type spell checking selected in the Options menu, no mispelled words are highlighted. Occasionally I notice the "www" in my signature is red, but usually not.

To test, turn As-you-type off, then on again, type a mispelled word, wait a few seconds, and then watch the status bar to see As-you-type turn itself off without ever highlighting the mispelled word. Then check the Options menu, and As-you-type is still selected.

I can reproduce this bug every time.
Comment 1 Don Sanders 2004-02-24 03:26:53 UTC
On Monday 23 February 2004 01:47, mail4xxxx@imap.cc wrote:
>
> In kmail, even with As-you-type spell checking selected in the
> Options menu, no mispelled words are highlighted. Occasionally I
> notice the "www" in my signature is red, but usually not.
>
> To test, turn As-you-type off, then on again, type a mispelled
> word, wait a few seconds, and then watch the status bar to see
> As-you-type turn itself off without ever highlighting the mispelled
> word. Then check the Options menu, and As-you-type is still
> selected.

The as-you-type spell checking feature has an auto-disable feature 
that automatically disables as-you-type spell checking when more than 
33% of words typed were not recognized. 

The as-you-type item in the options menu doesn't override this. So if 
more than 33% of words typed were not recognized and the menu item is 
turned on, it just briefly enables as-you-type spell checking and 
then it automatically gets disabled.

I think you are finding this behavior confusing.

If you update kdelibs/kdeui then I've increased the percentage of 
unrecognized words before as-you-type spellchecking is disabled from 
33% to 42%.

After updating you will also be able to edit 
~/.kde/share/config/kdegloabls and in the [KSpell] section add a 
KSpell_AsYouTypeDisablePercentage=101
entry to force as-you-type spell checking to never be automatically 
disabled.

Don.

Comment 2 mail4xxxx 2004-02-24 06:31:53 UTC
Thanks for your reply. In my testing emails only one out of about 100 words was spelled (intentionally) wrong, nowhere close to 33%. I tried another test just now, and that was to type, in a blank email, "Hello my good frxxnd." As-you-type is on, but there is no indication that "frxxnd" is spelled incorrectly. Then, turn  as-you-type off and then on again to get the status bar message, and still nothing. Status bar says "As-you-type spell checking enabled,", and "frxxnd" is not highlighted in red.

Also, I think auto spell checking is something that most people expect to either be on or off. I'm wondering under what circumstance the percentage feature would be useful.

Finally, I would update my KDE from CVS, but I'm not that skilled yet. I'll have to wait for someone to roll some RPMs.
Comment 3 Daniel Naber 2004-02-24 18:53:26 UTC
On Tuesday 24 February 2004 03:26, Don Sanders wrote:

> If you update kdelibs/kdeui then I've increased the percentage of
> unrecognized words before as-you-type spellchecking is disabled from
> 33% to 42%.

Could that be backported to KDE 3.2.1 (if not already done)? BTW, often 
URLs are the cause for many "misspellings". If it was possible to 
recognize them and ignore them for spell checking that would help a lot.

Regards
 Daniel

Comment 4 Don Sanders 2004-02-25 04:56:40 UTC
If you can't try KDE CVS then please wait for the next release of KDE 
and then turn off auto-disabling by editing: 
~/.kde/share/config/kdeglobals and in the [KSpell] section add a 
KSpell_AsYouTypeDisablePercentage=101

Then tell me if that doesn't force as-you-type spell checking to be 
never automatically disabled. I'd like feedback on this improvement 
before I do more work on this issue thank you.

Thanks,
Don.

Comment 5 Rod Nayfield 2004-03-29 19:53:04 UTC
Yes this is quite broken.  I often have messages that don't get spell-checked, but they don't warn either.  Or they flag the first (intentional) misspelling but don't flag the next one, etc.  (Yes, even at <10% misspelled)

Tips:

* Auto disable percent should be configurable in the UI, and/or default to off.  

* If the spell checker has not "caught up" to the user, there should be some sort of status indicating this.

* A user option requiring a full-blown spell check before send would also be useful.


This should bring kmail behavior more in line with end-user expectations.
Comment 6 Don Sanders 2004-03-30 05:19:02 UTC
How to reproduce thisx 

On Tuesday 30 March 2004 03:53, Rod Nayfield wrote:
> ------- You are receiving this mail because: -------
> You are the assignee for the bug, or are watching the assignee.
>
> http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=75843
>
>
>
>
> ------- Additional Comments From rod nayfield com  2004-03-29 19:53
> ------- Yes this is quite broken.  I often have messages that don't
> get spell-checked, but they don't warn either.  Or they flag the
> first (intentional) misspelling but don't flag the next one, etc. 
> (Yes, even at <10% misspelled)

Can you provide a description of how to reproduce this?

> * Auto disable percent should be configurable in the UI, and/or
> default to off.

In the development version you can turn off auto-disabling by editing: 
~/.kde/share/config/kdeglobals and in the [KSpell] section add a 
KSpell_AsYouTypeDisablePercentage=101

Other percentages are also selectable.

> * If the spell checker has not "caught up" to the user, there
> should be some sort of status indicating this.

Interesting idea, I would consider a separate wish request for this. 
One request per bug report please.

How do you suggest this would be indicated.

> * A user option requiring a full-blown spell check before send
> would also be useful.

Again I would consider a separate wish request, one request per bug 
report please.

Don.

Comment 7 Rod Nayfield 2004-03-30 17:30:02 UTC
I am not sure how to reproduce.  On my system (Fedora Core 1, upgraded RPMs 3.2.1 via the kde site, recompiled kmultimedia from srpm) I just created a new message:

sometimes this spell checker dodz not werk.  I am not sure why, but I am typing away and most of my words are contextually korrekt.


The checker did not flag a single word, and did not put a status messages (i.e. the disabled warning) in the bar.  I can spell check and it finds the incorrect words 100% of the time.  Sometimes I can spell check, immediately cancel, and then it will have the first misspelling highlighted in red.  But it does not flag subsequent errors.

I am using aspell with English (USA) 
$ aspell -v
@(#) International Ispell Version 3.1.20 (but really Aspell 0.50.3)

I will open wishes for the other comments.
Comment 8 Don Sanders 2004-03-31 04:34:17 UTC
Thanks for opening the separate wishes. If you work out how to 
reproduce the problem please let me know.

Comment 9 M.J.Harwood 2004-04-01 17:49:47 UTC
This happens 100% of the time with my current install (Mandrake 10), and with the prior kde3.2 hand build on RH9. 

#aspell -v
@(#) International Ispell Version 3.1.20 (but really Aspell 0.50.4.1)
#kmail -v
Qt: 3.2.3
KDE: 3.2 BRANCH >= 20040204
KMail: 1.6.1

The feature intermittently works with textboxes in konqueror with somewhat greater success rate (perhaps half the time as opposed to none of the time), so it may well be something to do with the underlying spellcheck code rather than kmails use of it.

I have found that sometimes if I save an email to draft and reopen it, that the highlighting will work (until I type anything, then it auto-disables itself, even if only one word in a hundred is misspelled).

If I get time, I'll try to do a development build to see if I can reproduce it with that.
Comment 10 Don Sanders 2004-04-02 03:49:55 UTC
Please try to come up with a description for reproducing the problem. 
I can't do anything useful with this information.

Comment 11 Rod Nayfield 2004-04-02 05:03:52 UTC
Reproduce:  

in Kontact (3.2.1 from rh compiled rpms on fc1) I press the "New Message" button.  Immediately go to the body and type:

this is a test of the emrjj broadcast system.

after a while, this doesn't seem to wehj gfdsjkl gf mee.  TI htig fm, foo gon joo.

[end]

the word emrjj is red, and the rest of the message does not have a single correction.  I can let the window sit for a few minutes and the other errors are not found.  if I manually spell check the errors are found.

if I manually spell check (and 'ignore') a few words, the words I ignore are not red in the original message, but if I make a new message and paste the entire contents, the new message has all the words that the speller has seen in red (but not the next error).  The first message has not changed.   (yes, I can have two identical messages side-by-side with different "autospell states")

The bug also appears in konqueror text fields.  

I notice that there are aspell processes running - and I can cat the same words to the aspell program with the same command line and it completes.  Maybe something with flushing the return pipe?  Is there a way to debug i/o from kmail (kspell) to aspell/ispell? 
Comment 12 Don Sanders 2004-04-05 06:54:04 UTC
On Friday 02 April 2004 13:03, Rod Nayfield wrote:
...
> in Kontact (3.2.1 from rh compiled rpms on fc1) I press the "New
> Message" button.  Immediately go to the body and type:
>
> this is a test of the emrjj broadcast system.
>
> after a while, this doesn't seem to wehj gfdsjkl gf mee.  TI htig
> fm, foo gon joo.
>
> [end]
>
> the word emrjj is red, and the rest of the message does not have a
> single correction.  I can let the window sit for a few minutes and
> the other errors are not found.  if I manually spell check the
> errors are found.
>
> if I manually spell check (and 'ignore') a few words, the words I
> ignore are not red in the original message, but if I make a new
> message and paste the entire contents, the new message has all the
> words that the speller has seen in red (but not the next error). 
> The first message has not changed.   (yes, I can have two identical
> messages side-by-side with different "autospell states")

The test message works fine here.

The words "emrjj wehj gfdsjkl gf htig fm foo gon joo" are marked as 
mis-spelled, and the words "this is a test of the broadcast system 
after while, doesn't seem to mee TI" are spelled ok.

After fm is typed as-you-type spell checking is disabled as about 30% 
of unique words of spelled incorrectly.

> The bug also appears in konqueror text fields.
>
> I notice that there are aspell processes running - and I can cat
> the same words to the aspell program with the same command line and
> it completes.  Maybe something with flushing the return pipe?  Is
> there a way to debug i/o from kmail (kspell) to aspell/ispell?

This sounds like a bug that was in the 3.2 betas but was fixed for the 
final release. It might be worth compiling from source to eliminate 
the possibility that distributors released a broken version of KDE.

To debug this kind of thing compile from source and look at:
kdelibs/kdeui/ksyntaxhighlighter.* and kspell.*

You could be running a different version of the code or in some way 
your distribution is configured differently from people like myself 
who aren't experiencing problems.

I suggest compiling from source (with debug enabled). If you or 
someone can reproduce a problem in a source compile with debug 
symbols I might be able to help.

Don.