NSSpellChecker... Bugs and Problems
NSSpellChecker... Bugs and Problems
- Subject: NSSpellChecker... Bugs and Problems
- From: Stefan Kreutter <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 15:47:54 +0100
- Resent-date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 15:58:56 +0100
- Resent-from: Stefan Kreutter <email@hidden>
- Resent-message-id: <email@hidden>
- Resent-to: email@hidden
As of Mac OS X 10.1.1 Apple still hasn't fixed the bug that a spell
checker service (besides AppleSpell.service) gets launched upon user
login. On NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Mac OS X Server 1.x such a spell service was
launched when a user logs in.
Would be nice if Apple could fix the launch problem for 10.1.2 because
the two possible workarounds cause some inconveniences.
a) put a startup script to /Library/StartupItems - for some people this
seems not to work since for some reason the spell server process crashes
upon logout. Unfortunately I was never able to reproduce this behavior.
On a console log that someone sent to me one can read:
Dec 15 18:05:00 spring ObjectFarmSpell[159]: MIG: server died :
CGSExtractEventRecordsFromMessage
What does this line tell us? (ObjectFarmSpell is the spell service I
wrote) I suppose that CGS stands for Core Graphics System (?) and MIG
has something to do with Mach messaging, right? On my test machines I
don't get this message and the spell service does not crash.
b) the other method to launch the spell service is to use a LoginItem
which does work fine but has the disadvantage that you have to install
this item for every user on the system. Of course an installer could
also install the item for every single user of the system but what
happens if a new user was added to the system after installation of the
spell service... they get this "Spell server not running" error messages
because the languages are discovered in the service bundle and listed in
the spell dialog but do not work.
An other issue is that sometimes ObjectFarmSpell gets request for the
language "English" although it never registered this language with
NSSpellServer. For some reason (probably a bug in Mac OS X) the built in
AppleSpell service is no longer contacted for requests of the "English"
language. This happens often in Mail.app when I switch between different
languages - after relaunching Mail English does work again and
ObjectFarmSpell gets no longer contacted for "English" (NSSpell server
delegate method:
-spellServer:findMisspelledWordInString:language:wordCount:countOnly:).
It would be nice if the person responsible for NSSpellChecker API at
Apple could contact me to resolve the problems. A lot of people are
complaining that Apple does not provide dictionaries for other languages
then English and Apple's dictionary isn't in very good shape. Since
there are a lot dictionaries out there on the net for ispell it would be
nice to have a rock solid integration of ispell into Cocoa's API. My
'spell checker' is just a wrapper for ispell. The feedback I got for
ObjectFarmSpell so far shows me that people are happy to get support for
their language and I'd really like to deliver a easy to use and easy to
install product (it is free).
Best regards,
Stefan