Spellcheck Extension for Arbitrary Web Pages

IRC log of conversation about this extension:

12:14 <@dave> how hard would it be to add Tools > Spell-Check? <br />
12:14 <@dave> i.e., for an arbitrary page vs. textbox <br />
12:14 < shaver> good question <br />
12:15 <@dave> or probably what I mean is Tools > Highlight Spelling Mistakes <br />
12:19 < shaver> you'd want a presentation like the findbar? <br />
12:19 <@dave> depends on use case, but that's one good one, yeah <br />
12:19 <@dave> I'm thinking of being able to just underline all mispelled words on the page <br />
12:23 < mfinkle> look into http://mxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/editor/txtsvc/public/nsIInlineSpellChecker.idl <br />
12:23 < mfinkle> it is keyed to use an editor <br />
12:23 < mfinkle> but the code inside could be useful <br />
12:23 <@dave> I should talk to enn I guess <br />
12:24 < mfinkle> the red squiggle is done using a special kind of selection type <br />
12:25 <@dave> mfinkle: yeah, I've seen that code before. <br />
12:25 <@dave> the selection <br />
12:25 < mfinkle> http://mxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/extensions/spellcheck/src/mozInlineSpellChecker.cpp <br />
12:25 <@dave> but this idl looks interesting <br />
12:25 < mfinkle> is an inline spellcheck implementation for editors <br />
12:26 < mfinkle> DoSpellCheck does some heavy lifting  <br />http://mxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/extensions/spellcheck/src/mozInlineSpellChecker.cpp#1223 <br />
12:27 < mfinkle> whoops, down a few lines <br />
12:28 <@dave> 1278   if (! editor) <br />
12:28 <@dave> 1279     return NS_ERROR_FAILURE; <br />
12:28 <@dave> hm <br />
12:28 < mfinkle> yeah, but it seems to use ranges, so swapping in a document shouldn't be impossible <br />
12:29 < mfinkle> and notice that mSpellCheck is an instance of the real spellcheck engine <br />
12:29 <@dave> yeah <br />
12:29 <@dave> I'm trying to find uses of editor, and it's thin <br />
12:31 < mfinkle> well mSpellCheck is a nsIEditorSpellCheck <br />
12:31 < mfinkle> must go deeper <br />
12:33 < mfinkle> crap, nsISpellCheck is not public - wtf <br />
12:33 <@dave> weird <br />
12:33 < shaver> fixable, I bet <br />
12:34 < mfinkle> I suppose building directly against the tree (instead of the sdk) is doable <br />
12:34 <@dave> so this is a tree exercise vs. an ext <br />
12:34 < mfinkle> kinda like vlad's canvas3d <br />
12:34 < mfinkle> right <br />
12:34 < shaver> no, it's an extension <br />
12:34 < mfinkle> well, it can be an extension <br />
12:34 < shaver> it's just not one that can use only frozen APIs <br />
12:34 < mfinkle> but it needs the tree <br />
12:34 < shaver> like basically any useful extension <br />
12:34 <@dave> :) <br />
12:34 < mfinkle> sadly <br />
12:35 < mfinkle> but anyway - onward <br />
12:35 <@dave> I think I'll take some notes here and craft a project for future <br />
12:35 < mfinkle> http://mxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/extensions/spellcheck/src/mozSpellChecker.cpp <br />
12:35 < mfinkle> implements the nsISpellCheck interface <br />
12:36 < mfinkle> takes an nsITextServicesDocument <br />
12:36 <@dave> how generic is that? <br />
12:38 < mfinkle> can be initialized with a document! http://mxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/editor/txtsvc/src/nsTextServicesDocument.cpp#175 <br />
12:38 < mfinkle> promising <br />

Relevant Links

• http://mxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/editor/txtsvc/public/nsIInlineSpellChecker.idl
• http://mxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/extensions/spellcheck/src/mozInlineSpellChecker.cpp
• http://mxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/extensions/spellcheck/src/mozSpellChecker.cpp
• nsISpellCheck interface
• nsITextServicesDocument
• http://mxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/editor/txtsvc/src/nsTextServicesDocument.cpp#175