Aspell (formully Kspell) News and Updates

[Kevin Atkinson]

This is an update to recent developments of my Aspell spell checker
since the announcement of its initial release.  This should hopefully
be the last announcement posted outside of the Aspell mailing list.
So, if you are interested in my project please join the Aspell mailing
list.  See below.

For those of you who don't know Aspell is an Open Source spell checker
designed to eventually replace ispell.  Its main feature is that it
does a much better job of coming up with possible suggestions than
ispell does.  In fact recent tests shows that it even does better then
Microsoft Word 97's spell checker in some cases.  More information can
be found at Aspell's home page (http://sunsite.unc.edu/kevina/aspell/).

Please direct all replys to the Aspell mailing list at
address@hidden


                         Aspell name change.

Due to the existence of a KDE's spell checker also called Kspell. I
decided to change the name to Aspell to avoid confusion.  The k came
from the fact that my first name (Kevin) started with k.  The a comes
from my last name (Atkinson).



                     Aspell Mailing list now up.

Aspell now has a mailing list.  To subscribe send a message to
address@hidden or go to the Aspell mailing list home
page at http://franklin.oit.unc.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=aspell
Anyone interested in the development of Aspell is strongly encouraged
to subscribe.


                Don't take my word for it.  Try it Out!

You can now try my spell checker out without having to download it.
Just go to Aspell's home page and type the misspelled word in and 
click on Go!


                     Small Test Kernel Developed

A small test kernel to test out the accuracy and intelligence of a spell
checkers suggestion mechanism has been developed.  You can find it at
http://sunsite.unc.edu/kevina/aspell/test/.

Here are the results so far:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+ 
|         | Total  | Total |  Score  |   First on    |Found but | 
|         |  Not   | Found |         |Suggestion List|Not First | 
|         | Found  |       |         |               |          | 
|---------+--------+-------+---------+---------------+----------| 
| Aspell  |5       |123    |0.9609375|90             |33        | 
|.22 alpha|        |       |         |               |          | 
|---------+--------+-------+---------+---------------+----------| 
| Ispell  |56      |72     |0.5625   |57             |15        | 
| 3.1.20  |        |       |         |               |          | 
|---------+--------+-------+---------+---------------+----------| 
| Word 97 |24      |104    |0.8125   |87             |17        | 
+---------------------------------------------------------------+ 

Please help contribute to this project by sending a list of
misspelled/correctly spelled word pairs to me at address@hidden The
more mangled the spelling is the better (providing that it still has
some resemblance to the correct spelling).


               Aspell version .22.1 alpha now available

Major changes from .21:

 * Major redesign or the scoring method. It now uses absolute
   distances rather than relative scores for more consistent results.

Major changes from .20:

 * Changed the scoring method to deal with word when the user uses "f"
   in place of "ph" a lot better and probably other similar cases.

Major changes from .11:

  * Name change

Major changes from .10 (Initial release):

  * Overhaul of the SC_Language class
  * Added documentation for international support and for the C++
    library.


                      Aspell and the FILE project

To test out my spell checker and to assist in the FILE project. I ran
the entire complete list of 382,000 words not found (found on FILE's
home page) through my spell checker. You can find the results of my
effort at http://sunsite.unc.edu/kevina/file.

For those of you who don't know the FILE project "is a project
designed to fill in the gaps which exist in other large freely
available dictionary databases." (Source: http://www.dict.org/file.html)


                            Advice Needed

So far I only got email from 2 or 3 people about this project and
absolutely no one but me is subscribed to Aspell's mailing list.  So I
am asking you for advice on 1) how to get the word out and 2) how to
stir up interest in my spell checker or at very least how to get
people to start using it. I think that Aspell is long overdue as
ispell suggestion strategy sucks for people how can't spell.  However
others may disagree.


          Please direct all replys to the Aspell mailing list
                    at address@hidden
-- 
Kevin Atkinson
address@hidden
http://sunsite.unc.edu/kevina/