Re: Fly-spelling with multiple dictionaries

[David Reitter]

On 4 Apr 2008, at 07:55, martin rudalics wrote:
> Ispell/Aspell are, to my knowledge, the only spell-checkers providing
> the piping mechanism Emacs uses - Hunspell has a C(++) interface only.
> Currently, all we do is send some buffer text to the spell-checker and
> wait what the spell-checker tells us about that text.

A C++ interface wouldn't be all that different.  If the (elisp level)  
spell-checking package provided clear separation between UI and  
accessing the spell-checker (the API that I'd like), then support for  
other spell-checkers could be implemented easily.

> Grammar checking can (and should, IMHO) be done separately from
> spell-checking.  Neither Aspell nor Ispell provide any support for  
> this.

Yes. I think the UI portion could be the same, though.  You underline  
and provide a context menu, or you jump to the next warning.

> Currently, Aspell and Ispell know better what should be ignored in  
> LaTeX
> buffers.  Why duplicate work in this area?

That's indeed an argument in favor of A/Ispell; with other spell- 
checkers, the major mode would have to strip out key words.  And it's  
really a major mode specific function and should be implemented there.