Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[R. Diez]

Hi there:

I have been trying to use Flyspell, and I found it difficult to configure.

You have to search the Internet in order to find good tips. After some time, I found this page, which summarises Flyspell's shortcomings:


http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_spell_checker_problems.html


Flyspell's documentation is made of a few source-code comments, and this page:

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Spelling.html


If the documentation were honest, it would mention those shortcomings itself, maybe as part of a CAVEATS section. Otherwise, you are lead to believe that Flyspell is fine and dandy, which clearly is not the case. After all, we are all used to 'proper' spell checkers all around us (for example, in LibreOffice).


I am using Emacs 26.1. The source code comments are outdated. For example:


;; Some user variables control the behavior of flyspell.  They are
;; those defined under the `User variables' comment.


However, I found no "user variables" comment anywhere on that file.

Furthermore, this comment does not mention anything about literal strings being checked too (more on that further below):


;; To enable Flyspell in text representing computer programs, type
;; M-x flyspell-prog-mode.
;; In that mode only text inside comments is checked.

The first big gotcha was trying to set up automatic language detection, which should arguably be part of Flyspell. I would say that a sizeable part of the population has to handle languages other than English everyday. Who wants to manually switch dictionaries every time? After some struggling, I found and configured another package to achieve that.


I have a big text file with all my assorted notes (I haven't learnt Org Mode yet). I cannot spell-check all of it, that would turn up too many spurious errors.


I tried flyspell-region, and that is one of the biggest surprises: the spell check is performed just once, and is not updated as I type inside that region. Well, I can manually recheck, however inconvenient. But the biggest surprise is trying to remove the spelling marks at the end. After some searching, I found out about flyspell-delete-all-overlays and flyspell-delete-region-overlays, but alas, they are not marked as 'interactive'. I wonder how Flyspell thinks users should remove those marks (how to end the flyspell-region command).


I nevertheless tried to push forwards with Flyspell, because alternatives like Wcheck Mode or Speck did not seem quite ready yet. Next step was flyspell-prog-mode . And here I found the next big drawback: it checks literal strings too, even the filenames inside C's #include <blah/blah-h> preprocessor directives, littering too much source code with error marks.

Trying to limit spell checking to just source-code comments is hard. I found this page that explains how to do it:

http://blog.binchen.org/posts/effective-spell-check-in-emacs.html

But I haven't quite understood it yet (I am no Lisp expert). How about adding a simple customizable variable to turn literal string checking on and off?


To top it all, there is one little surprise in store: disabling flyspell-persistent-highlight renders flyspell-region useless.

The whole experience reminds me of the expression "death by a thousand paper cuts".


Please copy me on all the answers or comments, as I am not subscribed to this mailing list.


Thanks in advance,
  rdiez

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2018 14:59:01 +0000 (UTC)
> From: "R. Diez" <rdiezmail-emacs@yahoo.de>
> 
> I have been trying to use Flyspell, and I found it difficult to configure.

I hear you, but FWIW I find Flyspell very easy to use.

> You have to search the Internet in order to find good tips. After some time, I found this page, which summarises Flyspell's shortcomings:
> 
> http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_spell_checker_problems.html

It is outdated and partially incorrect (e.g., right mouse click does
work on Flyspell).

> If the documentation were honest, it would mention those shortcomings itself, maybe as part of a CAVEATS section. Otherwise, you are lead to believe that Flyspell is fine and dandy, which clearly is not the case. After all, we are all used to 'proper' spell checkers all around us (for example, in LibreOffice).

I added a few sentences to the Emacs manual to that effect.

> I am using Emacs 26.1. The source code comments are outdated. For example:
> 
> 
> ;; Some user variables control the behavior of flyspell.  They are
> ;; those defined under the `User variables' comment.
> 
> However, I found no "user variables" comment anywhere on that file.
> 
> Furthermore, this comment does not mention anything about literal strings being checked too (more on that further below):

I fixed both of those.  However, I must say that

  M-x customize-group RET flyspell RET

would have brought you faster to the stuff you need than reading the
comments.  My suggestion is to use the built-in documentation (the doc
strings, the manual, and the customizable options) first, and only if
they don't provide enough info, to read the code.

> The first big gotcha was trying to set up automatic language detection, which should arguably be part of Flyspell.

This is a general issue in Emacs: we don't yet have any notion of
language of the text.  In a plain-text editor such as Emacs that is
capable of mixing any number of different languages and scripts in the
same buffer, this is not an easy job.  For now, you must change
dictionaries whenever you need to spell-check text in a different
language, unless you are using Hunspell, which can load more than one
dictionary at the same time.

> I have a big text file with all my assorted notes (I haven't learnt Org Mode yet). I cannot spell-check all of it, that would turn up too many spurious errors.

I usually find the Ispell facilities to accept "misspelled" words
either temporarily or permanently, quite adequate.  Type SPC or 'a' to
do any of those, when spell-checking a region or the whole buffer.
(Flyspell is not the right feature for this job; use ispell-region
instead.  Flyspell is mainly meant to check what you type on the fly.)

> I tried flyspell-region, and that is one of the biggest surprises: the spell check is performed just once, and is not updated as I type inside that region.

Like everything else in Flyspell, misspelled words are re-checked when
you move across them or modify them.  That's a feature.  If you don't
like that, I suggest to use ispell-region instead.

> Well, I can manually recheck, however inconvenient. But the biggest surprise is trying to remove the spelling marks at the end.

If the word is still a misspelling, why should the mark be removed?

> I nevertheless tried to push forwards with Flyspell, because alternatives like Wcheck Mode or Speck did not seem quite ready yet. Next step was flyspell-prog-mode . And here I found the next big drawback: it checks literal strings too, even the filenames inside C's #include <blah/blah-h> preprocessor directives, littering too much source code with error marks.

They are strings, aren't they?  How should Flyspell know that some
string is a file name?

> Trying to limit spell checking to just source-code comments is hard. I found this page that explains how to do it:
> 
> http://blog.binchen.org/posts/effective-spell-check-in-emacs.html
> 
> But I haven't quite understood it yet (I am no Lisp expert). How about adding a simple customizable variable to turn literal string checking on and off?

I suggest to submit a feature request for that, using
report-emacs-bug.

> To top it all, there is one little surprise in store: disabling flyspell-persistent-highlight renders flyspell-region useless.

Disabling flyspell-persistent-highlight turns off highlight once point
moves off the misspelled word.  I've now added that to the doc string.

> The whole experience reminds me of the expression "death by a thousand paper cuts".

Sorry to hear that.

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Emanuel Berg]

R. Diez wrote:

> I have been trying to use Flyspell, and
> I found it difficult to configure.

Spell check on the fly isn't a good idea.
Too many "errors" which aren't errors but
acronyms, proper nouns, lingo, and just
ordinary everyday word which for some reason
aren't in the dictionary.

And, again, way too many for any sane person to
ever complete the dictionary with a local one.
Is my experience, at least.

And the consequence of this (too many false
errors) is a disruptive rhythm to your thinking
and typing process.

Ispell is better. Choose the biggest dictionary
you can find (e.g., the "iamerican-insane" in the
Debian software repos).

Here is some configurations and helpers on
ispell:

    http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/emacs-init/spell-new.el

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Brett Gilio]

I completely second everything you said, Emanuel. Spell checking on the 
fly is not only extremely prone to false-errors, but it also poses a lot 
of issues with emacs performance and even some false errors with 
packages like helm (in my experience).

/If/ you need spell-checking, I second ispell.

Brett Gilio
brettg@posteo.net | bmg@member.fsf.org
Free Software -- Free Society!

On 07/12/2018 12:30 PM, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> R. Diez wrote:
> 
>> I have been trying to use Flyspell, and
>> I found it difficult to configure.
> 
> Spell check on the fly isn't a good idea.
> Too many "errors" which aren't errors but
> acronyms, proper nouns, lingo, and just
> ordinary everyday word which for some reason
> aren't in the dictionary.
> 
> And, again, way too many for any sane person to
> ever complete the dictionary with a local one.
> Is my experience, at least.
> 
> And the consequence of this (too many false
> errors) is a disruptive rhythm to your thinking
> and typing process.
> 
> Ispell is better. Choose the biggest dictionary
> you can find (e.g., the "iamerican-insane" in the
> Debian software repos).
> 
> Here is some configurations and helpers on
> ispell:
> 
>      http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/emacs-init/spell-new.el
> 

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Brett Gilio <brettg@posteo.net>
> Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2018 16:01:36 -0500
> 
> I completely second everything you said, Emanuel. Spell checking on the 
> fly is not only extremely prone to false-errors, but it also poses a lot 
> of issues with emacs performance and even some false errors with 
> packages like helm (in my experience).

No one needs to use a feature they don't like.

I personally find Flyspell useful in text-mode buffers, like
ChangeLog, Texinfo mode, mail-mode, and other modes where I write
human-readable text.  It keeps me from making stupid typos.
Performance is not an issue normally in these modes, where most of the
time I just think what to write next anyway.

I almost never turn on Flyspell in program source buffers.  YMMV.

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Gregor Zattler]

Hi Brett, emacs users,
* Brett Gilio <brettg@posteo.net> [2018-07-12; 16:01]:
> I completely second everything you said, Emanuel. Spell checking on the 
> fly is not only extremely prone to false-errors, but it also poses a lot 
> of issues with emacs performance and even some false errors with 
> packages like helm (in my experience).
>
> /If/ you need spell-checking, I second ispell.

I use wcheck-mode:
https://github.com/tlikonen/wcheck-mode

It checks on the fly, is unobtrusive, has no
performance issues -- because it only ever checks a screenful of
text, and it does not interfere with helm -- at least not to my
knowledge.

wcheck-mode is a frontend to the spellchecking engine.  I
configured it to use enchant, which in turn I configured to use
hunspell and myspell.  The configuration was tricky for me, but
now it works like a charm.

The wcheck-jump-backward command is really great, I bound it to
Insert-Insert which is very fast to type.  I don't know how to
make this work with repeating keystrokes in order to jump to the
next marked word without correcting the first one (false
positives and such, as stated elsewhere in this thread).

Ciao; Gregor 

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Devin Prater]

I use fly-spell, it works great with Emacspeak, although sometimes it does
get in the way, but it's easier for me than using ispell, which doesn't
work with Emacspeak as well.

On Fri, Jul 13, 2018 at 6:32 AM Gregor Zattler <telegraph@gmx.net> wrote:
Hi Brett, emacs users,
* Brett Gilio <brettg@posteo.net> [2018-07-12; 16:01]:
> I completely second everything you said, Emanuel. Spell checking on the
> fly is not only extremely prone to false-errors, but it also poses a lot
> of issues with emacs performance and even some false errors with
> packages like helm (in my experience).
>
> /If/ you need spell-checking, I second ispell.

I use wcheck-mode:
https://github.com/tlikonen/wcheck-mode

It checks on the fly, is unobtrusive, has no
performance issues -- because it only ever checks a screenful of
text, and it does not interfere with helm -- at least not to my
knowledge.

wcheck-mode is a frontend to the spellchecking engine.  I
configured it to use enchant, which in turn I configured to use
hunspell and myspell.  The configuration was tricky for me, but
now it works like a charm.

The wcheck-jump-backward command is really great, I bound it to
Insert-Insert which is very fast to type.  I don't know how to
make this work with repeating keystrokes in order to jump to the
next marked word without correcting the first one (false
positives and such, as stated elsewhere in this thread).

Ciao; Gregor


































-- 
Sent from Gmail Mobile

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Teemu Likonen]

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Gregor Zattler [2018-07-13 13:31:34+02] wrote:

> I use wcheck-mode:
> https://github.com/tlikonen/wcheck-mode

Me too. Wcheck-mode is also available from GNU Elpa repository so it can
be found from "M-x list-packages" and so on.

-- 
/// Teemu Likonen   - .-..   <https://keybase.io/tlikonen> //
// PGP: 4E10 55DC 84E9 DFF6 13D7 8557 719D 69D3 2453 9450 ///

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Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Emanuel Berg]

Teemu Likonen wrote:

> Me too. Wcheck-mode is also available from
> GNU Elpa repository so it can be found from
> "M-x list-packages" and so on.

Well, hell. You know what they say?
Diversity is a strength.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Eric S Fraga]

On Thursday, 12 Jul 2018 at 19:30, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> R. Diez wrote:
>
>> I have been trying to use Flyspell, and
>> I found it difficult to configure.
>
> Spell check on the fly isn't a good idea.

I beg to differ.  I love flyspell and use it all the time in org and
message buffers!  Not using it would slow me down or lead to rubbish
prose as I do make a significant number of typing errors.

YMMV, of course.

-- 
Eric S Fraga via Emacs 27.0.50 & org 9.1.13 on Debian buster/sid

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Bob Newell]

>> Spell check on the fly isn't a good idea.
>
> I beg to differ.  I love flyspell and use it all the time

This is why there are options, to suit a wide range of preferences and
needs. Personally, I don't use flyspell (or the equivalent in any
other text input system, including LibreOffice). I mostly write
fiction and don't want distractions--- spell-checking somewhere down
the line is more than good enough. But that's me, and that's my style.

Emacs certainly is more than big enough to accommodate all sorts of styles.

-- 
Bob Newell
Honolulu, Hawai`i

Via Linux/Emacs/Gnus/BBDB.

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Eric S Fraga]

On Friday, 13 Jul 2018 at 07:08, Bob Newell wrote:
>>> Spell check on the fly isn't a good idea.
>>
>> I beg to differ.  I love flyspell and use it all the time
>
> This is why there are options, to suit a wide range of preferences and
> needs. Personally, I don't use flyspell (or the equivalent in any
> other text input system, including LibreOffice). I mostly write
> fiction and don't want distractions--- spell-checking somewhere down
> the line is more than good enough. But that's me, and that's my style.
>
> Emacs certainly is more than big enough to accommodate all sorts of styles.

Exactly and that's one of its most important selling points: my Emacs is
not your Emacs or anybody else's.  It works the way *I* want it and
yours works how you want it.  Indication of a software system done well
in my view.

What I really like about flyspell is that I can correct an error some
words/sentences/paragraphs back without having to move the cursor
(i.e. flyspell-auto-correct-previous-word) and so the disruption to my
composing is minimal.  Systems like LibreOffice etc. don't have this
capability (that I am aware of, of course).

-- 
Eric S Fraga via Emacs 27.0.50 & org 9.1.13 on Debian buster/sid

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[tomas]

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On Sat, Jul 14, 2018 at 10:58:47AM +0200, Eric S Fraga wrote:

[...]

> Exactly and that's one of its most important selling points: my Emacs is
> not your Emacs or anybody else's.  It works the way *I* want it and
> yours works how you want it.  Indication of a software system done well
> in my view.

Sorry for the "metoo", but... +12!

Cheers
- -- tomás
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Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Bob Newell]

On Fri, Jul 13, 2018 at 10:58 PM, Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> wrote:

> Indication of a software system done well
> in my view.

Though I'm drifting further from the topic, I do need to nod in strong
agreement. So much commercial software (you know to whom I refer,
actually two "whoms") takes the approach, "You will do things THIS way
because WE deem it best. Adapt your work processes accordingly; we
know better than you do, after all."

Emacs, OTOH, is closer to anarchy than it is to Big Government, but
it's a beneficial anarchy.

Perhaps an appropriate sentiment for today, 14 julliet.

-- 
Bob Newell
Honolulu, Hawai`i

Via Linux/Emacs/Gnus/BBDB.

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Devin Prater]

I agree, but there is only so much one can do with Emacs, but I do believe
Emacs does more with every brave coder that provides packages. Sure, not
everything works well with Emacspeak, but besides using Braille, Emacspeak
is the best program I use to read novels, email, write code, and browse
simple sites, with nov-mode, python-mode, gnus, org-mode, and eww, that I
have. For people that cannot use many of the mainstream programs, the TUI
of Emacs is a way for visually impaired, and those who have probably
visually seen it all and just want to get things done, to access computing.
This is why I always look for Emacs to take on more connectivity tasks:
accessing forums, social networks besides Twitter and Mastodon,
JavaScript+HTML5+web-app support, all that, because Emacs is the best
interface that blind users, with Emacspeak of course, have, well until a
Braille computing system that is modern is created.
-- 
Sent from Gmail Mobile

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Brett Gilio]

Eric S Fraga writes:
> Exactly and that's one of its most important selling points: my 
> Emacs is
> not your Emacs or anybody else's.  It works the way *I* want it 
> and
> yours works how you want it.  Indication of a software system 
> done well
> in my view.

This is quite literally the privilege of not only GNU/Linux, but 
Emacs
as a whole, the ability to have a capacity for individual 
workflows to
an unprecedented level. There is no monolithic way to achieve a 
certain
task, to produce a specific outcome. While there are ways more 
custom to
be "correct" or traditional, Emacs (or anything derived from a 
Lisp) is
rarely included in this procedure the way other applications are.

The strength of Emacs lies in its community and its ability to 
perform
such a vast variety of tasks in a way that is simply uncomparable.

As far as Flyspell goes, the documentation in my opinion seems 
more or
less clear, and is not in any way intended to obfuscate the 
end-user
from its use with precision. However, there are parts of it that 
may be
dated.




-- 
Brett M. Gilio
Free Software Foundation, Member
https://parabola.nu | https://emacs.org

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Brett Gilio <brettg@posteo.net>
> Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2018 20:45:43 -0500
> Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> 
> As far as Flyspell goes, the documentation in my opinion seems more
> or less clear, and is not in any way intended to obfuscate the
> end-user from its use with precision. However, there are parts of it
> that may be dated.

Please point out those outdated parts when you find them, as bugs, so
that we could fix them.  Thanks in advance.

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Emanuel Berg]

Eric S Fraga wrote:

>>> I have been trying to use Flyspell, and
>>> I found it difficult to configure.
>>
>> Spell check on the fly isn't a good idea.
>
> I beg to differ. I love flyspell and use it
> all the time in org and message buffers!
> Not using it would slow me down or lead to
> rubbish prose as I do make a significant
> number of typing errors.

OK, but why not just spell check when you are
done and have the typing/spellchecking
processes separated?

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Eric S Fraga]

On Friday, 13 Jul 2018 at 12:22, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> OK, but why not just spell check when you are done and have the
> typing/spellchecking processes separated?

Simple: especially with emails, I forget to do so and I end up with less
than appealing results...  The auto-correct features of flyspell allow
me to continue writing and only correct when I pause.

-- 
Eric S Fraga via Emacs 27.0.50 & org 9.1.13 on Debian buster/sid

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Brett Gilio]

On 07/13/2018 12:04 PM, Eric S Fraga wrote:
Simple: especially with emails, I forget to do so and I end up with less
> than appealing results...  The auto-correct features of flyspell allow
> me to continue writing and only correct when I pause.

You could attach a method to auto-spell check at the time of sending, 
and will halt the send if any invalid spellings are detected. From there 
you either correct the spelling/syntax, or you ignore it and then the 
file will proceed to the recepient.

Just an idea.


-- 
Brett Gilio
brettg@posteo.net | bmg@member.fsf.org
https://www.parabola.nu/ | https://www.emacs.org/
Free Software -- Free Society!

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Eric S Fraga]

On Friday, 13 Jul 2018 at 14:02, Brett Gilio wrote:
> On 07/13/2018 12:04 PM, Eric S Fraga wrote:
> Simple: especially with emails, I forget to do so and I end up with less
>> than appealing results...  The auto-correct features of flyspell allow
>> me to continue writing and only correct when I pause.
>
> You could attach a method to auto-spell check at the time of sending,
> and will halt the send if any invalid spellings are detected. From
> there you either correct the spelling/syntax, or you ignore it and
> then the file will proceed to the recepient.

Yes, I could.  However, I find that these types of checks
proliferate.  I already have checks for encryption and for
attachments.  I find that I often ignore the prompts and simply say yes
to everything which kind of makes it all pointless...  But that's me.

Anyway, as noted in another post in this thread, the beauty of Emacs is
that everybody can have the system work the way they like.  For me,
spell-checking while writing is what I like and I'm very happy with
flyspell.

-- 
Eric S Fraga via Emacs 27.0.50 & org 9.1.13 on Debian buster/sid

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Emanuel Berg]

Eric S Fraga wrote:

>> OK, but why not just spell check when you
>> are done and have the typing/spellchecking
>> processes separated?
>
> Simple: especially with emails, I forget to
> do so and I end up with less than appealing
> results... The auto-correct features of
> flyspell allow me to continue writing and
> only correct when I pause.

OK, so the idle timer does it. Still it would
seem it would happen fast enough for my taste.

In your situation (forgetting to spellcheck)
I would bind it to a shortcut and have it enter
my muscle memory. If I still forgot about it,
I would tie it to some appropriate hook, be it
`message-send-hook'.

I already have that do this (the below code),
which enables me to use the same interface for
mail and Usenet (the "Newsgroups" or "To"
header that is empty is removed).

(defun remove-empty-headers ()
  (interactive)
  (goto-char (point-min))
  (while (re-search-forward "\\(To\\|Newsgroups\\): \n"
                            (get-header-separator-pos)
                            t) ; NOERROR
    (replace-match "") ))

;; (setq message-send-hook nil)
(defun message-send-hook-f ()
  (remove-empty-headers) )
(setq message-send-hook #'message-send-hook-f)

But to each his/her own, as always. Here, the
results don't vary. Or they do, which is
the point.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Brett Gilio]

On 07/13/2018 01:41 PM, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> Eric S Fraga wrote:
> 
>>> OK, but why not just spell check when you
>>> are done and have the typing/spellchecking
>>> processes separated?
>>
>> Simple: especially with emails, I forget to
>> do so and I end up with less than appealing
>> results... The auto-correct features of
>> flyspell allow me to continue writing and
>> only correct when I pause.
> 
> OK, so the idle timer does it. Still it would
> seem it would happen fast enough for my taste.
> 
> In your situation (forgetting to spellcheck)
> I would bind it to a shortcut and have it enter
> my muscle memory. If I still forgot about it,
> I would tie it to some appropriate hook, be it
> `message-send-hook'.
> 
> I already have that do this (the below code),
> which enables me to use the same interface for
> mail and Usenet (the "Newsgroups" or "To"
> header that is empty is removed).
> 
> (defun remove-empty-headers ()
>    (interactive)
>    (goto-char (point-min))
>    (while (re-search-forward "\\(To\\|Newsgroups\\): \n"
>                              (get-header-separator-pos)
>                              t) ; NOERROR
>      (replace-match "") ))
> 
> ;; (setq message-send-hook nil)
> (defun message-send-hook-f ()
>    (remove-empty-headers) )
> (setq message-send-hook #'message-send-hook-f)
> 
> But to each his/her own, as always. Here, the
> results don't vary. Or they do, which is
> the point.
> 

Emanuel beat my previous message to the punch. I should read my messages 
before I start to suggest things. Ha.

-- 
Brett Gilio
brettg@posteo.net | bmg@member.fsf.org
https://www.parabola.nu/ | https://www.emacs.org/
Free Software -- Free Society!

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Eric S Fraga]

On Friday, 13 Jul 2018 at 14:06, Brett Gilio wrote:
> Emanuel beat my previous message to the punch. I should read my
> messages before I start to suggest things. Ha.

And the magic of gnus scoring put your response before Emanuel's in my
group summary. :-)

-- 
Eric S Fraga via Emacs 27.0.50 & org 9.1.13 on Debian buster/sid

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Eric S Fraga]

On Friday, 13 Jul 2018 at 20:41, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> But to each his/her own, as always. Here, the
> results don't vary. Or they do, which is
> the point.

Exactly!  :-)

-- 
Eric S Fraga via Emacs 27.0.50 & org 9.1.13 on Debian buster/sid

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[R. Diez]

First of all, thanks for your answer and the fixes to the source code and docs.



> It is outdated and partially incorrect (e.g.,
> right mouse click does work on Flyspell).

It is not right-click, like everybody else would expect, but middle-click. But you are right, it does work, and that's actually good enough for me.



>> [...]

>> I tried flyspell-region, and that is one of the biggest surprises:
>> the spell check is performed just once, and is not updated
>> as I type inside that region.

> Like everything else in Flyspell, misspelled words are re-checked
> when you move across them or modify them.  That's a feature. 

> If you don't like that, I suggest to use ispell-region instead.

On the contrary, that is the behaviour I do want. Am I doing something wrong? If I mark a region (click on the beginning, hold shift, move to the end), and then run flyspell-region, the region gets spell-checked, and all the dictionary misses are underlined in red, as expected. But then, if I fix the words, the spelling marking (the red underlining) is not removed. It looks like Flyspell is not 'live' anymore within that region. The "overlay" is left behind as static font faces.



>> Well, I can manually recheck, however inconvenient. But the biggest
>> surprise is trying to remove the spelling marks at the end.

> If the word is still a misspelling, why should the mark be removed?

Often I get too many dictionary misses (too much red underlining). Or I just do not want to be distracted anymore. That is the reason why I want to be able to turn spell-checking on and off on demand on a particular region. And, when I want it off, I want to remove the "overlays" from that region. Why should they remain? At the moment, there is no direct way to do that.


> They are strings, aren't they?  How should Flyspell know that some

> string is a file name?

I would not have expected the filenames inside #include statements to be considered literal strings to be spell-checked. That does not make any sense.


Anyway, like I said, I do not want to check literal strings. Just comments. Emacs does know the difference. After all, the link I posted described how to turn off spell checking based on fonts/faces. And Emacs does show different colours depending on the C syntax, so it must know what is a literal string, what is an include filename, etc.



>> To top it all, there is one little surprise in store: disabling
>> flyspell-persistent-highlight renders flyspell-region useless.

> Disabling flyspell-persistent-highlight turns off highlight
> once point moves off the misspelled word.  I've now added
> that to the doc string.

That is an improvement, but it is not enough. What I mean is that, if you turn flyspell-persistent-highlight off, then flyspell-region does nothing other than consume CPU cycles. The red underlining for dictionary misses does not show up at all.


Regards,
  rdiez

Re: Flyspell difficult to configure, documentation not honest

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2018 21:50:00 +0000 (UTC)
> From: "R. Diez" <rdiezmail-emacs@yahoo.de>
> Cc: "help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org" <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
> 
> First of all, thanks for your answer and the fixes to the source code and docs.

You are welcome.  In the future, I suggest to post such reports using
"M-x report-emacs-bug RET", as that is how we prefer to deal with bugs
and feature requests.

> >> I tried flyspell-region, and that is one of the biggest surprises:
> >> the spell check is performed just once, and is not updated
> >> as I type inside that region.
> 
> > Like everything else in Flyspell, misspelled words are re-checked
> > when you move across them or modify them.  That's a feature. 
> 
> > If you don't like that, I suggest to use ispell-region instead.
> 
> On the contrary, that is the behaviour I do want. Am I doing something wrong? If I mark a region (click on the beginning, hold shift, move to the end), and then run flyspell-region, the region gets spell-checked, and all the dictionary misses are underlined in red, as expected. But then, if I fix the words, the spelling marking (the red underlining) is not removed. It looks like Flyspell is not 'live' anymore within that region. The "overlay" is left behind as static font faces.

Do you have flyspell-mode turned on in that buffer?  It sounds like
you don't.  Turn it on, and the highlight will disappear when you
correct the misspelled words.

> >> Well, I can manually recheck, however inconvenient. But the biggest
> >> surprise is trying to remove the spelling marks at the end.
> 
> > If the word is still a misspelling, why should the mark be removed?
> 
> Often I get too many dictionary misses (too much red underlining). Or I just do not want to be distracted anymore. That is the reason why I want to be able to turn spell-checking on and off on demand on a particular region. And, when I want it off, I want to remove the "overlays" from that region. Why should they remain? At the moment, there is no direct way to do that.

Just invoke flyspell-mode once again, it will turn itself off, and
remove all the highlights.

> > They are strings, aren't they?  How should Flyspell know that some
> 
> > string is a file name?
> 
> I would not have expected the filenames inside #include statements to be considered literal strings to be spell-checked. That does not make any sense.

Flyspell just reuses the syntax analysis of the major mode, that's
all.  I could understand a feature request to make this much smarter,
but such a feature was never designed nor implemented.

> Anyway, like I said, I do not want to check literal strings. Just comments. Emacs does know the difference. After all, the link I posted described how to turn off spell checking based on fonts/faces. And Emacs does show different colours depending on the C syntax, so it must know what is a literal string, what is an include filename, etc.

Like I said, please submit a feature request about that.

> >> To top it all, there is one little surprise in store: disabling
> >> flyspell-persistent-highlight renders flyspell-region useless.
> 
> > Disabling flyspell-persistent-highlight turns off highlight
> > once point moves off the misspelled word.  I've now added
> > that to the doc string.
> 
> That is an improvement, but it is not enough. What I mean is that, if you turn flyspell-persistent-highlight off, then flyspell-region does nothing other than consume CPU cycles. The red underlining for dictionary misses does not show up at all.

That's inaccurate.  If you watch closely enough, you will see each
misspelled word highlighted when cursor moves across it, then the
highlight turned off when the cursor moves off that word.  So yes,
this feature (which I find weird to begin with, and would never use in
my workflows) is incompatible with flyspell-region.