Dictionaries

Dictionaries

Working with dictionaries

Dictionaries used with ActivSpell consist of a standard lexicon set. A lexicon set contains at least 2 files, the compressed lexicon that has a file extension of .clx, and the text lexicon, with a file extension of .tlx. An additional blank text lexicon, an empty text file with the .tlx extension is generally included for user additions to the dictionary.

Dictionaries can be customized in several ways.

Any text lexicon can be edited in a text editor. The format is a [wordflag], for each line. The i flag is include word. The e flag is exclude. The e flag may not apply properly to words found in the compressed lexicon in ActivSpell 1.0. There is no method to programmatically exclude words in ActivSpell version 1.0 or 2.0.
Any text lexicon can be edited by calling a method of the SpellChecker object. An example of this is found in the addword template in the spellchecker directory. This is the method used by the default interface.
The addword JavaScript function in the spellchecker spell template can be modified to add a user-requested addition to a hidden form field. The value of the field would be stored in a database table. A separate form would allow an administrator to approve the spelling of the requested addition and then add it to the text lexicon using the method called on the SpellChecker object.

The standard ActivSpell interface sets the user dictionary path in an application variable or variable defined in an include file. This variable can be dynamic and can include a user id. This makes it possible to enable multiple user dictionaries for a single form. The filepath need only be a valid path to an existing text lexicon.

More than one dictionary can be used in a single spelling session through the addLexicon() method. This makes it possible to support multilingual applications and applications that require language extension, such as medical or legal extensions. Check the availability of the addLexicon() method in ActivSpell for your application server by searching for it in the attributes or properties section of the documentation. This method will be supported for all supported application servers in version 2.0.

CFDev makes commonly used dictionaries supplied by third-party vendors available as options for ActivSpell. The American and British dictionaries are included with the standard ActivSpell distribution. CFDev does not compile dictionaries and our rights are restricted to distribution with ActivSpell. Most dictionary vendors distribute dictionaries as standard lexicon sets. This gives you some flexibility in choosing custom dictionaries for use with ActivSpell. If you would like us to search for a specific dictionary, contact us.