Signal-desktop: Spell checker

Created on 20 Jan 2018 · 11Comments · Source: signalapp/Signal-Desktop

New electron app doesn't have a spell checker, the old chrome extension did. Major Feature removal IMO.

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IGBC

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The module in question is the spellchecker node module. And it needs to be compiled against that specific version of Electron, which has a custom version to ensure that native modules are compiled against it properly.

Given that I was just able to get everything to load properly on Ubuntu 16.04, I'm guessing that this is a problem with the way the AUR was built. :0( I would recommend talking to the people who maintain that.

I'm going to close this until we get more information from @IGBC.

scottnonnenberg on 25 Jan 2018

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All 11 comments

Hi there IGBC. The new electron app does have spellcheck, it's just that you might be on a platform where it may take a bit of setup. My guess is that you'e on linux? Windows 8+ and OSX work by using built-in OS APIs. Linux for anything other than en-us requires that you download the necessary dictionary files for your target language.

Your log would still be useful, even for this feature, because at startup it will mention spell-check configuration details. Please don't omit your logs or the other elements of the issue template for future bugs.

scottnonnenberg on 22 Jan 2018

First off, these are my debug logs, and I should also say that I'm talking about using en-GB spellchecking.

I'm using Arch Linux (well, Antergos, but they're the same) and using Signal from the AUR.
Whilst I know this version isn't officially supported, I just wanted to note that (for me, at least) spellcheck used to work fine when Signal for desktop first came out, but this is no longer the case (and it hasn't been for a number of weeks now). Other electron based programs like Atom have working spellcheck, though.

sseneca on 24 Jan 2018

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@julianaakkh Hm, I'm not seeing expected spellcheck-related entries in that log.

Do either of you happen to have /tmp mounted as noexec? Today our spellcheck mechanism relies on running code inside of /tmp.

scottnonnenberg on 24 Jan 2018

No, /tmp for me is not mounted as noexec (I'm pretty sure, at least- I never set is as that in the first place and I just ran some commands in terminal which should have mounted it as exec just to be sure)

sseneca on 24 Jan 2018

Hm. I think the next thing we can do is open up the dev tools. Hit View -> Toggle Developer Tools, open the console tab, and then tell me what you see. Scroll all the way up until you find preload. You might need to restart the app then open devtools again to see this. You may see some errors printed there regarding spell check.

scottnonnenberg on 24 Jan 2018

This is the spellcheck related error I see. /tmp is mentioned, but does it have anything to do with it being mounted as noexec?

I'm not sure which npm module I should be re-compiling...

sseneca on 24 Jan 2018

I'm going to close this until we get more information from @IGBC.

scottnonnenberg on 25 Jan 2018

👍2

Did just that and now it's fixed. Thanks!

sseneca on 25 Jan 2018

I am using luminoso's CORP on both Fedora 29 and CentOS 7 and the spell checker has vanished with a new update. Is there anything I can install to get it back or is it a bug for luminoso to fix?