Simplenote-electron: Spellcheck isn't active

[rachelsquirrel]

Spellcheck _should_ be on in the app but it apparently isn't. This has been reported in other issues (#3153710-t [@Hywan]) here and with draft-js as well.

Spellcheck is activated in the code but not the app.

Some testing revealed that this works when running the app locally in a browser but the Electron app appears to not support it.

This issue is here to figure out _why_ spellcheck isn't on when it should be.

[davewhitley]

Note: We should allow the user to turn off/on spellcheck like in any textarea in the browser. If that's not possible, then this will require developing a feature and adding a settings to the app.

Edit: I'm not sure how this works on Windows and Linux. On Mac, you can enable/disable spellcheck with a right click.

[dmsnell]

@drw158 and @rachelsquirrel this came for free when we merged in the draftjs editor (thanks @nfcampos) in #370. While it's now on-by-default, we could add an option to disable it.

@drw158 do you think an item in the menu would be best for this? add an option in both the menu and in the app settings pane? under the _Display_ settings?

[davewhitley]

Sorry, somehow I missed this.

I think the spellcheck setting should be in the Edit menu. Nothing in the app settings pane. Would be nice to also have it in the right click menu?

@dmsnell Is spellcheck now enabled via draft.js?

We have a recent issue for spellcheck #517

[davewhitley]

Library for adding spellcheck in the duplicate issue:

https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-spellchecker

[martynchamberlin]

I'm noticing that in SimpleNote 1.0.8, we've lost spellcheck. Would love to have this back.

[Hywan]

@martynchamberlin :+1:

One of our user is asking to get spellcheck back on Windows, #3153710-t.

[martynchamberlin]

@Hywan Yeah. I am sending out emails with typos in them because the hassle of manually running a spellcheck is 2007. Nobody wants to have to do that. It should be automatic.

[belenos]

Any news on that? I'm using the Linux version and Simplenote still doesn't have a working spell check. That's a must-have feature for any decent text editor nowadays.

[martynchamberlin]

I personally switched to Bear. An editor that doesn't have spellcheck is ridiculous.

[belenos]

Bear is nice on iOS, I have tested it. I'm using Ghostwriter on Ubuntu, but it lacks a mobile app or sync between devices.

[dmsnell]

I personally switched to Bear.

Well we hope that you are happy with Bear. We'll always welcome you back; and we haven't decided to not support spell-check - it's just a problem in the code that we haven't solved yet. We'd also love to have you participate via code submissions :smile:

An editor that doesn't have spellcheck is ridiculous.

More like programmers who make an editor with a broken spell-checker are ridiculous. Honestly I've never made a spilling misteak so I didn't know it was broken 🙃

---

Seriously though I mean this post with a light heart. We are committed long-term to Simplenote and to making it the best free and simple note taking app around but unfortunately don't have the time to get everything fixed or added in the schedules that everybody wants them to be.

Thanks sincerely for using it; we hope it is a tool that enriches what you do more than it hinders.

[PhiLhoSoft]

Do you have an idea where this could be broken? Maybe a contributor can try and fix that, pushing in the right direction can help a lot.

Note: I am not sure if it is possible at all in an Electron app, but being able to support several languages would be a tremendous bonus!
I write lot of notes in French, my native language, but I also take technical notes in English, for example.
Ah, I see the above mentioned library handles that, apparently. As long as it doesn't block when off-line and needing a new dictionary. :smile:

[dmsnell]

@PhiLhoSoft I think it's an issue with draft-js - theres a linked comment in the description above. It's specifically related to Electron if that's actually the case.

[m1aw]

I was able to debug the problem is in electron not being properly configured.
I cloned the repo and launched the local version and had spellcheck in the browser naturally. So even if draft-js has spellcheck as true electron is not displaying spellcheck.

I did some googling and tried to hack it to force spellcheck but I wasn't able to do it since I really don't understand much electron.

I'm not sure if I will have more time to debug it today, but if I do I will post the results.

[dmsnell]

That's helpful @m1aw - note too that testing locally in the browser won't match the behavior inside of Electron. To test locally though after you have installed the dependencies and built it, you can start with the following command and you will have the Chrome developer tools open for aid in debugging and testing.

./node_modules/.bin/electron . --devtools

[khaullen]

Any updates on where this fits into the roadmap?

[deanhtid]

Just came across this app recently and I love it, but it really needs a spell checker

[timypcr]

I just found this app today and I agree needs spell check

[boubouhkarim]

I am using this app but it's really hard to use it without a spell checker :(

[mnmami]

Spell-check is needed indeed, at least with the enable/disable option.

[mdrovdahl]

@drw158 @dmsnell I'm just getting caught up here...were y'all suggesting/confident that draft-js is already providing spell checking to the electron app, but for a configuration error? Or, is spellchecking is a gap which needs filling via something like https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-spellchecker?

I can't promise I'll fix this...but, as a daily user of the linux/electron app, I'm motivated and hope to at least help zero in on what to fix, where and how.

[mdrovdahl]

Hmmm...ok, I just read https://github.com/Automattic/simplenote-electron/pull/692 and that makes me think that with draft-js possibly on its way out (in favor of https://github.com/Microsoft/monaco-editor), that the solution for fixing spellchecking is not going to be within the realm of fixing a configuration issue w/draft-js.

I'll look into https://github.com/Automattic/simplenote-electron/tree/editor/use-monaco and see what the spellcheck situation looks like on that branch...

[mengfoobar]

@drw158 @dmsnell @mdrovdahl
try using https://github.com/kwonoj/electron-hunspell
It plays well with draftjs and it's pretty easy to setup

[ghost]

What?! 3 years later and as a standalone app SimpleNote still has no spell checker?! What the heck?!

[j10sanders]

I'm on linux and Simplenote would otherwise be my favorite. Need spellcheck.

[chrismaree]

Still no way to add spellcheck to this application?

[mirka]

This has been implemented (#821 #872) and will be released soon 🙂

[erricgunawan]

I know this issue has been closed.

But just wanted to mention that a user reported they still have a problem with spellchecker on Windows: 1584054-zen

I hope this implementation will fix the user's problem when it's released.

[geezzeer]

I can confirm that today, Nov 27, 2018, spellcheck is not working in Simplenote 1.2.1 on Windows 10.

[mirka]

@erricgunawan @geezzeer

Currently, the spell checker language is tied to your OS language. So for example if your OS is set to Chinese, and you typed in English in Simplenote, spell check will not work. Is this the case for you? (If not, please post a new issue with details.)

I realize this is quite limiting, so we're planning to make it more flexible (#949).

[erricgunawan]

Thanks for checking in @mirka !

I asked this question from the user in 1584054-zen to get more clarification.

[frafor]

As I type here, the browser itself is spell checking every single word I type, underlining the word with a red corrugated line if it is not correctly spelled. It is built in the browser and can check any language I may be using.

Neither the Windows 10 application nor using simplenote in a browser kicks in the spell checkers active all the time with any other text box to edit text, even formatted text.

I suppose you decided to forget about Windows and Linux as desktop operating systems.

Well, in iOS it works and even shows the offending word underlined in corrugated red, but not for long, only just after you typed the space indicated that that's the end of word.

I have a web app; I set the from for user to type in a regular plain text input. All browsers continue to be functional in its spell checking capabilities. I use a simple text-to-html js library which processes 3000 words in less than 1 second. Honestly, I can not find the problem in what this app is trying to do.

It is nice to publish the page so easily and then share in the social networks. My app can also a way to extract a book or chapters and render an HTML page at once.

It is possible! Keep trying. It is a good idea. Simple, great, but with a terrible drawback.

[codebykat]

Thanks for the feedback, @frafor. We do believe it is possible, but it is unfortunately not at all simple (technically). If you're curious about the technical limitations, it has to do with the fact that our editor component (Monaco editor) does not use text components in the browser. This trade-off is a huge performance benefit, especially for long notes (it doesn't render the entire note, only the part on your screen), but presents a challenge for a few things, including spell-checking. There's sadly no API that allows us to "hook in" to the OS-level spellcheck for what the browser perceives as non-editable components.

We do have some ideas for this, but we'll have to reinvent a few wheels along the way, so please stay tuned. 😄