Spellchecking

[LordEntrails]

So, I know that there is no spellchecker inside FG, but I was wondering. Has anyone tried opening a module xml file inside NPP or similar and running a spellchecker there? If so, is there an FG dictionary or such that knows all the valid xml so I don't get errors on that?

I've never actually tried this, and before I spent time figuring it out, I thought to ask and see if anyone had a solution already.

[Zacchaeus]

The very latest version of Notepad++ lacks a Plugin Manager so you can't add a spellchecker to it. You can however load up the 32 bit version of notepad and add spellcheckers to that. I've never spellchecked XML files however I do them on the .txt files. You can also copy/paste into word and spellcheck there and then paste back. I don't know of a spellchecker that will miss out the xml tags in the spellcheck but I'n sure there will be one somewhere.

[Trenloe]

I don't know of a spellchecker that will miss out the xml tags in the spellcheck but I'n sure there will be one somewhere.
The issue is that XML (eXtensible Markup Language) does not use standard names for tags (that's the "eXtensible" bit), and it doesn't use spaces. Forexample, "Green Dragon" would be stored as <greendragon> - which would be seen as a spelling error for that tag and for links to that record, whereas it's fine XML and just two correctly spelled names put together. So, it would be a very difficult task to develop a spell checker for the whole of an XML file - due to the way XML stores data and the fact that tags (and therefore links) could be anything.

[Nickademus]

So, I know that there is no spellchecker inside FG, but I was wondering. Has anyone tried opening a module xml file inside NPP or similar and running a spellchecker there? If so, is there an FG dictionary or such that knows all the valid xml so I don't get errors on that?

I've never actually tried this, and before I spent time figuring it out, I thought to ask and see if anyone had a solution already.

I'm confused. Are you asking about spellchecking for text that people read, or are you asking for a list of xml tag names that Smiteworks using in the official products? The former can be done in any word processor that has spellchecking. The latter isn't available and probably won't be as I doubt Smiteworks can justify taking the time to compile the list for no in-house gain. Though, you should be able to drag any asset (except for images) from an official module into a campaign and export it to see what the name of the xml tag is in the module.

[LordEntrails]

No, spell checking for the part that people read. So anything in an XML tag can be ignored. It would be for finding typos as I input stuff manually in story entries etc, or for cut and paste errors from PDF files (since that stuff seems to always have some sort of error,like dropping 'l' s or such.

I did find this thread, which seems related, but I haven't tried it. https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?14024-Getting-the-Most-Out-of-Notepad

I am using NPP 32 bit, so I do have the spell checker plug-in, but don't know if that dictionary mentioned for squiggly check would work...

[Nickademus]

I just use MS Word. I'd imagine Open Office (or another free Word-clone) would do just as well.

[LordEntrails]

I just use MS Word. I'd imagine Open Office (or another free Word-clone) would do just as well.
Just open the XML in Word? And ignore the xml tags? Does saving cause any problems? (i.e. does Word mess with the DTD or embed other stuff?)

[Nickademus]

Again I'm not following. You spellcheck before you put the text into the xml file. Are you talking about spellchecking someone else's product?

Regardless, when I open an xml file in MS Word, it puts the tags into containers that are not part of the text (and therefore doesn't register as misspelled). So yes, you could just open an xml file in Word and look for the red squiggles for spellchecking. Though I wouldn't trust Word to save. Open the xml in Notepad++ next to Word and do the actual corrections there.

[LordEntrails]

So I'm authoring the content in FG. Typing in the story entries, doing up the NPC's, items etc in FG, not in an external app and then pasting or parsing to get it into FG. So I have all this content in FG, and it's never been spell checked. So I'm looking for a way to get this spell checked.

I input directly in FG because often times I only have 10 or 15 minutes to work on stuff and don't want to get into having to convert, lose my place, etc

For PDF conversions, I could just cut and paste into NPP or something first, and clean it up there, wouldn't be any more or less work, but for the FG authored content, I need a way to spell check it.

I'll post back with what I figure out.

[L. R. Ballard]

So I'm authoring the content in FG. Typing in the story entries, doing up the NPC's, items etc in FG, not in an external app and then pasting or parsing to get it into FG. So I have all this content in FG, and it's never been spell checked. So I'm looking for a way to get this spell checked.

I input directly in FG because often times I only have 10 or 15 minutes to work on stuff and don't want to get into having to convert, lose my place, etc

For PDF conversions, I could just cut and paste into NPP or something first, and clean it up there, wouldn't be any more or less work, but for the FG authored content, I need a way to spell check it.

I'll post back with what I figure out.

I'm interested to read about what you figure out.

There's no shortage of good proofing addons available for Microsoft Word to augment Spellcheck's capabilities. I own several hundred dollars of tools that I use in my freelance editing business for academics. The addons are powerful, but they have to be used in MS Word.

I've brainstormed possible solutions for proofing FG stuff, but there's no way to "reverse parse" FG content back into .txt files, so there appears to be no way to proof FG text that's initially created in FG. The ability to edit and proofread by using my tools is one big reason I'm training myself to use .txt and parse to create content, though I recognize how time constraints can lead one to develop content in the FG interface.

[Talyn]

Like everyone else has said, the "best" process is to spellcheck from text prior to insertion into FG or XML. That said, given that this is RPGs and fantasy and sci-fi has all kinds of words that will trigger the spellcheck, I find myself manually copy-editing as I'm inserting even after I've run the spellcheck, but that's a hard habit to break for English majors. :)

If you're copying directly from a PDF, I'm going to say generally that is a Bad Idea™ as I've noticed a lot of RPG PDFs don't get the same level of typography that a literary tome would and many "fake it" with a custom font that masks their typographical laziness and/or mistakes. Once you copy that, though, now you're exposing the mistakes. Since 99% of anyone working with Fantasy Grounds so far is untrained in catching those mistakes, they get reproduced here, which is unfortunate.

[Andraax]

Many times, copy and paste from PDFs has problems with ligatures (two characters that are typographically produced as one character). They sometimes paste as "?" in FG, or are sometimes just left out. Here is a list of the ones I've commonly seen in PDFs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_ligature#Stylistic_ligatures

[Nickademus]

Honestly, its a good practice for any content you plan on selling to have a text-file copy (made first and spellchecked) of any text. Then backup the text file on a flash drive or syncing software so as not to lose the raw data of the product.

[LordEntrails]

I've experienced that ligatures problem, but never knew why. Thanks for the education :)

Word 2016 is out, it warns you when you open an XML file it is going to remove all the tags and they will be lost when saved. Plus it doesn't open it "cleanly" anyway.

NPP with the current spell checker seems to be working well though. Will give more feedback when I get more testing done.