XML Spell Checker
The XML Spell Checker is available to all XML Editors within Liquid Studio
The Spell Checker shows any spelling mistakes in-line within the XML document and allows them to be corrected by clicking on them and selecting the correct spelling. Features include:
Advanced name checking - Element and attribute names are often a composite of several words, e.g. BillingAddress, billing-address, billing_address, The Liquid XML Spell Checker will automatically treat these as 2 separate words, so if there is a spelling mistake in part if it only that part is reported.
Open Office Compatible Dictionaries - The dictionary files that Liquid Studio uses are Open Office Compatible, meaning that if you want one that is not shipped with the product you can just download it from the Open Office web site, instructions for installing them can be found in the Liquid XML Online Help.
Highly Configurable - The spell checkers is highly configurable making it possible to select the kind of data is checked (e.g. text, element names, comments).
Spell Checking with Liquid Studio
Spell checking in Liquid Studio operates in real-time and is highly configurable. Whenever you have an XML file open in the editor, the spell checker will identify and highlight spelling errors. Rather than having to manually correct errors, a contextual menu provides quick links to correct, ignore or add words to the dictionary. The spell checker offers enhanced correction options tailored to the XML structures you are working with. You can customize the details of how spell checking functions within your data files and install additional dictionaries to accommodate the needs of your own projects.
Highlighting
Spelling errors in the code editor appear highlighted with a blue underline. Syntax errors in the editor are highlighted with red, so you can see at a glance what types of potential issue you have within your code. This screenshot shows an error in the spelling of an opening tag but not in the closing tag, so the editor is displaying blue highlighting for the spelling error and red for a syntax error because the tags do not match.
In this case the syntax error has been caused by the spelling error, which would typically only happen where the data has been imported into Liquid Studio. When you create your XML data structures in the Studio, such syntax errors do not typically occur since the editor auto-completes element markup.
Structures
The spell checker in Liquid Studio can accommodate common coding structures such as CamelCase, use of underscore, dot and dash characters. For example, your code might include the following as either as element or attribute names:
customerName
customer_name
customer-name
Taking the first format as an example, using CamelCase, if your data erroneously includes "customerName", the editor will only display spelling error highlighting under the "customer" section of the string, since "Name" is correctly spelled. The spell checker treats the individual sections of such structures individually, splitting the strings into tokens and checking each one for spelling errors. As well as helping you to identify spelling errors in these types of structure, this prevents the editor from displaying spelling errors for the entire strings, as in some code editors, so "customerName" will not be highlighted for spelling as long as both parts of it are spelled correctly.
Correcting and Responding to Spelling Errors
When you encounter a spelling error in the editor, rather than correcting it manually, you can choose from a range of automated options, accessible on right-clicking the highlighted entity. This menu is context-specific, so you will only see a Spelling option where you have right-clicked on a code section with a spelling error identified. The Spelling menu presents options for correcting the error, ignoring it or adding it to the dictionary.
Correcting
The first part of the Spelling menu offers a list of suggested replacements. On moving to any of these, you will be presented with three options. You can replace the word, replace all occurrences of it in the document or replace all occurrences of it in the same XML entity type.
If you choose to replace the word only, this will leave all other occurrences of the error in the document intact, except where the error you are dealing with is in an opening tag and the same error appears in the closing tag - in this case the closing tag for the element will also be corrected using your chosen replacement, so that no syntax error occurs.
The middle replacement option is specific to the type of entity your spelling error has been identified in. For example, if you right-clicked on a spelling error in an element name and selected this option, the editor would replace all occurrences of the same error in element names throughout the document, but would leave any other occurrences of the error intact, for example in attributes or element text. This option allows you to carry out replacements specific to element names, element text, attribute names, attribute text, comments and CDATA.
The final option simply replaces every occurrence of the spelling error in the entire document, with the text updated instantly.
Ignoring and Adding
If you find a spelling error highlighted and do not want to add the word to the dictionary, but also do not want to see the word highlighted while you are working with your code, you can select the option to ignore it.
If the spell checker has highlighted a string that you want it to recognize as correct spelling, you can choose the option to add it to the dictionary. This is particularly useful for structures you use frequently or which appear throughout a data set. As well as stopping the editor from highlighting strings that do not need corrected, this means that any incorrect spellings of the new word will be highlighted. You can manage any added words within the options for spell checking.
Options
Choosing Tools | Options | Environment | Spell Checking will bring up your configurable options. Here you can toggle various aspects of the spell checker, depending on whether you want the spell checker to operate at all, or to operate only for particular XML entity types. The spell checker is highly customizable to accommodate the variable nature of XML data. While you may want the security of knowing you have identified any spelling errors, keeping error highlighting to a minimum can make your code easier to work with.
You can also toggle spell checking for words that appear in all upper-case characters, another common structure in XML, and for strings with numbers in them. If you let the editor check words with numbers in them, it will effectively ignore the number and treat the other sections of the words individually.
You can configure minimum and maximum word lengths to check for spelling errors. So, for example, if you choose a minimum word length of 2 characters, the spell checker will not highlight single characters in your data.
When you install Liquid Studio, a selection of dictionaries are included. The spell checker uses Open Office compatible dictionaries, so you can download and use any other dictionaries you need. To do so, visit the dictionaries section at the Open Office web site and select a dictionary of your choice. Once you have downloaded the OXT file for the dictionary, rename it as a ZIP file and extract it. Copy the AFF and DIC files from the download into your Liquid Studio installation folder, placing the files in the Dictionaries directory. When you restart the software, you will see any dictionaries you have installed appearing in the drop-down list within the options section for spell checking. See also the instructions for installing dictionaries in the Liquid XML Online Help.
You can manage any words you have added to the dictionary while working your files from the spell checking options. In the Custom Words section, select individual words to remove, or remove all of the previously added words if you prefer. Clicking OK will apply any changes you have made to the options.
