Maybe this is a dumb question, but does Dorico have a spellchecker? (for text)
Not presently.
In that case, I would like to request it as a feature! (because I’m terrible at proofreading my own typing)
Spellcheck is to blunt a tool four you’re kneads.
And it will like - ly be un - ab - le to cope with ly - rics when hy - phen - at - ed.
As a feature, it would come with a development cost that would delay other things that might be considered more important, but the way to change the Dorico team’s priorities is to ask about it here.
cheers
Jeremy
2 Likes
If you type large amounts of text (stage directions, etc.), type it into a text editor that has spell checking, then copy and paste the result into Dorico. For shorter text, a discerning look at what you type, as you work, should do it.
Given that at least 2 among many languages are used for many pieces, a spell checker might be difficult to implement.
3 Likes
Ah yes I understand it would be complicated with languages and lyrics. I don’t know the first thing about how to implement such a thing or if it’s worth the time and effort for the team. It’s certainly not at the top of my wishlist. I’d much prefer to have aleatory over spellchecking, for example.
That is a great tip @notesetter ! I will start typing longer text into a separate text editor and copy-pasting.
(IF they decide that adding a spellchecker is worth it, I imagine it could still be useful despite the lyrics/language issue. You could potentially have it only check shift X text and not lyrics or playing techniques, for example. And when I write about music in a word processor, there are often many words that are either technical terms or in other languages that the dictionary underlines in red because it does not recognize, but the spellchecker is still useful as a whole–and you can often add your commonly used terms to the dictionary.)
It would be nice, but there are much higher priority things I’d like to see Dorico implement.
Considering the number of countries and languages Dorico either does or hopes to support, the thought of developing a spelling (or hyphenation) routine when such routines are generally available elsewhere seems a pointless endeavor for the Dorico Team to spend time on.
Sure, it would be convenient, but other, easily accessible programs already do this in the multiplicity of languages that Dorico would have to support.
I’d be satisfied with a Finale-like lyric panel where I could proof pre-hyphenated text to catch hyphenation errors (or two-syllable contractions hyphenated as three syllables) before assigning them to notes.
I wonder if the text boxes could access the spellcheck that seems baked in at the OS level rather than coming up with their own internal system. Like @JHughes my very first thought was lyrics, for which spellcheck would be utterly unhelpful. But I could see it being helpful in text boxes. One problem, at least, would be training the OS not to mark the tokens as incorrectly spelled, and I think it’s safe to say that the default behavior should only be to highlight, rather than autocorrect (which reeks havoc on ios).
1 Like
Very interesting thought @Romanos !
Yes I definitely agree that if it existed, it should only highlight and not auto correct. And that you should be able to show or hide the highlights.
But also I agree with you all that I’d rather Dorico prioritize exciting new musical features over spellcheck.
1 Like