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Auto select dictionary

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  • 21 views
  • Last reply by James

Peter_Scheurman
Peter_Scheurman
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I'm a native Dutch speaker, and also read and write a lot in English. Hence I have two dictionaries installed for spell checking: Dutch and English.

I often find myself using one language on one page, and the other on the next, thus having to switch the spell checker dictionary between Dutch and English all the time.

What would be VERY convenient, is either

1. The possibility to use two (or any number) dictionaries at the same time.

Or better yet:

2. The possibility to 'auto detect' the current language, and use that dictionary.

This auto detect thing could simply consist of seeing what dictionary results in the least number of detected spelling errors, and use that.

Thanks for your consideration, this sounds like a rather simple feature to me, yet I've been missing it for many years, and I have in fact found quite some similar requests from other people throughout the internet as well! It would make a great addition to Firefox!

I'm a native Dutch speaker, and also read and write a lot in English. Hence I have two dictionaries installed for spell checking: Dutch and English. I often find myself using one language on one page, and the other on the next, thus having to switch the spell checker dictionary between Dutch and English all the time. What would be VERY convenient, is either 1. The possibility to use two (or any number) dictionaries at the same time. Or better yet: 2. The possibility to 'auto detect' the current language, and use that dictionary. This auto detect thing could simply consist of seeing what dictionary results in the least number of detected spelling errors, and use that. Thanks for your consideration, this sounds like a rather simple feature to me, yet I've been missing it for many years, and I have in fact found quite some similar requests from other people throughout the internet as well! It would make a great addition to Firefox!

All Replies (3)

cor-el
cor-el
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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That is not possible AFAIK.

A possible workaround is this extension;

Peter_Scheurman
Peter_Scheurman Question owner
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Thanks for the tip, in fact I've already tried that add-on in the past, unfortunately it didn't work. Just installed and tested again, still doesn't.

If I type in Dutch, it's ok. If I type in English, it's all red lines. I switch to English, red lines are gone. I type in Dutch, red lines all over again. It doesn't seem to auto switch anything, unfortunately, and I can't find anything to configure or activate either (the add-on itself is enabled, of course).

Currently it's not possible in Firefox, but it seems to be a very simple feature to implement, I hope the developers will consider adding it.

James
James
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Peter_Scheurman said

Currently it's not possible in Firefox, but it seems to be a very simple feature to implement, I hope the developers will consider adding it.

The inline spell checker has been in Firefox ever since Firefox 2.0 way back in Oct 2006. So if this was going to be implemented, there was plenty of time to do so.

If you think this is not that complicated to implement well you can submit appropriate patches in bugzilla to get it put in. Many times things are added in or fixed with the help of people not involved with Mozilla though they need approval.

Mozilla decided to go with a pretty basic spellchecker when they could have implemented a useful spellchecker setup like what the old Spellbound extension added before. However doing so would have been more work to make and maintain over time.