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Aucbvax.2341 fa.works utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!works Sat Jul 18 02:58:59 1981 Ideal word-processor >From REM@MIT-MC Sat Jul 18 02:51:45 1981 I wish EMACS/RMAIL had this, but maybe if I suggest it this feature will be installed in some future text-processing system: You're rapidly typing new text into this editor program. As you type, in parallel with your typing, the spelling&grammar-corrector is checking your text. When it finds an apparent error it flags the error and indicates alongside it a suggested correction. Any time you want, without having to manually put the cursor back there and manually make the correction, you may enter one of three commands:

Stet (ignore the error, let it stand without correction) Ok correction (make the correction it guessed at) Repair manually (automatically put cursor there, then you manually fix it however you want, then if the spelling corrector still doesn't your fix it shows its new best guess at correction and leaves the cursor there, so you can Stet or Ok or Repair again)

After satisfying the flagged apparent error by Stet or Ok, it shows you the next apparent error if there is any pending; but you may just continue typing normally if you don't feel like handling the new apparent error immediately. If you're a bad speller, what you'd probably do is type a half a screenful then sit there giving the Ok command for a whole batch of errors it found, then go back to typing. Thus you wouldn't have to constantly check your typing to see if keystrokes were lost or words you're not sure of were wrong. If both the word you typed and the suggested correction were wrong, but you're lazy (it isn't an important document nor a submission to a mass-mailing such as WORKS, just an informal note to a friend), you could just Stet the error if it's not too gross. You could even let the suggested corrections roll off the screen, not bothering to even check them for grossness, if you're really in a hurry (thus it would degenerate to what we have now if you choose not to actually use the info the spelling-corrector gives you).

With a Xerox-Smalltalk style of user interface, you could easily random-access the suggested corrections, manually fixing the gross ones and then Steting or Oking all the others en masse.

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