I think the _choosing_ of spelling dictionaries in Nisus is a mess. Before I go on about this however, I first want to second Gerhard's and Michael's experience. I use the super dictionary too (and have been for a long time) with no problems whatsover. Just as Michael does, I have both the regular "Nisus U.S. Dictionary" and the "Nisus U.S. Super Dictionary" in my "Dictionaries" folder, and judging from the Catalog they are both in use/loaded. When I spell check, the dialog states that it is using the "Super" dictionary. I also use several languages. I have the "English(British)", "French" and "German(Swiss)" modules in my "Dictionaries" folder, and again the catalog indicates that those dictionaries are all loaded. As far as I can judge, multi-lingual spell checking has become _more_ stable under NW 6. However what I think is completely confusing is the coexistence of 3 systems for choosing dictionaries. Those are: 1. Automatic. -- Put a dictionary in your "Nisus Writer Tools:Dictionaries" folder, and apply a language style. NW chooses the dictionary for you. This is most useful for multi-lingual checking. (Note: One can use an alias instead of the actual dictionary file). 2. Preferences. -- In the "Preferences:Dictionary" the user can choose a complete set of dictionaries. However the multi-lingual user is left to wonder how this interacts with 1, and which of the several languages that they want to spell check, this preference will be applied to. 3. Manual. -- Click on a dictionary file in the catalog or Finder. The dictionary will be loaded. The most confusing aspect of this system is the interaction of 1 and 2. Method 2 is of course a holdover from NW 4 and earlier, which did not yet have the multi-lingual checking option, and the preferences probably take over when the "Automatically Switch Dictionaries by Language" option is unchecked. But I really don't know what they do in the multi-lingual case. (I have the U.S. English set chosen there, including the "Super" dictionary.) It's all the more confusing, because this is the (only?) place the user can choose the user dictionary. But a multi-lingual user may well want to choose special user dictionaries for each of the several languages. Where can they do that? One additional thing which is very confusing is that most users seem to think there should be some kind of default language. However I see no evidence that Nisus has such a thing. The default is just whatever language is set in your stationery. Still one gets the impression that perhaps a reference to the U.S. dictionary is "hard-wired" into the program somewhere, which would explain why some British English users get occasional requests for that one. [An aside here: Geoff Heard seems to have suffered from this problem. One thing is that Geoff upgraded directly from NW 4.1.6 to NW 6, and presumably still has a lot of NW 4 files (including stationery?) hanging around. Since NW 4 didn't have the languages styles yet, and Geoff has his "default" set to British English, one wonders what language those old files come out to be in?] Anyhow, I think Nisus really needs to address this in a future version, by (a) making it clear how the user can choose the dictionaries for each language, and (b) giving some clear indication of how to set the "default". Finally as to what might be causing problems. The Definition Dictionary definitely did cause crashes for me with NW 5 (I haven't tried it recently). However it caused problems only if it was loaded AND I tried to use is repeatedly. It's mere presence in the dictionary folder did not cause any trouble, and even having it loaded did not cause trouble -- at least not until I tried to look up a definition. How useful! :-) best -------------------------------------- Philip Spaelti Kobe Shoin Women's University spaelti@shoin.ac.jp -------------------------------------- On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 21:29:13 +0100 leif h silli wrote... >I experienced the crash when I was shifting from Norwegian (Bokmal) Dictionary to Nisus US Super Dictioary or the opposite. >As you know NW can choose dictionary based on the language "style". >Perhaps it is is this going from SuperDictionary to normal Dictionary that creates crashes ? >I don't if e.g. Geoff, who hasn't managed to reach the crashless state with the SuperDict also used a non-English dictionary as well ? >Perhaps your, Gerhard Beurlen, have something to say ? Since you live in Rio de Janeiro you might be using the portugese dictionary e.g. also ? >Leif >Den 15 January 2001 skal Michael Slavin <michael@THEWEBSTER.COM> ha skrive: >>My Dictionaries folder contains the following: >>Nisus Definition Dictionary >>Nisus U.S. Dictionary >>Nisus U.S. Hyphenation >>Nisus U.S. Super Dictionary >>Nisus U.S. Thesaurus >>Nisus U.S. User Dictionary >>The key is to select what you want from Preferences. >> >> >>quoth leif h silli (lhs@RUSSISK.NO) on 1/15/01 11:16 AM: >> >>>Have you deleted the regular dictionary or renamed the super dict. ? Or do >>>you still have the regular dictionary in the same folder ? >>> >>>Leif >>> >>>Den 15 January 2001 skal Michael Slavin <michael@THEWEBSTER.COM> ha skrive: >>> >>>>I drag the dictionary into the Tools -> Dictionaries folder and then >>>>select it from the Preferences panel Dictinaries, no problems with US >>>>Super D >>>>-m
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jan 18 2001 - 23:01:54 AEDT