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What is the difference between the DE and XE versions of
Wintertree Spelling Server? |
Click here for an explanation of the
differences between the two versions. |
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How do I use Wintertree Spelling Server on my Web site? |
You can use Wintertree Spelling Server in two ways:
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Use the included spelling applet to spell-check the contents of text
areas in your HTML forms. The applet is tiny (just 11K) and
communicates with your server to check spelling. Using the applet
requires virtually no programming on your part.
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You add a spell checker to your ASP and ASP.NET applications. Your
application calls Wintertree Spelling Server (running on your server)
to check the spelling of text entered in HTML forms. Example ASP and
ASP.NET applications are included with Wintertree Spelling Server. Click
here to see how these examples work. |
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What's the difference between Wintertree Spelling Server and Sentry
Spelling Checker for Windows? |
Wintertree Spelling Server was designed specifically for use on
high-traffic servers, where multiple clients make simultaneous
spelling requests. Features such as shared dictionaries and a
stateless API make this possible without sacrificing performance. The
Sentry product, on the other hand, was designed for use in desktop
applications where it would be accessed within at most a few
concurrent threads, and is therefore far less efficient in a highly
concurrent situation such as a web server. |
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What happens in the DE version when a fifth spelling request is
received? Does the user get an error message? |
The limit of four simultaneous spelling requests in the DE version
has no undesirable side-effects. The fifth simultaneous spelling
request is simply queued internally until one of the first four
finishes. From the outside, nothing appears to happen at all. No
error messages are displayed, and no exceptions are raised. The user
would be entirely unable to tell whether his or her request was the
fifth, and therefore queued, or the first, and processed right away.
The fifth request is not rejected or discarded; it simply
waits for its turn. We like to use the analogy of a barber shop with
four chairs to describe the DE version. From the outside, you could
see a customer (a spelling request) go in, and some time later that
customer would come out (the spelling request would be finished). You
couldn't easily tell if the customer was served right away or had to
sit in the waiting area for a while until a barber chair became
available. Of course, if it was necessary to wait in the waiting
area, it would take a little longer for the customer to come out.
With only five simultaneous spelling requests, the difference between
the DE and XE versions of Wintertree Spelling Server are negligible.
At higher loads (e.g., 50 simultaneous requests), the XE version has
higher throughput. That is the only difference between the DE
and XE versions. |
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What about support? |
Free support is included in the purchase price. See Support
Policy for a statement of our support policy. |
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How do I obtain upgrades? |
Annual maintenance contracts are available (order product #0226
or #0231). With an annual maintenance
contract, we will send you any major or minor upgrades. You can also
purchase upgrades for new versions at any time (order product #0239
or #0240). |
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Can I add words to the dictionary? |
Yes. You can create custom dictionaries which can be shared by call
clients (users). For example, you could create a custom dictionary
containing the names of products sold on your site. Users can also
add words to user dictionaries at run time. |
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Can Wintertree Spelling Server offer suggested replacements for
misspelled words? |
Yes. Wintertree Spelling Server's API includes the Suggest method,
which looks up suggestions for misspellings. |
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Does the dictionary just contain words, or words and definitions? |
Just words. Wintertree Spelling Server is a highly optimized spell
check engine. |
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How much memory and disk space does Wintertree Spelling Server need? |
Surprisingly little! See Technical Details
for information on Wintertree Spelling Server's resource requirements. |
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How fast is Wintertree Spelling Server? |
Very fast! Fast enough to check the spelling of all 500,000+
words in War and Peace in less than 1.5 seconds. Click
here for information on Wintertree Spelling Server's performance. |
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If we license Wintertree Spelling Server, do we need to license
the English Word List too? |
No. Wintertree Spelling Server comes with American, Canadian, and UK
English dictionaries. |
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We have a database application. Will Wintertree Spelling Server
work with our database? |
Wintertree Spelling Server works with database and non-database
applications. Wintertree Spelling Server uses dictionary files that
are not connected in any way to your database. |
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Does the text being spell-checked have to come from an HTML form? |
The text spell-checked by Wintertree Spelling Server can come from
anywhere. Wintertree Spelling Server has an API that spellchecks text
in a string. The string can come from any source, including database
fields and text boxes in web forms. |
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We need a way to validate keywords (or part numbers, product ids,
etc.) before searching. Can Wintertree Spelling Server do that? |
Certainly. Just create a custom dictionary containing your keywords
and tell Wintertree Spelling Server to use it. When the user enters
keywords for searching, have Wintertree Spelling Server check the
spelling of each keyword against your custom dictionary. Any unknown
keywords will be reported as misspelled words. Wintertree Spelling
Server can even suggest replacements based on similarity to valid
keywords. One of the examples included with Wintertree Spelling
Server demonstrates this technique. |
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Can Wintertree Spelling Server suggest corrections for misspelled
keywords, like the "Did you mean..." feature in popular
search engines? |
Yes. Wintertree Spelling Server comes with an example that
demonstrates this. |
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