Wintertree Spelling Server

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Wintertree Spelling Server

Frequently asked support questions

I looked at ssceam.tlx (or sscebr.tlx, etc.) with Notepad, and it only contains about 1000 words. I thought the dictionary was supposed to contain 100,000 words. Where are the rest?	The file ssceXX.tlx (e.g., ssceam.tlx) is a text-format dictionary that contains the most common words in a given language. Text-format dictionaries can be accessed more quickly than large compressed dictionaries. The file ssceam.tlx contains very common American English words like the, of, is, and, etc. These common words are located quickly in ssceam.tlx so they don't have to be located in ssceam2.clx, which is a large compressed dictionary containing about 100,000 words. Both files should be opened, and ssceam.tlx should be opened first. For more information, see "How Wintertree Spelling Server uses Dictionaries" in the Wintertree Spelling Server User's Guide.
I changed the Options or Dictionaries values in the registry, or I added entries for a new language, but the changes didn't take effect. Why not?	Configuration information in the system registry is read only when Spelling Server is started. After you make a configuration change, call Wintertree Spelling Server's Stop method or shut down your Web server, then call the Start method (after restarting your Web server if necessary). See How to stop and restart Spelling Server for more information.
I notice that the language codes listed in the Wintertree Spelling Server User's Guide contain codes for languages like Russian and Polish, but you don't have dictionaries for these languages listed in your catalog. Will these languages be made available?	The language codes listed in the user's guide are there for the benefit of our customers who may have their own word lists. There is no relationship between the language codes and Wintertree Software's product line.
Wintertree Spelling Server reports that every word is misspelled.	This problem can be caused by a number of configuration problems. The easiest way to diagnose these problems is to examine the event log (see How to access the event log for more information). By examining the event log you can find out what specific problems prevented Wintertree Spelling Server from opening its dictionaries. Make sure the configuration information in the registry is set up correctly. Make sure the file names in the Dictionaries value contain no leading or trailing spaces. Make sure the file names in the Dictionaries value are separated by semicolons (";"). If the file names in the Dictionaries value contain no paths, make sure the files are located in the same directory as WintertreeSpellingServer.dll. If the file names in the Dictionaries value contain paths, make sure full paths are specified and that the files actually exist in the indicated directories. Make sure the file names in the Dictionaries value are spelled correctly. Make sure your license key is entered correctly. If you are evaluating Wintertree Spelling Server, your license may have expired. Often, a related symptom of this problem is that the CheckText method returns -7. See Spelling Server error -7 for more information.
Wintertree Spelling Server does not detect misspelled words.	If the unreported words are capitalized, make sure the WSS_IGNORE_CAPPED_WORD_OPT option is disabled. When this option is enabled, Wintertree Spelling Server automatically skips over capitalized words (e.g., Wintertree) without checking them, so they will not be reported as misspellings. Similarly, if the words are in all-caps (e.g., WINTERTREE), make sure WSS_IGNORE_ALL_CAPS_WORDS_OPT is disabled, and if they contain mixed upper and lower case (e.g., WinterTree) make sure WSS_IGNORE_MIXED_DIGITS_OPT is disabled. (Alternatively, you can leave these options enabled, but be aware that they may cause misspelled words to be missed.) Unless you are checking German or Finnish text using Wintertree Software's German or Finnish dictionary, make sure WSS_SPLIT_WORDS_OPT is disabled. If this option is enabled, Wintertree Spelling Server will consider a word valid if it consists of two or more valid sub-words concatenated (e.g., winterhamster). Make sure the Dictionaries configuration value for the language you are using contains dictionary files in only one language. For example, don't include American English and French dictionary files in the same Dictionaries value. If dictionaries for more than one language are used at the same time, misspelled words in one language that happen to match words in the other language will not be reported as misspellings.
How do I check spelling in British (or UK or International) English?	Pass 25202 as the "lang" parameter to the CheckText and Suggest methods.
How do I check spelling in Canadian English?	Pass 25441 as the "lang" parameter to the CheckText and Suggest methods.
How do I check spelling in languages other than English?	Wintertree Software sells dictionaries in a number of Western European languages. Each dictionary comes with instructions for configuring it for use in Wintertree Spelling Server. The general procedure involves creating Dictionaries and Options value in the system registry for the dictionary's language, then passing the dictionary's langauge id to the CheckText and Suggest methods.
How do I check spelling in multiple languages?	Ideally, your application should provide some means for the user to specify the language of the text they have entered. Your application would then determine the language id associated with that language (see "Language Ids" in the Reference chapter of the Wintertree Spelling Server user's guide), and pass that id to the CheckText and Suggest methods.
How do I check the spelling of HTML?	Enable the WSS_IGNORE_HTML_MARKUPS_OPT option. When this option is enabled, Spelling Server will text surrounded in angle brackets (<...>) or that appears to be an HTML character entity (&xxx;). This option setting can be permenent, by modifying the Options DWORD value in the system registry, or dynamic, by passing that option to in the "options" parameter to the CheckText method. Most Wintertree Spelling Server examples have a "Spelling Options" form which lets the user enable or disable this option at run-time. The set of options enabled by the user is passed as the "options" parameter to the CheckText method.
How to I add words to the dictionary?	See "How to create custom dictionaries" in the "Using Wintertree Spelling Server" chapter of the user's guide.
How can I see or edit the words in ssceam2.clx?	ssceam2.clx (and other ssceXX2.clx files) is a compressed, binary file that cannot be edited. We do sell the word list used to create our English dictionary (product #0096). If you wanted to edit the word list, you would need to re-compress it after editing. To do that, you will need our Sentry Spelling Checker Engine Windows SDK product, which includes word-list compression software.
How can I use Spelling Server to validate part numbers, product codes, etc?	You can use Wintertree Spelling Server to quickly validate codes such as part numbers, user ids, ZIP codes, etc., by checking that they exist in a dictionary. Create a text file containing the codes, one code per line. Create registry entries for a new langauge (see "How to configure Wintertree Spelling Server" in the user's guide), and set the Dictionaries string value to the name of the text file. Store the text file in the folder indicated by the DictionaryPath string value. At run time, call the CheckText method and pass the id of your new language. Pass WSS_CHECK_SINGLE_WORD_OPT as the "options" parameter to the CheckText method (possibly OR'd with other options). The "text" parameter passed to the CheckText method should contain the code you would like to validate, with no extraneous leading or trailing blanks or other characters. The "cursor" parameter should have a value of 0. If the CheckText method returns 0, the code is valid (meaning it was found in the text file). If CheckText returns WSS_MISSPELLED_WORD_RSLT, the code was not found. If the code was not found, calling the Suggest method will return close matches.
How can I make Spelling Server skip over e-mail addresses, URLs, etc.?	Enable the WSS_IGNORE_DOMAIN_NAMES_OPT option. When this option is enabled, Spelling Server will skip over text that appears to be a URL or e-mail address. This option setting can be permenent, by modifying the Options DWORD value in the system registry, or dynamic, by passing that option to in the "options" parameter to the CheckText method. Most Wintertree Spelling Server examples have a "Spelling Options" form which lets the user enable or disable this option at run-time. The set of options enabled by the user is passed as the "options" parameter to the CheckText method.