Why don't we produce one? Well there are a number of reasons - almost all of them technical. There is a strong desire amongst the Translate.org.za community to port our Open Source spell checkers to Microsoft. In some ways this has already happened. The enchant spell checking engine allows our spell checkers to be run on the Microsoft platform. The aspell spell checker is also available under Windows.

 

The problem with running our spell checkers under Windows is that it requires writing a spell checking engine against what Microsoft calls the CSAPI (Common Spell Checker API). Unfortunately this requires the signing of an NDA. Even after numerous enquiries, Translate.org.za has not been able to obtain a copy of the NDA to be able to make a decision as to whether we can legally undertake the work. So even before the technical work can be examined we are hampered by the legal requirements.

 

This is rather sad as the CSAPI is presented as a platform spell checking engine, yet is used mostly only by Microsoft Office related spell checkers. Thus preventing spell checking in other applications unless you have Microsoft Office installed. 

 

It has required a large amount of time to investigate the possibility of trying to implement the CSAPI.  For now we would rather spend that time enhancing our existing spell checkers.

 

If you are a very good Windows hacker and are up to the challenge, then feel free to contact us and help us port our spell checkers to the CSAPI. You'd be helping more people than just those who speak South African languages.