Spell-checking and cursor location

[TBaehr@xxxxxxxx]

Recent postings have complained about placement of the cursor after issuing
an FS (fix last incorrect word) command. In III+, the cursor used to go back
to the cursor position you started from; in XY4, it jumps to the next word
after the word you just corrected. If you type with autospell turned on,
you're likely to be several words away when the misspell beep registers in
your brain. Getting the cursor back to where you want it is a pain!

Here's one solution: On a key [I use 55 (the gray asterisk)] put this
sequence:
55=Q8,XD,DF,DF,FS

On CTRL table for same key (e.g. CTRL *) put this sequence:
55=DB,XD
What it does: Q8 inserts the corrected word from the spell menu into your
text. But it does *not* function *unless* the spell menu is active. XD
unselects any selected text. DF,DF selects a null string (since the cursor
doesn't move). FS jumps to the misspelled word and opens the spell menu.

What happens when the spell beep occurs: Q8 is skipped. A null string is
defined at the cursor location. The cursor jumps to the misspelled word and
the spell menu opens.

When you've corrected the word (it's amazing how often the first word in the
list is the one you want -- combination of Microlytics' genius and the genius
of Tom, the XyQuest guy who implemented it), press the key (mine is still
gray asterisk) again. This executes Q8 and throws away the rest of the
commands.

OK so far; your word is corrected.

Now press CTRL+* (or whatever key you use). The DB command jumps you to the
selected null string (where your cursor started out), and the XD cancels the
selection.

I like having all this stuff on one key -- the gray asterisk -- because, as I
type, I don't have to look for more than one key. I can often "feel" what
misspelling I've committed, and I can bang the "*" key twice without even
looking up (knowing from experience that the first spelling alternative will
be correct).

BTW, I have an extensive collection of possible misspellings in my personal
dictionary, so many mis-typed words are simply corrected on the fly without
any further intervention. I also have created some lazy-person "corrections"
-- "isnt" is automatically respelled "isn't", etc. Since "cant" and
"wont"
are real words, I use "cantt" and "wontt" as the "misspellings" in the
PD.
Further, I have a bunch of "macros" in the PD, all beginning with "x" (so
they don't create real words): xma=Massachusetts (plus all the other states
-- xal=Alabama, etc.); xsun=Sunday, etc.; xjan=January, etc.; xus=United
States; xusa=United States of America. You get my drift. These work much
better than XyW's save/get system of macros, and they're limited only by the
64K file size limit of the PD.

T.