WildSpeller

Version 2.2

WildSpeller – An English spelling aid

Welcome

WildSpeller version 2.2 is an English spelling aid for Windows®.

WildSpeller can help when you know how to spell part of a word. Type the word, using the wild cards * and ?, into WildSpeller. Click once, and you have a list of words. You can select a word and copy it to the Windows® clipboard with two more clicks. If you use no wild cards, WildSpeller will try to match your spelling with words that sound the same.

WildSpeller knows about 144,000 English words, including American, British and Canadian spellings.

Using WildSpeller

Figure 1

Starting WildSpeller

To start WildSpeller click Start»Programs»WildSpeller»WildSpeller. This assumes you accepted the default installation setup.

Using WildSpeller

Type a word in the text entry box, spelling it with wild cards * and ? if you like. Click the Go button (or press the Enter key or Alt+G keys). A list of matching words will appear in the list box. The list box will show "Nothing was Found" if your "word" is not found. With or without wild cards, the list box may contain one, a few, or many words.

American words in the list are marked with [US], British words are marked with [UK], and Canadian words are marked with [CA]. Unmarked words are standard in all three regions.

Scroll the list box to find a particular word. You can also move around in the list box with the Home, End, Page Up and Page Down keyboard keys, as well as the up and down arrow keys. Type a letter (when the list box has focus) to move the list to the first word beginning with that letter.

Click a word in the list box to select it. That will enable the Copy button. Click the button to copy the selected word to the Windows® clipboard. Then you can paste the word into other Windows® applications.

NOTE: You can also double-click a word to copy it to the Windows® clipboard.

A history of up to twenty of your entries is maintained. Click the triangle at the right end of the text entry box to see a drop down list. Click an item in the list to copy it to the text entry box.

WildSpeller Buttons

WildSpeller has five buttons:

· Go - show the words that match your wild card word

· Copy - copy the selected word to the Windows® clipboard

· About - show version, author and copyright information

· Help - show this help information

· Exit - close (end) WildSpeller

WildSpeller has no menu.

Wild Cards

Wild cards can substitute for letters in the text entry box. The two wild card characters are

* substitutes for any number of characters, including no character

? substitutes for exactly one character

You can use up to eight * in one search. You can use any number of ? in one search. You can mix * and ? in one search. An example of acceptable wild card use is a*b?c*d, which finds abscessed, abscond and absconded.

Try ??tion to find words that start with any two characters and end with tion. Try *tion to find all words that end in tion. Also see Examples for more wild card examples.

Examples

Here are some example searches. Search for

· pneu*sis to see a word with 45 letters

· ??tion to find six-character words ending in tion

· *tion to find all words ending in tion

· ??? to find all three-character words

· ????? to find all five-character words

· good* to find words beginning with good

· civili?ation to see different spellings in the US, the UK and Canada

· a*b?c*d to find three words

· * if you have a few seconds, to see all of WildSpeller's 144,000+ words

The last search, for *, finds all 144,000+ words in less than a second; the long delay is caused by inserting the words into Microsoft's list box.

· dejedel to find two words

· newmonia to find the name of the disease

· tempist to find what sometimes happens in a teapot

Uninstalling WildSpeller

Be sure to close WildSpeller and its help before uninstalling it so all WildSpeller files can be removed from your computer.

You can uninstall WildSpeller by using the You Can Uninstall WildSpeller item in the WildSpeller program group (Start»Programs»WildSpeller»You Can Uninstall WildSpeller). You can also use Add or Remove Programs in the Windows® Control Panel.

License

WildSpeller is copyright © 2006-2007 by Ron Charlton. You may freely distribute its unmodified setup file. You shall not distribute WildSpeller or any of its component files by any means other than its provided setup file.

You shall not charge anything other than a nominal media fee for distributing the WildSpeller setup file.

Author

Ron Charlton

9002 Balcor Circle

Knoxville, TN 37923-2301 USA

Phone: (865)694-0800

E-mail: Ron Charlton

Web Site: http://home.comcast.net/~charltoncr/

Credits

· WildSpeller uses portions of the SCOWL (Spell Checker Oriented Word Lists), a free collection of English word lists by Kevin Atkinson.

· WildSpeller uses the Metaphone sound algorithm by Lawrence Phillips. Metaphone appeared in Computer Language, December 1990, p. 39.

· The WildSpeller setup program was created with Inno Setup (free) by Jordan Russell.

· The WildSpeller Inno Setup script was edited with ISTool (free) by Bjørnar Henden.

· WildSpeller was compiled with Microsoft Visual Studio®.

· WildSpeller help was created with iBE-Software's HelpNDoc (free for personal use).

History

· v2.2 (2007-03-17) - Selecting a history item and clicking "Go" cleared the text entry box

· v2.1 (2006-11-06) - Use "sounds like" (Metaphone) matching when no wild card is given

· v1.1 (2006-10-31) - First public release

Document last Revised: 2008-03-18 14:27:47

Get WildSpeller

Get WildSpeller (WildSpellerSetup.zip, 741 KB)