Hi everyone,

I'd like to avoid having to add and manage words that are not in the default spelling dictionary for each separate application that I use: it's annoying to see the red underline warning for a word I've already added. I thought an ownCloud app might synchronize these across applications and across devices. Has anyone ever heard of an initiative anything like this before? (Whether for ownCloud or anywhere else, for that matter.) The question seems to at least have been asked a couple of times.

I may try to put together something basic later this month. I'd love if others wanted to brainstorm or participate, so please let me know. I'm new to ownCloud development, so there will be a learning curve. I'm including my preliminary thoughts and research below (both for your curiosity and for my own future reference).

Cheers,

Macho



The applications I am personally interested in syncing are Thunderbird, LibreOffice, Tomboy notes, Android OS, Firefox, MS Word, Chromium, and a French grammar program called Antidote. Each uses its own, separately stored custom dictionary (yes, even Firefox and Thunderbird store distinct files). Based on a quick look at the generated data, the file format seems to vary:
  • Mozilla stores a plaintext list affecting all languages ([mozilla profile]/persdict.dat)
  • Chromium does the same, but with a checksum at the end of the file (~/.config/chromium/Default/Custom\ Dictionary.txt)
  • Tomboy stores separate files for each input language (e.g. ~/.config/enchant/en_CA.dic, seems to rely on enchant as a back-end)
  • LibreOffice and MS Word by default store a single list for all languages, but allow user-created, language-specific dictionaries (the default ones are ~/.config/libreoffice/4/user/wordbook/standard.dic, which includes an informational header, and [profile app data]/Roaming/Microsoft/UProof/CUSTOM.DIC, whose location can be changed in Word Options).
  • Android seems to distinguish words based on their language, and to allow defining a shortcut to avoid having to type the whole word, but I have yet to look at the stored dictionary data itself
  • Antidote stores its dictionary in a more complex xml format including extra information like whether the word is a noun, adjective, etc.; how it should be pluralized; its spelling in feminine and masculin forms; etc. (~/.antidote/8.0/Mon dictionnaire.xml)
I'm imagining an ownCloud app that stores all of this information in a database table, and periodically checking and updating client applications that have been associated with it, gracefully handling any conflicts. I'm a bit worried about playing with the files as the applications are running.

I'd like for the ownCloud web interface to display the words in similar UI to that of the contacts app. When information is missing for a word (e.g. if it's added from a mozilla product), you could use the interface to refine it, and add e.g. an associated language. Perhaps U1DB could be useful for sync, as suggested by one of the threads I linked to above.

I'm not particularly interested in syncing related information like the underlying dictionaries, stock or custom autocorrect rules, etc., for the moment.

But first I'll have to look over the ownCloud app development documentation.
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