The Spelling API
The spelling kit offers several different layers of API. The selection of an API depends on the customization you wish to offer and the type of application you are building.
The
com.apple.spell.SpellChecker
class is the fundamental building block
for spelling. This class contains several static methods that work
with ordinary Java String
s. It lets you search for
misspelled words, which are then returned as
com.apple.spell.MisspelledWord
objects. You can work with multiple
languages, ask for suggestions, and add and remove words from the
dictionary—all without worrying about the details of the
underlying spellchecking engine. These classes do not, however,
provide any sort of user interface.
The next layer of the API calls the method
com.apple.spell.ui.JTextComponentDriver.checkSpelling( )
, passing in a
javax.swing.JTextComponent
to the method. This step invokes a
standard spelling dialog (as shown in Figure 11-5).
Alternatively, you can call
com.apple.spell.ui.JTextComponentDriver.startRealtimeChecking( )
on a
JTextComponent
to get real-time spellchecking (in
which spelling mistakes are underlined in red as the user enters
incorrect words).
The third layer of the API registers event handlers to receive
notifications when the
com.apple.spell.ui.JTextComponentDriver
class
processes events such as finding a misspelled word or changing,
correcting, or ignoring a word.
This design is attractive because it lets Swing applications add support for spellchecking. At the ...
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