Developers, whenever your software deals with text in any way, at any scale, one that includes spell-checking or its cousins autofill and grammar-checking, make sure that there’s a way for the user to turn those features off completely, at the program level.
Not just turning spell-checking off item by item or document by document (this is especially troublesome when adding notes to documents such as .pdfs or using sticky-note or notecard-type features), but absolutely, positively OFF, as an option, within the whole program.
Turned off once for good and all, if that is the wish of the user. And it’s definitely the wish of this user.
Why is that? Because I’ve been using text and word-processing software since there were desktop machines to use them on, and I’ve seen that I spell better than any spell-checker I’ve yet run across; because I use lots of words spell-checkers and their ilk don’t know, or words they mistake for other words in far-fetched mismatches; and because I often use contractions and abbreviations in notes to myself that either have to be taught to software spell-checkers, autofills, or grammar-checkers, or, worse, that they can’t seem to ignore or absorb, some of them, no matter what. And I’m not willing to stop and deal with all that, whether I’m writing a few words to myself as a reminder or a long piece for publication.
A few of us actually can spell correctly, have large vocabularies (hard-earned in my case by years of wide and voracious reading), and have excellent writing ability crafted by years of producing sizable and complex written documents for others, intended for publication, or by editing such documents. We happy few don’t have many problems with spelling, grammar, rhetoric, or diction. We know exactly which word we want to use, how to use it, where to place it in the sentence or paragraph for best emphasis and clearest meaning, how to spell it correctly, and how not to confuse it with words that may sound like it but which are spelled differently.
Spell-checkers, grammar-checkers, and autofill are tools, no more and no less. Used when needed, and used properly, they may be just what many a writer or texter needs and wants. In any carpenter’s toolbox there are many tools, and for each job the carpenter chooses those that are needed, and no others. If the job is driving nails, there are hammers or power nail-guns to do it. Leave the screwdrivers in the toolbox for now.
Software tools need to be able to be left in the software toolbox, too, resting and inert, clean, oiled, and available. Despite all their potential usefulness, power, and flexibility, they only get in the way if they’re not needed.
So, please, app and application developers, do the right thing: provide me with a simple program-level option to turn these tools off.
Thanks.
