Technology Overview

System Structure
System Operation
SpellChecker Server Software
Web Site Installation Requirements

1. System Structure

The SpellChecker.net system includes WebSpellChecker and SCAYT solutions and consists of four parts:

Software, consisting of a spell checker, a grammar checker and a thesaurus, that resides on the SpellChecker.net server;
Proxy application (script) installed on the web server;
Inline JavaScript code embedded into the HTML code of web pages;
Samples of embedding WebSpellChecker and SCAYT applications (Optional).

2. System Operation

The WebSpellChecker application functions as follows:

A user clicks the SpellCheck button or link to initiate the session;
The JavaScript code creates a pop-up window containing a form that displays the text to be checked;
The form is automatically submitted to a proxy application (script) file on the server, passing the language as parameters. This process identifies unrecognized text and outputs the results in the pop-up window, providing suggestions for correction;
Options are given to approve or ignore offered suggestions. When the user clicks any option button (except "Finish Checking") in the bottom frame, the center frame refreshes, showing current changes. Alternatively, if the user clicks an underlined word in the middle frame, the bottom frame refreshes, displaying alternatives for that word. This process continues until the user chooses "Finish Checking";
When the "Finish Checking" button is selected, results are submitted to a proxy application (script), located on the client's server;
The text passes from the proxy application (script) back to the location where the text originated. This workaround with proxy application (script) is necessary, due to security restrictions coded into most browsers.

Since the WebSpellChecker application is session-less, it is easy to set it up to work under Network Load Balancing solutions. This will improve stability of your application which utilizes the SpellChecker.

The SCAYT application functions as follows:

The user opens a web page with an embedded HTML editor that uses the SCAYT application;
JavaScript loads additional scripts, initializes the client-side SCAYT engine and sends the initial editor text to the SpellChecker.net server via proxy application (script) for checking;
The server checks text spelling and returns marked content, which is pasted by JavaScript replacing the original text. The user receives this way the initial checked text;
The user types text in the HTML editor, at the same time JavaScript sends the entered words to the server and highlights misspelled words;
The user can correct the misspelled words manually or use suggestions from the context menu. Besides suggestions, the context menu allows to ignore the current word, ignore all entries of this word in whole text, add word to dictionary, change spell checking options and spell checking language.

3. SpellChecker Server Software

SpellChecker.net server software consists of a spell-checker, a grammar checker and a thesaurus, which support multiple languages. It runs on a several platforms, utilizing third-party API. The current version was designed for and tested under WinNT 4.0 Server (SP4+), Windows 2000 (SP2), Windows XP, Windows 2003 Server, FreeBSD 3.x, Linux, Solaris, AIX.

The server invokes a proxy application (script) each time a check is requested. This script connects to an application server which runs on this (or another) server and performs the required tasks. The application server then processes the request and returns the results to the proxy application (script). In turn, these results are passed back to the user's browser.

Server performance is based on processor speed. Neither a large amount of memory nor a fast hard drive is necessary for performance. The current version of the SpellChecker engine occupies 10-20 MB of disk space, plus log files. The current application server version utilizes approximately 25 MB of RAM under heavy load. Therefore, a typical server containing an operating system, an application server, a web server, and proxy application (script) requires about 80 MB of memory.

4. Web Site Installation Requirements

The following steps are necessary to install the SpellChecker system:

Go to our sign up page to register and receive a CustomerID number;
Download the proxy application (script);
Deploy the proxy application (script). Some adjustments must be done to sproxy.ini;
Register WebSpellChecker or SCAYT JavaScript URL into the HTML page (Some WYSIWYG editors do not require script registration for SCAYT);
Register page HTML editor in JavaScript.