I'm working on making a customized form for the spelling software. Historically I could use a translucent form to make the image the form. This would allow a click through where the image was not at. The windows attributes API doesn’t work like that in Vista anymore. Well, so much for the customized skin being easy.
So I’m learning about region. There is a way to create a form on the fly. This is a real learning process. I’m not strong with graphics so definitely going out of my comfort zone. Takes a lot more math to calculate the edge of the image to create the form.
I look at the image I made and hope it isn’t hokey. It’s a bee that I took from an image from power point and tried to make look friendly. But the main function of the software is to spell check on the fly and I’m wondering am I getting to far away from the main functionality? A polished piece of software has a good look that is appealing and easy to use. That’s what I’m shooting for but this is taking a bit more time than I wanted to spend on it.
The next development step for the spelling software is removing the xml tags, coding to spell check for many words at a time, displaying a marker to show a misspelling for a word that is in a sentence or paragraph, graphic changes for moving the spelling bee near the mouse (something I’ll have to see if it adds value or detracts). I will need to create a menu for accessing spell checking functionality along with a display of spell checked words.
It should be an easy process but I see different possibilities for deciding which dictionary to use, opening a URL to dictionary and encyclopedia sites, and adding in some translate services.
I’ve also thought about adding in speech, spell quiz, and auto sub menuing other software to allow spell checking in other applications.
I think I’ll chunk these features into release sets. First release will be free.
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Thank You