Helo,
We are the developers of the Cysgliad grammar and spellling checker for
Welsh product. N.B. Cymraeg is Welsh for Welsh.
It is true that our spelling and grammar checker as it stands is closed
and proprietary and maybe not relevant to a list of free grammar
checkers that integrate with OpenOffice.org. But we would rather not see
it omitted.
We would like to participate as much as we can with the open source
communities but this closed route was the only way possible for us to
fund the development a tool that's usable and easy to use for Welsh
language users. (see more below)
Cysgliad has been a success and has been widely used in Wales since 2004
by individuals and the public sector organisations (including schools,
universities, health sector). Getting access can be free as in beer
within these organisations as well if the user knows in the first place
that Cysgliad can work with OpenOffice.org. Otherwise the automatic
assumption we see from supporting the product is that Cysgliad (and any
significant proofing functionality) only works with Microsoft Office.
In fact Cysgliad is a standalone product and integrates with any Windows
application, not just OpenOffice.org. Macros written in OpenOffice.org
BASIC are used to call on Cysgliad's COM interface and pass texts
backwards and forwards via the clipboard. Not pretty but it works well
enough. We are grateful to Sun Microsystems for helping us with the COM
plumbings. The macro code also add Cysgliad grammar, thesaurus and
dictionary buttons onto the OpenOffice toolbar. Anyway the macro code
for all this is transparent and as far as we're concerned is free in all
senses. If you can't get hold of our demo, then we can make the
OpenOffice.org document containing the macros available to you.
Very close integration to OOo to produce 'green squiggly lines' natively
would be ideal and we're following developments on the grammar API with
interest.
In the meantime, as an organization and as individuals, we're trying
with the more free approach. We produced the Welsh MySpell spelling
checker for OpenOffice.org from the same word list/dictionary used in
Cysgliad. This dictionary is GPL since 2003 and are happy to have seen
it used in Mozilla and Thunderbird and Firefox extensions.
We've helped the Welsh localisation of OpenOffice (some of our staff are
also volunteers at OpenOffice.org cy http://cy.openoffice.org and Meddal
http://www.meddal.com/english.htm) and also worked for Agored
(Welsh/English bilingual OpenOffice.org http://www.agored.com). Our
Cysgliad CD even includes a modified copy of Welsh OpenOffice.org where
the Cysgliad buttons are automatically included in the toolbar from the
OOo.org installation.
More significantly however, we have recently began working on a project
we've been commissioned to do to make a version of Cysgliad free as in
beer for Mac OS X users and partially free as in speech. We're still
working on the architecture proposal but we hope to see the user
interface code and integration plumbings for a standalone application
open source thus allowing any grammar and spelling or any other
linguistic building block closed or open to be plugged in underneath. I
think particularly for this reason we would like to be kept included in
the list.
Diolch!
Hwyl!
Dewi
Ysgrifennodd Kevin Scannell:
On 2/27/07, Jonathon Blake <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Thomas wrote:
> A list of grammar checkers for OOo can be found here:
> http://lingucomponent.openoffice.org/grammar.html
Missing from that list are:
* Cymraeg
Cymraeg is a commercial grammar checker for Welsh. A demo of it can be
obtained from http://www.bangor.ac.uk/ar/cb/cymraeg/demo_meddalwedd.php
The bundle of proofing tools and lexical material distributed by the
folks at Bangor is called Cysgliad; I assume this is what you mean.
Here's an active link:
http://www.bangor.ac.uk/ar/cb/cysgliad.php.en?catid=&subid=3068
Also note that the lingucomponent page you link above does say "free
grammar checkers", and Cysgliad is not free, neither as in speech nor
beer. My friend Kevin Donnelly has done a huge amount of work
creating GPLd Welsh dictionaries and proofing tools from scratch,
precisely because the Bangor software is closed source, so I'd be
happier with a link to his work, e.g.:
http://www.klebran.org.uk/index.php?lg=en
Kevin
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Dewi Bryn Jones
Arweinydd Tîm Rhaglennu / Sofware Development Team Leader
Technolegau Iaith, / Language Technologies (Canolfan Bedwyr),
Canolfan Bedwyr, / University of Wales,
Prifysgol Cymru, / Bangor,
Bangor, / Gwynedd LL57 2EN, UK
Gwynedd. LL57 2EN,UK /
E-Bost / E-Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Gwe (Cymraeg) : http://www.bangor.ac.uk/ar/cb/technolegau_iaith.php.cy
Web (English) : http://www.bangor.ac.uk/ar/cb/technolegau_iaith.php.en
Ffôn / Tel : +44 (0) 1248 383245
Rhithfro / Blog : http://murmur.bangor.ac.uk
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