British English spellchecker problem

Hello,

I have installed AbiWord 2.4.5 on an IBM ThinkPad 380Z (300 MHz, 96
MB) running Windows 98SE (with Unofficial Service Pack 2.1a from
exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html). The set-up file was downloaded from
your website (abiword-setup-2.4.5.exe). I also downloaded from there
the British English dictionary - AbiWord_Dictionary_British.exe.

I seem to have run into a problem with the spellchecker. I have tried
doing the main install with US English selected (as per default),
without ticking any other languages (the laptop has no Internet
connection set up). I then added separately the British English
dictionary. This resulted in files called "american.hash",
"ispell_dictionary_list.xml" and "british.hash" in the directory
"c:\Program Files\AbiSuite2\dictionary\". The "spellcheck-as-you-type"
feature accepted "theater", "center" and "meter" but objected to
"theatre", "centre", "metre" and "cheque". As I am not a great fan of
spellchecking-as-you-type anyway (I think it interferes with the
thought process), I turned it off and tried spellchecking "by hand"
(both from Tools > Spellchecker and from the icon on the Toolbar). I
got the same results.

Next, I uninstalled AbiWord completely, including manual removal of
any leftover directories. I installed it again, this time deselecting
US English (i.e. without any dictionaries at all) and then separately
adding the British English dictionary. This produced greyed-out
spellchecking button on the Toolbar and greyed-out spellchecker item
under Tools menu. The "c:\Program Files\AbiSuite2\dictionary\"
directory contained only the "british.hash" file. I uninstalled.

Third time round I installed like the first time but now I renamed
"american.hash" to
"_american.hash". The spellchecker complained that it "Could not load
the dictionary for the English (US) [en-US] language". The Tools >
Set Language dialogue box has an "ABC" icon against "English (UK)"; it
also has them against English (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New
Zealand, South Africa). But the highlight always defaults to English
(US). The line under the languages window says "Default Language:
(English UK)". "Make default for document" is unticked. Ticking it
changes the "Status Bar" indicator from en-US to en-GB but only for
one letter. Any movement to the right immediately changes it back to
en-US.

One workaround I found is to select everything you've typed, then go
to Tools > Set Language, highlight "English (UK)" and tick "Make
default for document". Then en-GB seems to "stick" to than part and
you can run the spellchecker from both the menu and the Toolbar. But
the moment you type something new, the indicator in the bottom right
corner reverts to en-US. So you can work around it but it is a little
annoying.

I have had a half-hearted grope around the Registry but could not find
anything that would appear useful (at least to me).

Any ideas, anybody? TIA

Alek
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Received on Fri Aug 18 01:09:22 2006