The latest builds of ReSharper 2018.2 EAP and Rider 2018.2 EAP come with the ReSpeller extension, providing spell-checking functionality out of the box. Just like with code analysis, ReSpeller scans for spelling mistakes and typos in identifiers, comments, string literals and more, and provides quick-fixes to resolve the problem. Let’s have a look!
Spell-checking in the editor
ReSpeller will look for spelling mistakes in identifiers, comments, and string literals. When it detects a potential spelling mistake or a typo, it will let us know in the same way ReSharper and Rider display other code suggestions:
We can then invoke the Alt+Enter menu where ReSpeller gives us several options to fix our mistake: we can either fix our typo or add this word to ReSpeller’s dictionary.
When selecting Replace with…, ReSpeller provides us with several suggestions. By default, the best match will be selected (“parameters” in this example), but other versions are provided as well. Perhaps we meant to use the singular “parameter”? And yes, “par meters” exist – they measure Photosynthetically Active Radiation in case you wanted to know.
What’s nice about ReSpeller is that it automatically invokes the Rename refactoring when fixing a typo in an identifier. This ensures that our spelling correction preserves consistency across our code base. Note that in the Rename dialog, we can press Ctrl+Space to invoke code completion – or in this case, word completion.
Now, where do these suggestions come from…
ReSpeller dictionaries
By default, Rider and ReSharper come with a built-in dictionary for English (United States). It uses a dictionary based on Hunspell, which means we can install other languages as well. Being a native Dutch speaker (well, Flemish), I’ve downloaded the corresponding .aff and .dic files and imported it in ReSharper’s settings:
Et voila! (yes, you can add French, too, and many more languages) We now have spell checking for Dutch:
Remember that the quick-fix on a spelling mistake also showed the option Add to user dictionary? It allows us to add a custom word to ReSpeller’s dictionary. And just like with settings layers, we can choose to add that word to a dictionary on our own machine or share it with the entire team.
Configuring ReSpeller code analysis
By default, ReSpeller is enabled in many of ReSharper’s supported languages. We can enable/disable individual inspections and change severity by searching for “typo” in the settings (under Code Inspection | Inspection Severity).
There are many cases where spell checking is important or even critical. ReSharper and Rider now help detect and resolve them.
Give ReSharper 2018.2 EAP a try! Or grab the latest Rider 2018.2 EAP! We’d love to hear your feedback!
Any chance we can get custom dictionary “layers” with this too? I’d like to be able to have project / solution specific dictionaries for domain specific words, that won’t affect unrelated projects.
You can add words to e.g. the team-shared layer.
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Would you consider excluding strings that are ALLCAPS?
I’m sorry – I meant “an option for excluding ALLCAPS”
That’s a good suggestion. Would you mind logging a request at https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issues/RSRP#newIssue ?
Does this replace the purchased version of ReSpeller Pro?
That’s correct.
Mooi, dat verdient inderdaad pannenkoeken!
Haha bedankt
(Thanks! I will enjoy them.)
What’s the simplest way to deactivate ReSpeller altogether?
There is no “one click” way, however it’s not too difficult. From Rider’s settings, find Editor | Inspections. Then under the languages of choice (e.g. C#), search for "spell" or "typo" and disable the inspections.
Then when saving settings, pick the dropdown and pick This Computer if you want these disabled in all solutions you open.
I added the en-GB dictionary and saved the setting to my team’s layer. The path to the dictionary is saved as a full path including drive letter. This necessitates all team members to have installed the dictionary into the same folder on the same drive. I want to commit the dictionary to source control and have Resharper look for it relative to my team settings file location. Is that possible? I tried manually editing the settings file but it didn’t work.
Just checked with the team, this is planned but right now only absolute paths are supported.
This is essential for sharing settings among the team. Has there been any progress?
Hi Bart, you can keep an eye on this issue: https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/RSRP-471194
Thanks Maarten. Is there a ticket for this planned improvement I can monitor, or am I safe to assume it will come in the next release?
It’s an improvement the main developer thought of as well, but there was no ticket it seems. Just created one: https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/RSRP-471194
I’d also prefer to disable ReSpeller until you can offer a better way of managing languages. Selecting languages should be handled entirely within the configuration, not requiring a dictionary download outside of the tool.
Would you mind elaborating a bit in a ticket? https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issues/RSRP#newIssue
(let me know the ticket URL once you have it, will then send it over to the right folks)
Thanks Maarten, I’ve done that: https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/RSRP-471227
Just to be clear, I’m not saying ReSpeller is a bad feature and I do love ReSharper… it’s just that it could support languages with much less messing about and until it does that I’d rather turn it off.
Thanks for your reply.
Thanks! Updated the issue so the right folks see it. Much appreciate you creating that ticket!
You’re welcome, and thanks for your response!
One irritant is that ReSpeller doesn’t understand doxygen commands inside a comment block. If I type:
/// \brief a method
///
/// \return true if methodical
///
Then it reports spelling errors ‘ief’ and ‘eturn’ as it thinks \b and \r are special characters.
Every single word in Visual Studio is marked as having a typo. Switching it off in settings does not work.
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As above, I am not able to disable the spelling checker, it is not “ticked” and yet is still loaded. It is irritating me, too many marked typos in commented code (I’m sure any commented code should have been deleted and kept “clean” but you know how it is).
My apologies – it was the Component One spell checker.
Forget the german Hunspell dictionaries from Wooorm website, they are not useable for a serious german spell checking. I recommend the german Hunspell dictionaries (de_DE-20071211.zip) from Björn Jacke that can be found at https://j3e.de/hunspell/
Is there a way to make it pick up words from existing Code Analysis (i.e. FxCop) custom dictionaries?
I’ve just tried a preview of this on my codebase and Respeller is reporting all the words in my custom dictionary as being spelled wrong… hardly the ideal result, nor do I really want to maintain two dictionaries of custom words, one for CA and one for Respeller.
This is no supported currently. Could you log a request at https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issues/RSRP#newIssue ?
Certainly. https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/RSRP-473336
Great, thanks Andy!
Downloaded the Australian dictionary from Wooorm website and added the .dic file – after doing that though Respeller shows every word is now a spelling mistake.
Disabled.
i hope they add the ability to disable ReSpeller. Until then, we will use a different code analysis tool.
There is no “one click” way, however it’s not too difficult. From Rider/ReSharper settings, this can be done from the inspections page. Then under the languages of choice (e.g. C#), search for "spell" or "typo" and disable the inspections.