| What is it?
XDE Spell checker is a Java applet that runs on IIS (and
also UNIX, Linux, etc.). There are a slew of different versions to choose
from. First I had to choose whether I wanted to use the Word97 version,
which supports over 200 languages (but requires Word to be installed on the
server) or the non-Word97 version which runs standalone but only works with
English, German and Spanish. Since the site is not multilingual, I tried
the non-Word version.
Then you can choose from either a Java applet version or an HTML
based version that calls the Java applet server side. Due to the problems
I've had in the past with some browsers not support Java well, as well as not
wanting to inconvenience users with a download, I decided to go for the HTML
based version.
You can see the result on the screen shot above. You get all of
the spell checking functions you're used to in a program like Word, without alot
of work.
Installing It
Installing it was just a matter of installing the applet,
creating a a few virtual directories on the server to the install folders,
setting permissions and restarting the IIS server. I completed it in less
than 15 minutes.
Programming / Customizing It
You can customize the HTML look and feel of the spell checker by
just modifying two HTML template files. It so happened that the color of
the default template matched Planet Source Code exactly, so I decided to forego
this step, but the layout would make it easy if you needed to
Performance
The ultimate test was putting it up on the site and letting
Planet Source Code's 7 million+ users/month bang away at it and see how it held
up. What happened? Well, I did not have one complaint about the
spell checker crashing and the site itself did not show any noticeable slow
downs or performance issues. I was very happy with the result.
The verdict
If asked how I feel about this product I would recommend it to
anyone who was looking to add Spell Checking quickly and easily to their web
site. The cost is about $160 for a single license. You can get more
info at XDE's website at:
http://www.xde.net/products/product_spellchecker.htm
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