Monday, November 06, 2006

AJAX Spell Checker Preview

As mentioned in my preview of the Q4 release, telerik will be introducing a new version of spell this December. Version 3 of spell, which is tightly integrated with r.a.d.editor, will embrace AJAX and bring a "Word-like" spell check solution to the web.

Users of the popular web-based email solutions provided by Yahoo! and Google will find this AJAX spell check familiar. When using editor, users will be able to click on a button to begin the AJAX spell check. Instead of displaying a spell check pop up, misspelled words will be highlighted and users will be able to click on them to reveal a list of suggested corrections and editing options. When users are done spell checking their document, they will push another button that will commit the changes and hide all of the spell check formatting.

This screenshot reveals some of the functionality that we can expect to see in December. It looks ugly now, but telerik's track record for making "good looking" controls is sure to bless this control with a face lift before the official release.

Even though this is not the first ASP.NET component to offer this type of AJAX spell check, it is a welcome improvement to the r.a.d.controls suite. When the other .NET spell check components are compared, telerik's generous licensing scheme makes spell 3.0 the best value by a long shot. This is definitely one update in Q4 that I can't wait to start using!

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