I've decided to write some interactive fiction (with Graham Nelson's
Inform) and have run into a dilemma. I can't seem to find decent
tools to aid in the writing process such as a good spell checker or
a thesaurus.
For a spell checker I've tried using the one in Microsoft Word 5.1
but its far too limited. I've always loved fiction of any kind that
strives to use the best possible choice of words to convey a meaning
or a feeling rather than the first ones that come to mind. I broke
down and bought an actual hard copy of Webster's New Encyclopedic
Dictionary and Roget's Thesaurus. Roget's Thesaurus I like, Webster's
dictionary I find too limited. Words which come to mind that I've
hard used before just don't appear in the dictionary. I could just
take a rather cavalier approach to spelling but I'd rather find out
what tools people accomplished at the art of writing use. I'd
prefer something computer based, such as a CD-ROM dictionary but I
don't know which one (if any of them are) is considered the best and
can't afford to spend too much money finding out for myself on a trial
and error basis. This is just a creative outlet, not a career for me.
Anyway, I'm running off of the Macintosh platform. For a text editor
I'm using BBEdit Lite. I've given up on Word Processors like Microsoft
Word, they all seem to suffer from swiss army knife envy. I don't need
next to useless graphics tools on a word processor, I'd rather buy a
decent graphics package. I payed for a word processor give me a good
word processor that doesn't require more RAM and a CPU upgrade with
every minor 'improvement'!
I'd like a dictionary and thesaurus with a large word space that can
spell check in whatever application I choose. If anybody has any
pointers please reply.
Thanks,
John