Subject: Re: bug#49039: Aspell in Emacs

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2021 20:30:08 +0300

> From: [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2021 19:00:13 +0200 (CEST)
> 
> >It isn't a brief mention, it's a whole section dedicated to
> >spell-checking commands.
> 
> There is no mention of ispell-program-name actually.

If that's the only problem, then I already fixed it about 2 hours ago.

> >> Would you seriously consider have a generic spell framework for emacs that
> >> one can set up to use ispell, aspell etc.
> 
> >We already have such a generic framework.
> 
> It looks to me that it is basically a hack of ispell, likely the result that it was easier 
> and quicker for the developer to do it that way.  Correct me if I am wrong.

You are wrong.  Please read the code, don't just judge it by the name
of the package (which is just a historic incident).

> Had tried lookinf for the self documentation for ispell-program-name, but could not 
> access anything.

"C-h v ispell-program-name RET" would have shown its documentation.

"M-x customize-group RET ispell RET" would have shown you all the
customizable options for the package.

> Indeed I had to file a report for people to tell me this.

I suggest to spend some time learning to use the Emacs help commands,
such as the two commands I show above, they usually make discovery
fast and efficient.

In any case, since Emacs already looks for known spell-checkers, and
already prefers aspell, my conclusion from the fact that it didn't
work for you is that you have some unusual setup, which should be
quite rare nowadays.  The defaults are set such that the user will not
need to know about this variable.

> >If aspell is on PATH, it doesn't matter which form you use. If it is
> >not on PATH, then you should use the absolute file name.
> 
> Would you also say that the information is in the manual?

I don't think it should be.  When you install a speller such as
aspell, if its executable file is not on PATH, your system is
misconfigured.  The Emacs manual is not the place where people should
look for information about setting up spelling on misconfigured
systems.

IOW, spelling with aspell in Emacs should work as long as invoking
aspell from the shell prompt works.  If it doesn't work to invoke
aspell from the shell prompt, then you should first correct your
system's configuration so that it does.