According to AppleInsider , the expected new version of OS X by the summer, called Snow Leopard, will acquire new and advanced text processing features. OS X users have at their disposal the most powerful tool - spell-checking at the system level in any application (and not only in Office-compatible). Now this kit will be further improved.

Automatic spell checker

Word users are well aware of the function of text auto-correction, when the word is automatically corrected after an incorrect word is typed after pressing the space bar or the Enter key. For English-speaking users, this is often useful in the case of typing teh (instead of the ) or Im (instead of I'm ). Those who use the Russian language can also encounter similar mistakes (for example, I often type and use them instead of using them ). Therefore, this function can be very useful, because texts have to be typed not only in text editors, but also in blogs, on forums, in ICQ and other applications, when there is no time and there is no desire to check the typed text in a third-party spell checker. The help of the auto-corrector built into the operating system is very useful here.

Substitutions

Another function that migrates from Word to Snow Leopard is substitutions. Using them, you can get all sorts of emoticon marks, copyrights and replace abbreviations with full names on the fly (for example, type "Jan" and get "January" or, by typing "MOSX", get something long like "Apple's Mac OS X operating system "). Substitutions can be edited and configured in the subsection “Replace text as you type”:

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Services

Snow Leopard will re-implement the Services feature, which was first introduced in NeXT OS.

The essence of this technology is that you can copy the text in one application, send it to another application for processing, and then, if necessary, return the modified result back.

Services are also present in current versions of OS X. But all of them are hidden in a separate block in the application menu (the next item after the “bull's eye”). Therefore, the user must make a selection, then enter the menu, find a suitable service in the general list. The vast majority of services will not be available, so you have to look for something that can be used. No wonder that this feature is almost never used. And for OS X users, the presence of the “Services” section in the application menu often causes some confusion.

Now everything will be much easier. The list of services suitable for a specific selected area will pop up in the context menu. Since many of the proposed services can be useful, this can significantly improve the work with text objects. All relevant services will be marked with the corresponding icon.

That is, if the service for sending this fragment in an e-mail can be applied to the selected fragment, the “Send To Mail” item will appear in the context menu with the corresponding icon:



In addition, as can be seen from the screenshot above, the subsection “Transformations” appears in the context menu, in which there is a function of turning all letters into uppercase or lowercase, or to make the first fragment of the letter capitalized.

In fact, this is one of the types of services that are only built-in at the system level: the selected text is placed in a temporary buffer, sent to the Transformations service, translates all letters, for example, in capital letters and returns the already modified version to the same place. .

Trifle, but nice. It is likely that by the final release, Snow Leopard will acquire several similar useful services for working with text. For example, a text correction service typed in a different encoding (Latin instead of Cyrillic) would be very useful. Until now, this problem has been solved with the help of scripts or third-party applications, and meanwhile, it is much easier to put it on the shoulders of the system itself, since this opportunity now appears. The fix quotes, dashes, and other typographic symbols for the selected text on the fly will also be useful.

Data determinants

Many people liked the data definition function, which is present in Mail.app (as well as in the iPhone). The mail client automatically detects emails, websites, phone numbers, addresses, or calendar dates in letters. This allows you to quickly and easily add this data to contacts or synchronize them with iCal or Address Book.

Now this feature will be available to any other applications using the Core Text framework. This means that if somewhere in the text (for example, on a forum, in an ICQ or a text editor) a number that is recognized as a telephone number (for example, +7 (999) 123-45-67) is printed, then it will be is highlighted, and when you click on it, a context menu appears, allowing you to add this number to any existing contact from AddressBook or perform other functions.

                                        
It is likely that Snow Leopard will not limit itself to just the above innovations, and we will see in the final version a rich toolkit that will allow users to significantly simplify the work with the text.

It is regrettable that similar functions are not yet available in other operating systems, since spelling and auto-correction at the system level in a certain sense disciplines and significantly reduces the level of ochepyakok and asybak , with which the Internet has recently been overwhelmed.