Possible bug with 'Unwanted Words & Phrases'?

andygrunt · Post by **andygrunt** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 8:01 am

I've just started to experiment with the 'Unwanted Words & Phrases' feature in the new Beta and I'm puzzled with how it works.

As an experiment, I have a doc with a number of stock phrases and added a few of them to the 'Unwanted Words & Phrases' list. The odd thing is that only one is detected in the document (see screenshot). I presumed that it would detect and list all 'Unwanted Words & Phrases' and display them.

I've tried various things including exiting Atlantis and re-starting but get the same result. I also tried deleting the phrase that gets found 'learning curve' but then no phrases from the list are found.

Have I misunderstood or is this a bug?

The only thing I can think of that might help, is that I think that 'learning curve' was the first phrase I added to the list - might this point to the problem?

Post by **admin** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 11:28 am

This bug has been fixed in the latest beta version of Atlantis. Please download the latest setup from the Betatesting page, and run it to upgrade your beta version of Atlantis.

Thanks for reporting this.

andygrunt · Post by **andygrunt** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 12:35 pm

I've installed that latest version and it's much improved. However, I just tried adding a few more phrases and there are two that don't get detected in the document:

110%
24/7

Is there a problem with having numbers as an 'Unwanted Word & Phrase'?

I also have another suggestion while I'm here.

I would like to add many more (possibly hundreds eventually) 'Unwanted Words & Phrases' but, as it stands, I can only type or paste each phrase in, one at a time. Would it be possible to allow many phrases to be added at once? Something like either being able to paste a large number directly into the text box or having Atlantis read them in from a text document.

Post by **admin** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 8:13 pm

The "Overused words" feature ignores numbers in documents. This is why adding "110%" to the list of unwanted words makes no sense.

The "Load From File..." and "Save To File..." buttons have been added to the following child dialogs of the "Overused Words" dialog of Atlantis:

Repetitions > Report inflected forms > Custom...
Repetitions > Report homophones > Custom...
Repetitions > Words to Ignore...
Frequencies > Unwanted Words & Phrases...

Now you could load your unwanted phrases from a TXT file.

You can download the latest setup from the Betatesting page, and run it to upgrade your beta version of Atlantis.

andygrunt · Post by **andygrunt** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:56 am

Hi,

I can't say I follow your logic regarding not using numbers. It seems you're saying it makes no sense adding any because it's not coded in. But, then if it was coded, it would make sense, wouldn't it? Still, I guess I should be happy with what I've already got. A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush after all. Would it be better to add that functionality? I guess it's 6 of 1...

Just kidding - I can live without having numerals.

After installing the latest Beta I just did a very quick test of sucking in the phrases from a text doc (by copying the list from my 'Cliches & Bad Phrases' doc into a text file) and it seems to work fine. The one thing I noticed that you might want to be aware of is that it sucked in the number ones as well (i.e. 110% and 24/7) and lists them in the 'Unwanted words' dialogue. If it doesn't search for them, perhaps they shouldn't be loaded in and shown in the dialogue?

Anyway, thanks for the quick fixes.

andygrunt · Post by **andygrunt** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 9:01 am

Another idea...

Might it be possible to have any 'Unwanted Words & Phrases' shown as you're writing, in a similar way to misspelled words?

At the moment, there's a 'Spellcheck As-You-Type' checkbox in the options dialogue that means misspelled words are underlined with a wavy red line as you type. Could a 'Highlight Unwanted Words and Phrases As-You-Type' option also be added?

Perhaps they could be shown with a bold dashed underline (or double wavy or bold wavy etc). I can't imagine a circumstance where there'd be a word that's both misspelled and unwanted as you'd be unlikely to add a misspelled word to your unwanted list. But even if that did come up, the priority should be to show it as misspelled first.

If that's possible, the obvious next question is could it also be added for Repetitions too?

Post by **admin** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 7:38 pm

andygrunt wrote:I can't say I follow your logic regarding not using numbers. It seems you're saying it makes no sense adding any because it's not coded in. But, then if it was coded, it would make sense, wouldn't it? Still, I guess I should be happy with what I've already got. A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush after all. Would it be better to add that functionality? I guess it's 6 of 1...

Picking up numbers from ordinary documents does not make much sense. You would end up with tons of nearly useless items in the "Words & phrases" box. But reporting numerals in some "special documents" might make sense.

The next build of this beta will have a redesigned "Frequencies" tab of the "Overused Words" dialog. There will be 4 graphic button options:

Bring unwanted words to top
Group inflected forms
Report numerals
Report phrases

But even if you enable the "Report numerals" option, Atlantis would pick up only "pure numerals" without any accompanying punctuation signs (% or $).

andygrunt wrote:Might it be possible to have any 'Unwanted Words & Phrases' shown as you're writing, in a similar way to misspelled words?

We thought about something like this too. But the problem is that the Overused Words feature is "too slow" to report anything in "live" (as you type) mode. It is an interesting idea, but hard (if possible at all) to implement.

andygrunt · Post by **andygrunt** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 6:37 am

Thanks for you work on the numerals - I can't immediately picture how it works at the moment but I'm looking forward to giving it a go once it's released.

Shame about the live reporting of unwanted phrases but I completely understand your reasoning on this one.

andygrunt · Post by **andygrunt** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 8:07 pm

Here's another small bug for you. I've not been able to reproduce it to order but thought you might like to hear about it.

I've been working through a 2,263 word document using the 'Overused Words' feature (very useful by the way), looking for and fixing repetitions. There have been quite a few. On two occasions, while the 'Overused Words' dialogue was open, I've clicked on the doc to change a word or two and the 'Overused Words' dialogue box has vanished. On those occasions I've minimised the Atlantis window and seen the 'ghost' of the dialogue box appear briefly as if it was behind the Atlantis window before it vanished completely.

Maximising Atlantis didn't bring the box back, neither did clicking the 'Overused Words' button. Restarting Atlantis fixed it but as I mentioned, exactly the same thing happened again a little later.

If I stumble across the exact steps to reproduce this, I'll let you know.

Post by **admin** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 12:44 pm

If I stumble across the exact steps to reproduce this, I'll let you know.

OK. By the way, a new build of this beta is available for download from the Betatesting page.