Dear WebSpellChecker clients,
Christmas is here, so welcome to the final WebSpellChecker newsletter of the year! One doesn’t simply start a new year without reflecting on the previous one, and we are no exception 😁
Behind business prosperity come the hardships, obstacles, and the unknown — you know this better than anyone else. For us, 2023 brought 365 new days with 365 new chances, and we seized the majority of them. So, let’s look at all we accomplished this year.
New and upgraded type checks
Last spring, we proudly released a new cool type check — Style guide. It allows adding custom grammar rules similar to default non-inclusive language check rules it comes with. They function as a biased and profanity language filter, preventing users from sounding unprofessional and disrespectful. As of now, it is available for English and German. Similar datasets for French, and Spanish and style guide API are coming soon.
Spelling autocorrect and text autocomplete suggestions are also undergoing advancements. In particular, we recently added filters to exclude irrelevant autocomplete suggestions with inappropriate punctuation or repeated words. And now, we’re testing a more advanced autocomplete model that promises to deliver better performance results than the current one.
Enhanced traditional and AI-driven engines
While the competition actively transitions to AI achievements, we remain committed to maintaining our third-party traditional engines by integrating the latest AI advancements. This year, we introduced mixed engines under default configurations similar to what we had before. In simple terms, under American English, you now have a blend of a spelling and grammar checker engine along with an AI language model for English.
Other changes include:
- Named entity recognition (NER) for English, Spanish, German languages, and their dialects
- Deprecated AI-based language codes (en_AI, de_AI, es_AI)
- Updated spelling dictionaries and grammar rules for the majority of languages
- Updated medical dictionaries in addition to implemented TALLman lettering (e.g., metroNIDAZOLE) recognition
WProofreader core updates
In 2023, we made significant enhancements to the WProofreader core. The most notable one is the integration with Google Docs, which was highly demanded and appreciated by our clientele. It is now released as part of the WProofreader browser extension.
Other changes are no less huge:
- added UI options for flexible management of available check types
- upgraded “undo autocorrect” behavior and “autocomplete suggestions acception” with TAB
- published a new NPM package for WProofreader SDK JavaScript
- reassessed the accessibility of the user interface and updated VPAT report
The work doesn’t stop — more updates to WProofreader core are to come in 2024.
Improved custom dictionaries
This year, we conducted a comprehensive refactoring of the user custom dictionary functionality. The behavior and validation mechanisms of both user and company-wide dictionaries are now unified.
Additionally, we introduced an enhanced exclude dictionary functionality, input validation, enabled the addition/removal of wordlists in bulk using API, and unified messages for greater precision and clarity.
The development of the company dictionary API for the cloud version is underway (hopefully to be released by the end of the year).
Advanced on-premise configuration
And finally, a couple of technical advancements for our on-premise clients to simplify product installation and configuration:
- ARM architecture support for Linux-based OS is now available
- Enhanced Docker configuration and deployment with new installation parameters and language configuration
- Updated Windows and Linux installer with language selection and respective AI language modes as separate steps
- Refactored application server related to languages configuration
Coming soon
We don’t make New Year’s resolutions; instead, we set attainable goals each day. In 2024, we’re planning to work on:
- AI multilingual writing assistant for text rewrite and content generation as part of SDK (as a part of Cloud version first)
Write “I hope this message finds you well” and ask WProofreader to rephrase it. You will get something like “I hope you’re well” as the output.
Magic outside of Hogwarts ✨
- Enhanced AI-driven proofreading for English, German, and Spanish
- Autocomplete and style guide with non-inclusive rules for popular languages
- Application manager interface by the end of the year (including usage analytics, custom dictionaries, and style guides)
… and our main New Year’s resolution is to help you fulfill your business goals!
Have a tree-mendous holiday! From our WebSpellChecker family to yours 💙💛
