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Opened 12 years ago

Closed 12 years ago

#24789 closed defect (bug) (fixed)

Spellcheck API used by TinyMCE broken

Reported by: ryanduff's profile ryanduff Owned by: nacin's profile nacin
Milestone: 3.6 Priority: high
Severity: major Version:
Component: TinyMCE Keywords: has-patch
Focuses: Cc:

Description

It looks like google shut off the API TinyMCE used by default. ​http://www.tinymce.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=30779

It looks like After the Deadline has an API, and Jetpack is already using it. Theres a TinyMCE plugin built already. Good option to get in core to resolve this? http://www.afterthedeadline.com/download.slp?platform=TinyMCE

Opening new to not clutter previous related ticket #23343

Attachments (2)

24789.diff (844 bytes) - added by ryanduff 12 years ago.
First pass to disable spellchecker plugin
24789.2.diff (4.4 KB) - added by nacin 12 years ago.

Download all attachments as: .zip

Change History (10)

#1 @nacin
12 years ago

  • Milestone changed from Awaiting Review to 3.6

As stated in IRC, three options:

  • Rip it out.
  • Talk to Google about what is going on. It is down now, but it also went down in April and came back up again (per forum thread). It was never really designed to be a public API, as it was written for Google Toolbar (which went EOL two years and two weeks ago).
  • Talk to Automattic about basic spelling support in core, via After the Deadline.

I don't think any of these are mutually exclusive.

#2 @nacin
12 years ago

  • Priority changed from normal to high
  • Severity changed from normal to major

Previously the endpoint went down as a 50x. It is now a 404. Not just direct GET access, but the actual HTTP request WP normally does.

#3 @ryanduff
12 years ago

Found a few other projects reporting similar. And the response, for the most part, was to just rip it out.

Don't most browsers support spell checking now as well? I know in at least Chrome and Safari on OSX I get spelling errors automatically highlighted. Not sure if that's a browser or host OS service though.

From a quick search it looks like IE doesn't have built in spell check capabilities (other than 3rd party plugin) so that could be a bigger hinderance to the "just disable" option.

#4 @knutsp
12 years ago

IE10 has a spell checker.

I see no need for core to include a spell checker. Let it be a plugin. I have always used a browser extension, as it also works outside of WordPress and includes Norwegian.

#5 @nacin
12 years ago

At this point I think we're leaning toward taking it out. Or even just disabling the button, to avoid ripping out a lot so late in a cycle. Browsers cover this pretty well for us, even the good mobile ones.

#6 @ryanduff
12 years ago

  • Keywords has-patch added

Agreed there.

Adding patch that just removes it from the TinyMCE plugins array for now so the button doesn't load. The rest of the code around the spellchecker plugin was left intact.

@ryanduff
12 years ago

First pass to disable spellchecker plugin

@nacin
12 years ago

#7 @nacin
12 years ago

24789.2.diff expands on 24789.diff, also preventing the initialization of spellchecker settings if the plugin isn't enabled. (Most of that green is merely indentation.)

#8 @nacin
12 years ago

  • Owner set to nacin
  • Resolution set to fixed
  • Status changed from new to closed

In 24745:

Remove the Spellchecker button from TinyMCE.

It appears Google has finally shut off the old private API it used. Spellcheckers built-in to browsers (and operating systems) seem to be the best alternative.

A WordPress plugin could still re-enable this TinyMCE plugin if they wanted.

props ryanduff for initial patch.
fixes #24789.

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