Just a quick update — I’ve not had too much spare time to work on HIPpie since announcing it, partly due to work and conference commitments, but I have been slowly beavering away.
The first chunk is some of the back-end code for the “did you mean” spell checker. To try and make the code as re-usable as possible (especially for other OPACs), the back-end has been coded so that it can be used as a standalone web service:
library.hud.ac.uk/wikis/hippie/index.php/Spell_checker
Various options can also be specified to affect the output, e.g. for “newmonia thrombrosis”:
- XML
- XML, maximum of 3 suggestions
- plain text
- plain text, best guess
- plain text, max 3 suggestions, using Aspell “normal” suggestion mode
The grand plan is that anyone who wants to make use of it (either as a web service or the code that will embed into HIP) will have an account. By logging into the account, they’ll be able to specify a dictionary to use (e.g. standard US English) or they’ll be able to upload a their own word list (e.g. generated from the indexes in the ILS).
It’s still early days, but if anyone has any comments or suggestions, please get in touch!