Spell check only works in 3.6.6 when it wants to...
When typing into a text box, spell check may or may not work. The usual problem I have is that the red, squiggly line will show for a few seconds but, after that, it will disappear. For example, if I type in "You';ll read this line", "You'll" will be underlined right after I type it, but if I try to finish the sentence, the underlining will disappear. Older versions of Firefox allowed me to type as much as I wanted while still telling me which words were misspelled. I've looked at the forums and, yes, I've read "Using the spell checker" and, no, this is not a Dictionary problem...
This happened
Every time Firefox opened
== I upgraded to Firefox 3.6.6
All Replies (7)
Do you ever have that problem when running in the Firefox SafeMode? http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode Don't select anything right now, just use "Continue in SafeMode."
It's possible that one or more of your addons is causing that red underline to disappear.
If not, see this: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/troubleshooting+extensions+and+theme...
btw, on the subject of spell checkers, there is a great program (SpellCheckAnywhere.Com) that adds spell checking to all programs including firefox, blogs and the like.
You can toggle "Check Spelling" off/on in the right-click context menu when that happens to see if that helps to get the underlined errors back.
I wasn't getting any spell checking going on either but discovered I had to install a dictionary. That sort-of fixed it. The problem I now have is that "Check my spelling as I type" is turned on in options, but the "Check Spelling" is not always enabled in the right context by default. It seems to be keyed to certain types or attributes of HTML elements, like TEXTAREA but not INPUT. The problem I have is that in some web applications, creating an email (or, probably, some forums), I have to right-click and enable "Check spelling" every single time I create a message. I just want it on all the time by default.
Spell checking is only enabled by default in multi-line text areas and not in single-line input fields.
See http://kb.mozillazine.org/layout.spellcheckDefault (2: multi-line)
I just used firebug to inspect the web app that I use, and they generate a TEXTAREA with the attribute spellcheck="false". It's a design problem on their part -- I won't get into the details why. Suffice to say it's not a problem with Firefox. Thanks for your response, cor-el.
Yes, that attribute will disable the spell check. https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Controlling_spell_checking_in_HTML_forms
You can use CSS code in userContent.css to detect such textareas:
textarea[spellcheck="false"]
I use something similar for autocomplete="off"
input[autocomplete="off"]
Shows interesting effects: Google has two search bars on a result page, the one at the top has autocomplete=off and the one at the bottom doesn't.
See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Editing_configuration#How_to_edit_configuration_files