Jinx by Daniel Mendler

How I came to it

What I use now: Hunspell

What is it?

Jinx is a fast spell-checker for Emacs. It highlights misspelled words but only of the visible portion of the buffer. I.e. it does not check the entire buffer, but only what you can see. This approach makes it fast.

Each misspelling is corrected by selecting from a list of words displayed in a completion menu.

It's easy to install and configure.

It works on its own or with Emacs's built-in spell-checker Ispell.

Jinx supports spell-checking multiple languages in the same buffer.

Jinx can flexibly ignore misspellings by face, regexps.

Jinx Jinx lets you create custom rules for ignoring misspellings using Emacs Lisp.

Jinx comes preconfigured for key Emacs major modes, including Java, Ruby, and Rust. In these modes, composite words in camelCase and PascalCase are automatically accepted.

Jinx can be installed from GNU ELPA or MELPA.

How it Works

Jinx binds directly to the native Enchant API. This avoids the slower backend process communication that Aspell requires, leading to faster spell-checking. Jinx automatically compiles jinx-mod.c and loads the dynamic module at startup, ensuring it is ready to use without manual intervention.

Requirements

Installation

I require enchant2-devel and pkgconf (as I'm on Fedora)

For Debian, Ubuntu: sudo apt install libenchant-2-dev pkgconf

Configuration

You can configure Jinx to activate in one of two modes: global-jinx-mode OR jinx-mode

;; Alternative 1: Enable Jinx globally
(add-hook 'emacs-startup-hook #'global-jinx-mode)

;; Alternative 2: Enable Jinx per mode
(dolist (hook '(text-mode-hook prog-mode-hook conf-mode-hook))
  (add-hook hook #'jinx-mode))

Sample use-package configurations

Global

(use-package jinx
  :ensure t
  :hook (emacs-startup . global-jinx-mode)
  :bind (("M-$" . jinx-correct)
   ("C-M-$" . jinx-languages)))

Mode Specific

(use-package jinx
  :ensure t
  :hook ((text-mode-hook . jinx-mode)
         (prog-mode-hook . jinx-mode)
         (conf-mode-hook . jinx-mode))
  :bind (("M-$" . jinx-correct)
         ("C-M-$" . jinx-languages)))

Recommended bindings

(keymap-global-set "M-$" #'jinx-correct)
(keymap-global-set "C-M-$" #'jinx-languages)

British Spelling

(setq jinx-languages "en_GB") ;; Set British Spelling

Get to use with auto-correct

(defun jinx--add-to-abbrev (overlay word)
  "Add abbreviation to `global-abbrev-table'.
The misspelled word is taken from OVERLAY.  WORD is the corrected word."
  (let ((abbrev (buffer-substring-no-properties
                 (overlay-start overlay)
                 (overlay-end overlay))))
    (message "Abbrev: %s -> %s" abbrev word)
    (define-abbrev global-abbrev-table abbrev word)))

(advice-add 'jinx--correct-replace :before #'jinx--add-to-abbrev)

Commands

jinx-correct corrects misspellings.
jinx-languages allows you to switch between languages.

To check the whole buffer

C-u M-$

To check word before point

M-$

misspelled

To check a word not misspelled

C-u C-u M-$

Why? For example, you may wish to change "corrections" into "corrections".

The Jinx Wiki for additional Tips

Wiki

Other Ways of Correcting Misspellings

With the right click mouse

The menu also offers options to save the word

temporarily for the current session (temporarily)
in the personal dictionary (permanently)
ensuring the word is recognised as correct only in that particular file (ensuring the word is recognised as correct only in that particular file)

You can also modify a proposed correction.

allotriomorpc

After invoking jinx-correct you can navigate to misspelled words with M-n and M-p.

Compatibility with completion UIs

Special instructions for Vertico

(add-to-list 'vertico-multiform-categories
       '(jinx grid (vertico-grid-annotate . 20)))
(vertico-multiform-mode 1)

Assessment

I have not gotten it to work with auto-correct yet
It's quick
It's easy to add new words
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
It's not foolproof. See example
It's not offering always the correct spellings, e.g. Hunspell

Return to Home