XMetal 6.0 spell check highlighting in red color is very close to letters

[Raj]

Hi Derek,

Its good to see the Auto Spell check option in the XMetaL 6.0 Version. But the highlighting line in red color is too close to the baseline of the words. Is there any way to adjust the gap? Thanks.

Raj

[Derek Read]

No, sorry. I'll note this in our feature request list in case anyone else has similar feelings.

Do you mean it would be helpful for you if we moved it down a few pixels?
As it is now, people doing spell checking corrections at your company that cannot read the underlined words (if that is the main issue) could open the spell checker dialog.

[Derek Read]

Turns out there is an undocumented INI variable that lets you fiddle with this.
It supports values from 0 to 200 with the default being 96 (ie: when not set).

spell_squiggly_line_offset = 96

It was not a requirement to allow end users to make such changes and so development did not design it with usability in mind. This makes it difficult to describe exactly how much it moves when you change this value (it's sort of pixels, but not really because CSS comes into play so it needs to adjust based on text sizes for any given element). In simplest terms, if you want the line lower increase the value, if you want it higher reduce it. Keep in mind however, that if you reduce it too much it will cover the text or be placed above it.

As with all INI variables you need to restart XMetaL Author to have it take effect. For me the usable range is minimum of about 85 and maximum of about 110. Beyond this and the line will probably start overlapping text.

As with any undocumented INI setting please do not rely on it. Unless something is documented in the Customization Guide it may change.