[OS X TeX] Macro(s) for using Excalibur with TeXShop?

[Michael Sharpe]

On Jul 13, 2014, at 8:28 AM, Herbert Schulz <herbs at wideopenwest.com> wrote:

> Howdy,
> 
> I have always used CoCoAspell as my LaTeX-aware Spellchecker. Once set up it works seamlessly through the Apple Spelling system in TeXShop.
> 
> I'd like to add a section on Spell Checking to `TeXShop Tips & Tricks' and I know many folks out there use Excalibur as their LaTeX-aware Spellchecker. I assume that many of those folks use a work flow with  a TeXShop Macro set up to save a file, have Excalibur process that file and then ``re-open'' the processed file in TeXShop but I certainly may be wrong. Can folks that use Excalibur let me know how they work with it?
> 
> Are there any other LaTeX-aware spell checkers out there that folks are using (e.g., aspell by itself)? If so, what work flow is being used?
> 
> PS: CoCoAspell hasn't been updated in a long time and, with each release of a new OS I am afraid it will stop working at all. So far I've only had to re-install it once; when I switched from a PPC to and Intel machine quite a few years ago. I'd hate to lose it!
> 

I'm not a regular user of Excalibur but I can see it might be a useful adjunct to CoCoAspell, so here's an AppleScript Macro for it. The macro depends on a shell script located in ~/Library/TeXShop/bin, called xcalb (which must of course be made executable) with contents

#!/bin/bash
open -W -a Excalibur "$1"
open -a TeXShop "$1"

The AppleScript macro is very short:

--applescript
--Michael Sharpe, 2014/07/13
--Apply this macro only to a document that has been saved previously
--Close doc, saving if changed, open in Excalibur for spellcheck, reopen when Excalibur is quit
--Calls shell script xcalb in ~/Library/TeXShop/bin

set f to #FILEPATH#

set p to (POSIX path of (path to home folder)) & "Library/TeXShop/bin/xcalb "
tell application "TeXShop"
	try
	    close front document--saving if modified
	end try
end tell

do shell script p & quoted form of f & " &"

Michael