Visual Studio 2008 joins the spelling checker

Microsoft's Code Analysis team has decided to add FxCop's spelling checker to Visual Studio 2008.

FxCop was initially designed as a Microsoft internal tool to ensure that all. NET APIs are consistent. Many of the rules that it enforces cover the scope of usability, such as how to define a publicly visible identifier. The spelling checker for identifiers is included in these rules, which is an essential means of ensuring that a method name is not published that is misspelled and can never be changed.

FxCop's public release is well reflected in the user base, so Microsoft decided to join the FxCop engine in Visual Studio's Team edition. Some rules were added, some were removed, and the spelling checker belonged to the latter. But in VS 2008, some "lost rules" will return.

In addition to the spelling checker, VS 2008 also provides limited support for user dictionaries in the IDE. User dictionaries that exist in the form of an XML file can be added to an entire solution or attached to some specific project in the solution. At the same time, users can modify the original XML file that defines the spelling rules to make the rules anew. David Kean has promised to write a blog about some of these features.