Enable Spellcheck For KeepNote On Backtrack 5 R3

I take a lot of notes when working no matter if it is learning new stuff or working on projects for my job I have found that great note taking can save you lots of time down the road. The note taking application installed with Backtrack Linux is called KeepNote and provides the all of the functionality that I typically need when taking notes such as folders for organization, easy way(s) to backup notes, tabs, and all the other basics. One thing that does not work out of the box for KeepNote on Backtrack 5 R3 is Spellcheck which I use regularly to make sure my slang has not found itself into the notes I am sharing with others. Below we outline a quick way to enable spellcheck in KeepNote 0.7.7 on Backtrack 5 release 3.

KeepNote Spell Check Greyed Out:

As you can see Spellcheck is greyed out in the KeepNote Tools menu drop down. To enable KeepNote spellcheck you just need to install a couple packages as shown in the below example output. Spell Check in KeepNote is provided via Aspell which is the same application I install to enable Spell Check for Notepad++ on Windows.

Install Packages To Support KeepNote Spell Check On Backtrack Linux:

root@bt:~# apt-get install python-gksu2 python-eggtrayicon python-gda python-gtkspell python-gdl python-gtkmozembed aspell aspell-en
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
aspell is already the newest version.
aspell set to manually installed.
aspell-en is already the newest version.
aspell-en set to manually installed.
The following extra packages will be installed:
libgda-4.0-4 libgda-4.0-common libgdl-1-3 libgdl-1-common libgtkspell0
Suggested packages:
libgda-4.0-bin libgda-4.0-mysql libgda-4.0-postgres
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libgda-4.0-4 libgda-4.0-common libgdl-1-3 libgdl-1-common libgtkspell0
python-eggtrayicon python-gda python-gdl python-gksu2 python-gtkmozembed
python-gtkspell
0 upgraded, 11 newly installed, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded.
Need to get 1,019kB of archives.
After this operation, 8,569kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y

As you can see above aspell and aspell-en should be installed by default on Backtrack 5 R3 however I wanted to include them just in case they were not the latest or had been removed previously as those two packages are the actual spellcheck engine and dictionary used for reference. Once you have completed the package installation process close any open KeepNote instances and relaunch KeepNote from the Backtrack menu by clicking Backtrack > Miscellaneous > keepnote. Now when you click on Tools in the top navigation menu you will see that Spell Check is no longer greyed out and once selected will enable spell check by default as shown in the below example images.

KeepNote Spell Check Enabled On Backtrack:

KeepNote Spell Check Working On Backtrack Linux:

The last example image posted above’s purpose was to show Aspell in action. If Spell Check is enabled in KeepNote as shown by the checkmark next to Spell Check in the Tools drop down then words that are spelled incorrectly in notes will be underlined. If you right click on the word suggestions will be provided such as the suggestion in the example image below that notes to capitalize Louisville. If you click on the suggestion it will automatically insert into the note.

KeepNote Spell Check Suggestions Via Aspell: