Firefox 2 spell-check solves CMS problem

I downloaded and installed Firefox 2.0 today (official release: tomorrow, but it was made available on Mozilla FTP and a couple of mirror sites today).

So far, other than some mild tweaks to the visual interface, and one browser extension I used rarely that is incompatible with the new version, I haven't noticed much difference -- with one huge exception:

Built-in, on-the-fly spell check in form fields.

Yeah, sure, it's interesting to casual Web surfers. But it's a Godsend to users and developers of Web-based content management systems.

In my day job at Scripps, we're in the throes of a content management systems conversion (prior posts here and here). In my 11-year Internet management history, this represents at least the fifth such project I've handled. And in all those projects, content system users (producers, site managers and administrators) always ask for a spell-check feature built into forms for editing articles and other long-form text content.

Now users of Firefox 2.0 don't need it built into any Web application, because it's built into the browser. And the user experience closely resembles inline spell check in Microsoft Word, which on balance is a good thing. Love or hate Word, its red squiggles to denote possible misspellings and its right-click menu of options to fix them are both de facto standards.

Plus, again like Word, browser users can build their own additions-and-exceptions list on top of the stock Firefox spelling dictionary.

This sure beats trying to build spell-check into one Web application at a time.

"What about the new Internet Explorer 7?" you ask.

You can get a free extension, ieSpell, to do spell checking on form fields in IE7. But instead of inline, on-the-fly spell checks, the extension installs a toolbar button that runs spell check and prints results to a separate pop-up window after you're done writing in a form field. It's OK, but not as handy as the built-in Firefox utility.