Verbalize - text editor with writing assistance for Brazilian Portuguese
I believe this is a interesting issue to post it here because it's very difficult to get writing tools outside the English language. That's exactly why I ended up starting this project. If it's not allowed, I apologise in advance.
I'm a linguist and technical writer (tech writer, dev writer, documenter, technical editor, etc.) and I've always used Hemingway for my English writing. The problem was that I'd never found a text editor capable of suggesting possible improvements to a text in Brazilian Portuguese.
Years passed, and this week I had time to create a fork of Techscriptor with some interface improvements and adapt it to Brazilian Portuguese. That's how version 0.1 of Verbalize was born.
What does it do?
In a basic and summarised way, you can upload a file from your computer (in md or txt, for now) and the editor, besides allowing you to actually edit, will give you hints on how to improve the text (long sentences, complex words, jargon, adjectives and other things we should avoid in texts, especially technical ones).
Once edited, you can download the file in md format.
Access
The application can be installed (Electron), accessed through the web, or you can download the code from GitHub and run it locally in your browser.
Improvements
I have a few 'next steps' in mind:
- Google Drive/Onedrive integration.
- Possibility to upload a custom rules file.
- Allow it to be used offline as well.
- Improve the GUI.
I don't think the live version is working. I typed in a very wrong phrase and did not get any "Aviso" ("warning"). I also tred uploading it as a file.
That was the phrase:
My bad.
Many people are giving me this feedback. In fact, it's not wrong, but this editor ir more focused on hints on readbility. Like Hemingway Editor. It will highlight complex phrases, jargons, adverbs in excess, etc. The grammar it's a not a issue for this editor. But maybe, with all the feedback about it, I have to implement a basic grammar corrector (it's not that hard, I guess).
Thanks for using and testing :)
It may be difficult for Brazilians to understand that proposition. I have used Hemingway but I used it while Grammarly is also running as an extension so I got all corrections in one place. I don't believe lots of people will wanna paste their stuff in two different websites to get all fixed. I say that because I write on a text editor though. I suppose most people write directly on a word processor so that's one fewer step.
Yes, indeed.
But I think the target audience is those who write professionally and need an editor to help identify unusual writing errors. Grammar, collocations, and spelling are things that have many solutions that are absurdly better and more mature.
That's why my idea is to go with a Hemingway approach, which is very different from Grammarly.
But thanks for the feedback :D
As a writer I will definitely use your website myself, I just got a little confused because I thought it was meant to catch all errors. I usually write on Emacs, so I'm used to throwing my writing on an external website just to get the more complex corrections. In case of Portuguese I might use Google Docs or Microsoft Word since they both have decent proofreading. But yours is probably the first tool specific for style and clarity in Portuguese so that will be very useful to me. Thanks ;)
Edit: if that could be embedded on Emacs it would be stellar! I would do it but I'm not a programmer, I just write fiction on Emacs.
Tanks a lot :)
I have no idea how to integrate with Emacs =P
In fact, come people ask for Obsidian integration, but for Emacs it's the first time.
That's usually something an Emacs user would do and it's not that hard cause of Lisp. If there's a command line for than it can be done somewhat easily. Unfortunately I'm not that user that knows how to do that kind of stuff!