Debian Junior writing packages

AbiWord is a full-featured, efficient word processing application. It is suitable for a wide variety of word processing tasks, and is extensible with a variety of plugins.

This package includes many of the available import/export plugins allowing AbiWord to interact with ODT, WordPerfect, and other formats. It also includes tools plugins, offering live collaboration with AbiWord users on Linux and Windows (using TCP or Jabber/XMPP), web translation and dictionary support, and more.

GNU Aspell is a spell-checker which can be used either as a standalone application or embedded in other programs. Its main feature is that it does a much better job of suggesting possible spellings than just about any other spell-checker available for the English language, including Ispell and Microsoft Word. It also has many other technical enhancements over Ispell such as using shared memory for dictionaries and intelligently handling personal dictionaries when more than one Aspell process is open at once.

Aspell is designed to be a drop-in replacement for Ispell.

Dasher is an information-efficient text-entry interface, driven by natural continuous pointing gestures. Dasher is a competitive text-entry system wherever a full-size keyboard cannot be used - for example,

• on a palmtop computer
• on a wearable computer
• when operating a computer one-handed, by joystick, touchscreen, trackball, or mouse
• when operating a computer with zero hands (i.e., by head-mouse or by eyetracker).

The eyetracking version of Dasher allows an experienced user to write text as fast as normal handwriting - 25 words per minute; using a mouse, experienced users can write at 39 words per minute.

Dasher uses a more advanced prediction algorithm than the T9(tm) system often used in mobile phones, making it sensitive to surrounding context.

This package provides a client application to query a dictd server. The client-server protocol is TCP-based; the server may then be local or accessed through the network.

The DICT Development Group maintains several public servers which can be accessed from any machine connected to the Internet. The default configuration is to query one of these servers first. This may be changed in the configuration file /etc/dictd/dict.conf.

Queries may be customized by numerous command line options, including specifying the database(s) to be queried and the search strategy to be used.

This package also provides dictl, which allows using UTF-8 encoded dictionaries with terminals that do not support UTF-8.

GCompris is a high quality educational software suite, including a large number of activities for children aged 2 to 10. Some of the activities are game orientated, but nonetheless still educational.

GNU nano is an easy-to-use text editor originally designed as a replacement for Pico, the ncurses-based editor from the non-free mailer package Pine (itself now available under the Apache License as Alpine).

However, GNU nano also implements many features missing in Pico, including:

• undo/redo
• line numbering
• syntax coloring
• soft-wrapping of overlong lines
• selecting text by holding Shift
• interactive search and replace (with regular expression support)
• a go-to line (and column) command
• support for multiple file buffers
• auto-indentation
• tab completion of filenames and search terms
• toggling features while running
• and full internationalization support

pySioGame is a set of educational activities and games for children aged between 3 and 10. The activities are grid based and can be played all in a single window. pySioGame includes maths, reading, writing, painting, and memory activities.

WriteType is a simple word processor designed to help young students write more easily and accurately. It offers spelling suggestions as students type, making the process easier and less frustrating. It also provides the ability to read back text through either an eSpeak or a Festival backend. In addition, there are special tools for teachers, and the entire application is easily translatable.