How can I disable spell checking for a block of text in TextMate?

Question

When I am editing a plain text document and making notes in it, TextMate will put red lines under parts of it which should not be spell checked:

How can I disable spell checking for a block of text? I don't even mind if I have to wrap it inside of something like {{ and }}.

In the Textmate Manual it says

Since TextMate is intended for structured text it is possible to exclude parts of the document from being checked. This is done by creating a preferences item in the bundle editor, setting spellChecking to 0 and filling in the scope selector with the selector to target for no spell checking.

But I am still unclear about how to do this - I don't even see the spelling section in my preference pane (cmd+,, right?)

I'm looking for a few step-by-step instructions of how to disable spell checking for part of a plain text document.

Answer 1

TextMate uses user-configurable bundles of scripts and language definitions for syntax highlighting, indentation recognition, and the menu items in the Bundles menu.

TextMate can be extended by adding new bundles to e.g. support other programming languages.

Likewise, you can edit existing bundles to match your custom requirements.

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You can view your bundles and their contents via Bundles » Bundle Editor » Show Bundle Editor.

The following instructions will explain how to ignore the text between two delimiters for spell checking.

1. Open the Bundle Editor
2. Select the Text bundle's Plain text language entry in the list.

3. Add the following to the list of patterns matched under contentName = 'meta.paragraph.text' as a sibling to the block whose name is markup.underline.link.text:

   {   name = 'meta.no-spellcheck';
       begin = '{{';
       end = '}}';
   },
   

   This defines a new scope, named meta.no-spellcheck, as a subscope to the regular meta.paragraph.text scope. So only if a scope is a regular text paragraph will it also possibly be a meta.no-spellcheck scope, and therefore excluded from spell checking.

4. In the Text » Spell Checking: Disable item, add meta.no-spellcheck to the Scope Selector list. This will apply the rule to all meta.no-spellcheck scopes.

5. Close the Bundle Editor and test your changes (no saving needed).

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To view a certain position's active scopes, press Ctrl-Shift-P. This can help you in defining your own rules.