Add-ons

note

Our docs have an official new home at https://docs.errata.ai/vale-server/add-ons/languagetool.

In addition to styles, you can also extend Vale Server's capabilities through add-ons. And, while styles are limited to changing the way Vale Server's built-in features work, add-ons allow you to add completely new features.

LanguageTool

LanguageTool is an open-source grammar checker that has a library of over 3,000 English rules.

important

Compared to Vale Server, LanguageTool is slow and so you'll likely see a decrease in performance when the add-on is active (especially on large files).

Since Vale Server focuses (primarily) on writing style rather than grammatical correctness, integrating with LanguageTool provides a nice balance of functionality: Vale Server will enforce your style guide while LanguageTool checks your grammar.

Additionally, by using this add-on, you also get to take advantage of Vale Server's understanding of markup—which LanguageTool lacks altogether on its own.

Installation

The first step is to install LanguageTool's standalone desktop application.

After downloading and unzipping the LanguageTool-x.x folder, double-click the languagetool.jar file to launch the application:

Then, navigate to Text Checking -> Options -> General and make sure that "Run as server on port" is checked with the port set to 8081:

Finally, select File -> Hide to System Tray:

LanguageTool's embedded HTTP server will now run in the background on port 8081.

Usage

important

Since LanguageTool doesn't understand markup on its own, some of its rules don't work correctly with Vale Server.

Currently, only rules listed in the MISC, GRAMMAR, CONFUSED_WORDS, and TYPOS categories are enabled.

Once LanguageTool is running in the background, you simply need to add LanguageTool to your BasedOnStyles list in one of your projects:

You'll now see results from LanguageTool in our client plugins.