pulsar-languagetool

A Pulsar Edit package that checks the file open in the editor against a local LanguageTool server running in Docker.

• Grammar errors are underlined in purple.
• Hovering an underline shows the message returned by LanguageTool.
• Right-clicking an underline offers replacement suggestions plus a dismiss option; clicking a suggestion applies it to the buffer.

Repository layout

docker-compose.yml        # runs the LanguageTool server (port 8081)
languagetool/
  Dockerfile              # pinned LanguageTool 6.6 on a slim JRE image
  start.sh                # downloads ngram data on first start, then launches
package.json              # the Pulsar package manifest
lib/                      # package source (main, HTTP client, popup helper)
keymaps/                  # default keybindings (configurable)
styles/                   # purple underline + popup styles
spec/                     # unit specs + live-server integration specs

1. Start the LanguageTool server

docker compose up -d

On first start the container downloads the English ngram dataset (ngrams-en-20150817.zip, ~8.9 GB) into the ngram-data volume. This happens only once; later starts reuse the volume. You can watch progress with docker compose logs -f.

If you'd rather skip the ngram data (the server works fine without it, it just misses the ngram-based rules):

SKIP_NGRAM_DOWNLOAD=true docker compose up -d

Verify the server is up:

curl -d "language=en-US" -d "text=this are a test" http://localhost:8081/v2/check

2. Point Pulsar at the development version of the plugin

The package is not published to a repository yet, so link it from your local clone (from the root of this repository):

pulsar -p link

This symlinks the repo into ~/.pulsar/packages/pulsar-languagetool. Reload Pulsar (or restart it) and the package will be active — check Settings → Packages to confirm.

To unlink later: pulsar -p unlink.

3. Usage

• Press Ctrl+Alt+L in any editor to check the current file (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+L clears the underlines). The same commands are available from the command palette as pulsar-languagetool:check and pulsar-languagetool:clear.
• Purple underlines mark the problems found.
• Hover an underline to see LanguageTool's message.
• Right-click an underline to pick one of the suggested fixes or dismiss it.

Configuring the hotkey

Keybindings are fully configurable through Pulsar. Edit Edit → Keymap… (~/.pulsar/keymap.cson) and bind the commands to whatever you like — your binding overrides the package default:

'atom-text-editor':
  'ctrl-shift-g': 'pulsar-languagetool:check'

Package settings

Settings → Packages → pulsar-languagetool:

Setting	Default	Description
serverUrl	http://localhost:8081	Base URL of the LanguageTool server.
language	en-US	Language code (en-US, en-GB, de-DE, …) or auto for server-side detection.
maxSuggestions	5	Max suggestions shown in the right-click menu.

4. Development

Run the spec suite:

pulsar --test spec/

spec/pulsar-languagetool-spec.js is self-contained (mocked HTTP). spec/integration-spec.js runs against a live server at http://localhost:8081 (override with LANGUAGETOOL_URL); when no server is reachable those specs pass without testing anything.