How can I show `ispell-word` choices at bottom of the buffer?

Question

When I run ispell-word it suggests word at the top of the buffer, like:

Instead can we show the options at the bottom of the buffer?

Answer 1

I would try modifying ispell-display-buffer. There are two instances of the symbol above used in that function. Copy the function to a different file my-ispell-display-buffer.el, change above to below in the two instances (and also in the doc string of the function), evaluate it with C-x C-e and try ispelling something.

If you like it, add a provides to the bottom of the file:

;;; modified version of ispell-display-buffer to display it
;;; below the buffer.
(defun ispell-display-buffer (buffer)
   ...
 )

(provides 'my-ispell-display-buffer)

and require it in your init file after loading the normal ispell:

...
(eval-after-load 'ispell (require 'my-ispell-display-buffer))

That will override the built-in function with your modified one. If you don't like it, get rid of the above line and (optionally) delete the my-ispell-display-buffer.el file.

EDIT: I should say that if you do the above, you will have forked Emacs. That's usually a bad idea, but this is a specialized function that will probably not cause any problems. You might still want to keep an eye on any changes to it just in case there are bugs that are fixed with it. Your version will not pick up these changes, so it will be up to you to keep things in sync.