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Use the dictionary online


Use the dictionary offline

You can use the dictionaries offline either in client-server mode (similar to the Web interface; dictionary viewed in a Web browser) or in desktop mode. The desktop client is rather rudimentary, but easier to use. A separate document describes how to install and use the desktop dictionary. Installing the dictionary in client-server mode is described below.

Quick Installation (Windows only)

This is the guide to installing the English<->Vietnamese dictionary on the Windows platform (Win9x, NT, XP...).

Install other dictionaries

Assume that you have installed the English<->Vietnamese dictionary in the directory C:\java. Here is how you can add the French<->Vietnamese dictionaries. If you do not want to manually add the French dictionaries every time you start the program, you can edit the startup file startdict.bat and add fv.ini to the end of the first line. The file should then be as follows:
start jre\bin\jre -Dmatches=15 -Dhttp_port=8080 -mx32M -cp vietdict28.jar vietdict.server.VietdictServer ev.ini fv.ini

Custom Installation

If you are not using Windows you need to download the server and the databases separately. Here are the necessary steps:
  1. Check that a Java interpreter is installed on your computer. (Open a command window, e.g., xterm on Unix or DOS box on Windows, and type "java -version" and see if the version number of Java is printed.) If Java is not yet installed, download the Java Runtime Environment from java.sun.com and install it first
  2. Download the server program (0.25 MB)
  3. Download at least one of the databases (the other can be installed optionally.)
  4. Extract the ZIP files to some directory, say /home/nvt/VietDictionary. Be sure to keep the directory structure. You should see in /home/nvt/VietDictionary a subdirectory dict
  5. Start the server with the script vietdict.bat in the directory dict
  6. While the server is running it can be accessed from any Web browser at the URL http://localhost:8080
  7. When you are done, run vd-stop.bat to stop the program.

Configuring the dictionary server

To start the server without the Graphical User Interface, please edit the startup script (startdict.bat or vietdict.bat) and change -Ddaemon=false to -Ddaemon=true.

If you want to change the appearance of the output (font face, size, color etc.), you can edit the template result.html. See the file result2.html for an example. Basically, you can edit the following style elements: dict (the name of the dictionary), def (the word definition), pos (the part.of-speech of a word), ex (sample usage), trans (translation of the example), idioms (list of idioms), idiom (idiomatic use). Moreover, you can include a background image for the page, or add some links or images to the output of the program.

Trouble-shooting

If you have trouble to get the program running, please consult our FAQ first. If you still cannot find the solution to your problem there, please use our forum to post your questions (Please be as specific as possible: what is the problem? what have downloaded? how is your directory structure look like? what is the output when starting the program in debug mode? etc.)

About the program

The databases are in the format used by the DICT protocol, i.e., they can be used with a DICT server. Some index files may need resorting because the server implementations of the DICT protocol (except my JDictd) do not use the correct collation sequences for the languages in question for searching.

Our dictionary program is extensible. It can use any dictionary database in DICT format (e.g., WordNet, Free Online Dictionary of Computing, or the free bilingual dictionaries on www.freedict.de). That is, you can download any dictionary of interest, write a 2-lines ini file to tell the program where to find the new dictionary, and run the server with that dictionary. To compress/decompress the data files in DICTZIP format, the program dictzip can be used. That program can be compiled easily from the source on Linux/Unix. A version for Windows is also available. (dictzip is a command-line tool, please use it from a command windows!)

There is also a version for Palm OS and WindowsCE/PocketPC.

Developers may download the source code of the program and develop it further.

Copyright Notice

Copyright © 1997-2004 Ho Ngoc Duc and the Free Vietnamese Dictionary Project. All Rights Reserved. The dictionary databases may have specific licenses, please lookup the entry 00-database-info for details.

The dictionary program, its source code and the dictionary databases are distributed under GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

Permission to use, copy, modify, and redistribute this software and its documentation for personal, non-commercial use is hereby granted provided that this copyright notice and appropriate documentation appears in all copies.


Ho Ngoc Duc <duc@informatik.uni-leipzig.de>