xfce4-dict and WordNet

[Enrico Tröger]

On Sun, 24 Aug 2008 22:15:03 +0200, "Liviu Andronic"
<landronimirc at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello Enrico,
> 
> On 8/24/08, Enrico Tröger <enrico.troeger at uvena.de> wrote:
> >  > I am currently using WordNet Browser, or WordReference.com to
> >  > browse Princeton's WordNet lexical database. I am curious
> >  > whether the Xfce4 Dictionary can be used with a locally
> >  > installed app-dicts/wordnet-3.0?
> >
> >
> > I guess you can't use the service of wordreference.com locally as
> > their site states that it is an online-only service and even
> > scripts to download their database are not permitted. So, there is
> > no way, AFAIK.
> >
> I was not clear enough in my wording. I meant that I could use
> WordReference.com to browse on-line Princeton's WordNet-2.0. At the
> same time, I locally installed (on Gentoo) app-dicts/wordnet-3.0,
> which ships with its own Tcl/Tk GUI browser.

Then I still don't understand what you are requesting. Do you wish
direct support of the wordnet database without the dictd server?


> This would have been another feature suggestion: do you mean that
> Xfce4 Dictionary couldn't query WordReference.com for their different
> english<-->language dictionaries? If find WR.com a terribly useful
> ressource, and having it readily available in Xfce's dictionary would
> be quite nice.

This isn't a technical question but a legal one. The WR.com guys don't
allow this, this is completely unrelated to xfce4-dict. This problem
applies to most of the online dictionary services.

You can of course use the wordreference.com resource as a web search
with xfce4-dict. Then simply your default browser with the results page
will be opened. But displaying any contents directly in xfce4-dict is
not possible for legal reasons, AFAIK.


> For example, querying "abbreviation" or "hello" in dictd-wn-2.0
> through xfce4-dict returns nothing, but both entries are present in
> the WR.com online WordNet-2.0, and in "my" local WordNet-3.0. At the
> same time, both "lavatory" and "machine" are present in all three
> ressources.
> 
> From here, I can think of two things: either dictd-wn-2.0 is somewhat
> corrupted, or the text received from dictd is miss-handled by
> xfce4-dict.

I guess it's some sort of the first possibility:
dictd-wn-2.0 is not complete but it's just a wild guess.

But maybe the other resources use a different search algorithm than
xfce4-dict resp. dictd. I doubt it's because of any mishandled text. I
tried to use UTF-8-safe code whenever possible.

Since I don't have the wordnet dictd database locally here for testing
(only 8 KB/s dial-up connection), I just the one available through
dict.org:2628 and searching for "abbreviation" gave me the following
results:

wn "WordNet (r) 2.0"
n 1: a shortened form of a word or phrase
2: shortening something by omitting parts of it

Could you please test it with dict.org:2628?


> One thing that could be improved in handling the dictd output is the
> formatting. If the text received by xfce4-dict could be reformatted
> on-the-fly, it would be nice, for example, that "[syn: {car}, {auto},
> {automobile}, {motorcar}]" be formatted similar to WR.com's display
> [1] (using bold, and why not links for the definition words).

This could be done, it just needs someone with enough time and
motivation to do it :). Basically I agree to improve the output and
make it more readable and usable (i.e. using links and stuff).
But it just needs time and this is currently very limited on my side.


> >  For testing, you could use the dictd server at 'dict.org' which
> > also provides the wordnet database.
> >
> Unfortunately I access the Internet through a proxy server, and as far
> as I can tell xfce4-dict does not support this. Could this also be
> considered for a future release?

Sure, this would be a great feature. But I don't have any idea yet how
to implement this. Patches are welcome.


> >  > Otherwise, could such a development be considered for future
> >  > releases of Xfce's dictionary?
> >
> >
> > Basically yes. But before thinking about adding new code, I'd like
> > you to test the above mentioned dictd-wordnet package.
> >
> I also installed app-dicts/dictd-web1913, Webster's Revised Unabridged
> Dictionary (1913) for dict. I think it would, too, be of interest to
> xfce4-dict. For this dictionary I had no above-mentioned missing

In what way would it be of any interest for xfce4-dict? I mean if you
already used it via dictd what else should xfce4-dict do?


Regards,
Enrico

-- 
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