Thread: Firmware 4.24.15676
View Single Post
Old 10-01-2020, 07:42 PM   #109
Uncle Robin
Diligent dilettante
Uncle Robin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Uncle Robin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Uncle Robin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Uncle Robin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Uncle Robin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Uncle Robin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Uncle Robin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Uncle Robin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Uncle Robin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Uncle Robin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Uncle Robin ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Uncle Robin's Avatar
 
Posts: 3,662
Karma: 52758936
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: in my mind
Device: Kobo Sage; Kobo Libra Colour
Quote:
Originally Posted by geek1011 View Post
I've actually found it quite valuable, and it has ~80% of the words I don't know and need to look up. I mostly read sci-fi/fantasy. I also read non-fiction reference books, but I use Wikipedia more than the dictionary for those.


I was also put off by the complexities and subtle breakage of custom dictionaries, which is why I started working on dictutil. Nearly everything there is to know about dictionaries can be found in dictutil and its documentation now. For installing dictionaries, it is now as simple as "dictutil install dicthtml-whatever.zip" (v3 custom-dict support is coming soon). For merging dictionaries, you just do "dictzip-decompile dicthtml-whatever.zip", then use "dictgen whatever.df whatever1.df" to merge them. For creating dictionaries from scratch, you can use the custom .df format, which will deal with all the hard parts for you (and PyGlossary can now output/input .df files).



Yes, PyGlossary now supports Kobo dictionaries based on dictutil. It's still not completely finished yet, and there are still a few bugs left in it. But, in general, it works well now, and it can also output .df files for dictutil to use.


Interesting, thanks. I'm never going to create my own dictionaries, but if one day the Indic dictionaries I'd like are created by someone, it's good to know there's an easier way to add them. As for Webster's 1913, my main experience of it was when it was the primary source used for Google Translate Hindi: On several occasions after entering a Hindi word, I had the surreal experience of having to look up the ENGLISH word offered, because it was so antiquated I literally hadn't heard of it. That taught me all I needed to know about its relevance and usefulness to me.

Websters 1913 offers nothing to me I can't get from the vastly superior OED online, which has all the obsolete and moribund words of the Webster's, while also being useful for 21st-century English. Of course, I'm delighted that the new Kobo dictionary will mean fewer reasons to put down my Libra, pick up my phone and open the OED.
Uncle Robin is offline   Reply With Quote