[Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

MStarDict is a simple dictionary based on code of the latest StarDict written in C++ using Gtk2.

Current version is supporting:
- Stardict dictionaries
- external stardict parser plugins (mstardict package include HTML, PowerWord, Wiki, XDXF plugins by default)
- simple Text-To-Speech using espeak library
- localization

If you want to test it, install it from extras-devel repository and copy your dictionaries to MyDocs/mstardict directory.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

This is really nice app, i hope you can add more language for this translation app.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

Do you mean translation dictionaries? Check this page:

http://stardict.sourceforge.net/Dictionaries.php

It should be supporting all of them. Just download needed dictionary and copy it to MyDocs/mstardict directory :-)

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

Interesting APP...

are you aware of the qstardict port that is also being worked on?

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=38984

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

Yes, I'm. Last time when I tried it, I wasn't so happy with UI. I wanted something simple and easy to use and that was the reason of MStarDict. I also tried simplify UI of original StarDict but after few hours I decided to write UI from scratch and use core of stardict.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

Oh, thank, yes there are a lot languages,

add- if you can have an option in the app to download need dictionary directly would be nice, some noob like me will not able to figure out where to download or move files around use X-terminal yet ..

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

Ok. Let us know in this thread when you promote a version to testing and I'll give it a test.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

Nice, I'll try that! Please make sure to include advice on how to find additional dictionaries in the app description when it gets to Extras, and even better, in the app itself. Documentation of the community apps (as great as they are) is often lacking.. please don't be one of those! :)

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

I installed it. Really nice. I like it much better than the cluttered Qstardict interface. very clean, less hectic. the definition displayed separately from the word list using the maemo navigation is much better also.
a BIG plus for me, no problems with MSCIM/Google-Pinyin input of Chinese characters like I have in QStarDict (I posted my problem in QStarDict thread a few days ago).

Only 2 small issues I noticed:
I have three dictionaries installed, Langdao CHN-ENG, Langdao ENG-CHN and Oxford Bilingual CHN<->ENG. It seems in the bilingual dictionary I can only look up English terms, if I type in Chinese words the defintions are always pulled from the Langdao CHN-ENG dictionary (I don't know if this was the same in QStarDict because I couldn't even input Chinese characters!). This may not be a problem with MStarDict, it could be the dictionary is not two-way, I don't know how to check.
Finally, a tiny tiny correction: there is an extra 'i' the word 'Preferences'.

Nice app. Thanks for your hard work rmoravcik
http://www.rongood.net/amch/excellent.gif

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

Which dict files should we DL for the N900, the tarball or the RPM? And do they need to be extracted?

And where should they be placed on the N900?

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

@oldpmaguy I think the easiest way is to grab the tarball, extract on your computer and then transfer the dictionary folder into the mstardict folder on your phone. That was easy for me. I'm pretty noob with linux but I read elsewhere that there are some steps before you can unpack tar.gz on the n900 itself but it can be done.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

So the whole folder then, and its entire contents? And what about renaming the folder, is that a no-no too? Because I did variations on all that and had no luck.

Also, where exactly is this "mstardict" folder? Should we make it ourselves, or is it a floder that the app makes? I can't find it when browsing for it connected via USB.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

You'll need to create the folder yourself, and I just copied over the extracted folder (with contents), and that's working fine here.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

Ok, I've got it under control, as you said Rob1n, the folder must be made by the user and the files extracted exactly as they are - I used WinRAR on a Windows PC. (A redundant, identically-named folder had to be deleted by me, but the files remained unchanged).

Also, I found a very big page of links to sourceforge.net dict files here
http://reciteword.sourceforge.net/stardict/babylon.php
Much more up-to-date and comprehensive that the tiny set of links available at that Star-dict page.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

Yeah, this Oxford dictionary is ENG-CHN according to the stardict sourceforge page, but the Chinese name says bilingual. My fault.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

@fareastcoast and others:
Has anyone figured out a way to get a dictionary for English => Chinese WITH PINYIN in the translation??
none of the files on stardict's site include pinyin. it looks the only hope is CEDICT (MDBG) but its an entirely different format and I've been googling for the past 2 hours on how to convert to stardict format but I cant find a way. and FBreader opening up pdf's and txt dictionaries is just wayyyy too slow with a lot of crashes/freezes.

any clue? this would really help.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

You got me thinking about this, that I'd like this too.

Check out the "URX ZHEN Chinese-English dictionary" at the link I posted earlier in this thread, here
http://reciteword.sourceforge.net/stardict/babylon.php
It has your pinyin, I believe.

And BTW, I'll tell ya, that site of links was quite a find for me. All those files are at Sourceforge, but I'll be damned if I can figure out a way to get to their parent page of links for any of them. Sourceforge is so damned inscrutable, always has been.

Ed.. Scratch that last comment, they're ALL here!
http://sourceforge.net/projects/stardict/files/

Ed. #2
Ahh, this is even better
http://sourceforge.net/projects/star...me&sortdir=asc

This is getting interesting. %^)

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

I'm downloading it now. but isn't that a Chinese-Eng dictionary (as the title denotes)? I need the reverse since I'm living in China and studying Chinese.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

nevermind. IT WORKS!!
character - pinyin - english translation! I can't believe it! and it's quite comprehensive as well, with many different explanations. thanks a lot buddy!

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

So where are we supposed to make the mstardict folder?

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

home/user/My Docs/mstardict

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

I really like this program! But how do you create/ find even more dictionarys? I'm thinking of a bilingual English <-> Swedish dictionary. I've only found a English -> Swedish.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

Did you check these sites:

http://stardict.sourceforge.net/Dict...reedict.de.php
http://xdxf.revdanica.com/down/

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

I'm going to add checking of /home/user/MyDocs/ at the start-up of application and if that folder doesn't exist, it will be automatically created.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

I think, I will add a menu entry "Download dictionaries", that will open that site in browser just for now.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

I just found the revdanica-site in the Qstardict thread. Thanks! But I'm still missing some languages... If I find a free dictionary online, how do I adapt it for MStarDict?

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

Have a look at the Wikipedia entry - there's a couple of links to documentation about creating StarDict dictionaries.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

I have looked for this thread in my N900 and can't find 'home' or 'my docs'. While pluged into the USB and browsing with my laptop, these folders aren't to be found.

I tried creating a 'mstardict' folder in the n900 inside a folder called 'documents'..and putting .dic files in there and still nothing..

Any help here?

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

You do have to create the folder. just not in "documents". place it in MyDocs (if you open up filemanager, it's basically the first directory (the name of your Device)

it's easier to do all this kind of stuff if you setup OpenSSH and WinSCP - search for how to set this up on one of these threads because I cant remember how i set mine up.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

While Stardict dictionaries do show up, MStarDict does NOT show XDXF dictionaries (I have a subfolder web1913 that contains the Webster dictionary). Any ideas why this doesn't work?

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

Hi! MStarDict is great program! But i think, you should add very useful feature: select direction (for example, En->En, De->En) and show only dictionaries of this direction. When you have got a lot of dictionaries, it is very hard to find the meaning you need (and every time enable/disable dictionaries is not useful)

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

Guys, I can't find those dictionaries in the forum. can anyone give me a link please? :confused:

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

I think you're on the wrong track, there. One thing that is wonderful about MStarDic is that it presents multiple dictionary results so clearly.

What you might consider doing is arranging the order if the dictionaries in the options menu, which will subsequently mirror the order in which the definitions appear.

In this way, you can control which definitions come first, and you will know with certainty where the definition is that you would like.

For example, I have my Chinese-English dictionary listed last. The purpose being, whenever I look up a word in English for any reason (like for a simple definition, a word form, part of speech, origin, etc.) I'm always able to look at the Chinese translation as very the last thing I do. Doing this helps me build up my Chinese vocabulary in ways that I might not otherwise actively do. :)

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

hi guys where do I find the mydocs???i didn't see it anywhere . .

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

If you open File Manager and tap on the N900 icon, that's MyDocs. It's also the root of the drive when connecting the N900 in mass storage mode, and is the Data folder when connecting in PC Suite mode.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

thanks Rob1n i made the folder mstardict with inside 2 dictionary . . but nothing,still sayingn no loaded dictionary.what should I do??
thanks

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

You've extracted the dictionary files into their own folders inside the mstardict folder?

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

What should I do now: I wait for 5-7seconds (it's not a joke!) until this programm opens. After that I press one key and the programm hangs for 2-3 seconds (it looks the words, starting with this letter). After entering all letters I get a very big list of meaning of this word in all dictionaries (in some dictionaries articles are really big!). And I should scroll this list, till I get the meaning I need.

And if I make En->En (for example) dictionaries first, than I should scroll for a very long time to find En->Es.

I need to have a LOT of dictionaries. That's the problem. If it would have some filter (En->De or En-En), it could open/work faster, I think.
On Symbian it was wonderful app - Lingvo. It was able to find exact entry in the database for 2-3 millions of words for less than 1 second. On N900 there is not such application...


P.S.: sorry for my English..

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

yes i did :(
it should work the extention file is xdxf . .why it doesn't work??seems so easy to do it.

Re: [Announce] MStarDict for N900
 

There's been a few people complaining about XDXF dictionaries not working - I've not tried any of those myself.