PLugin Dictionary

[gerbetta]

Okay, Ifound a page for a dictionary plugin Here: http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/RockboxDictionary

It gives me a link to download WNprolog-2.0.tar.gz

This link is outdated. On their site, they now have WNprolog-3.0.tar.gz

I downloaded that 3.0 version, but I don't know how to install it on to rockbox. I can follow steps 1 and 2, but I can't follow step 3 because there is no file called "wn2rdf.pl" and there is no rdf2binary tool that I can find. Can anyone walk me through how to put it on my ipod nano? (1st gen)

[mc2739]

Here is a link to the older file if needed: WNprolog-2.0.tar.gz

The wn2rdf.pl file is in the svn tools directory.  The rdf2binary tool has to be compiled from svn.  Just run make in the tools directory.

[gerbetta]

how do I access the svn tools directory? Can you run me through this in layman's terms or something? I'm sorry for being so incompetent

[Chronon]

Check the UsingSVN page on the wiki. 

By the way, there's a link at the top of that page that allows you to browse the files without installing subversion.  You could also download the source tarball if you prefer.

[Apple-Z]

I am trying to figure out how to develop an app for my 5G iPod Video (60GB) that will be similar to a dictionary...  I have an eBook (which I can convert to text or Excel tables) and the book contains conjugations of the French verbs.  I would like to have this work like a dictionary in that you would get a list of verbs (instead of dictionary words), and when you select a verb, it would give you the conjugations.

I posted a more detailed question in the RockBox Development forum -> Starting Development and Compiling, which has a few .jpg images of some of the screens I eventually would like to develop...

http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=24462.0

Any ideas or guidance on the applicability of this dictionary app to my project, or other suggestions ?

Apple-Z

[Chronon]

The source for the Dictionary plugin does seem like a good thing to check out.  It might be a good starting point.

[Apple-Z]

Thank you Chronon, I will download it and have a look at it, as well checking out other plugins that might be useful...  I am very rusty on writing code so I will have to do a fair bit of reading before I can even figure out how the dictionary plugin works...

Apple-Z

[Chronon]

I think that you will want to create a plugin that can read some well-defined file format and perhaps make some tools to parse the ebook and create this file (like the wn2rdf and rdf2binary tools do for the Dictionary plugin).  If the eBook's content does not bear a license that is compatible with the GPL then it can't be included (i.e. packaged with Rockbox), so it seems that you should keep the content separate from the plugin, itself.

(Please do note that I am not really a programmer.  These are just some ideas that I think may be helpful to consider.)

[Apple-Z]

Selecting a "file format" is a good point...  I know I can parse and then export the verb conjugations into plain text because I've tested it on a couple of pages.  Then I assume I would have to somehow "tag" or otherwise identify each entry (all the tenses available for a specific verb for example) so that it corresponds to the respective verb.  I would prefer to have a little more in the way of choices for the user (me and my students) so that when I scroll through the complete list of verbs to the one I want, I can get a list of choices of which tense I want to see displayed (for example: Past, Present, Future as broad categories, which then has the individual Past tenses, Present Tenses and Future Tenses displayed).  In other words, rather than the "dictionary" approach which is to display the entire content of the data for a particular word, I would be picking only a part of the complete data for tht specific verb I am looking up, and the data itself could be divided into 3 main chunks (Past, Present and Future), and each of these chunks could themselves be subdivided into sub-chunks representing the various available tenses in each main tense heading.  If you look at the .jpgs I made up, you'll get an idea of what a fully featured version would look like, including the option of working backwards and starting by looking up the English verb (if you don't know the French), and then moving on from there to the actual conjugation.

As far as GPL issues, verb conjugations are "in the public domain", so all I'm doing is extracting public information from an electronic file rather than typing it myself.  There is no copyright or anything of that nature associated with verb conjugations.  Given that, I don't know if it's better to handle the data as a separate file or embed it in the plugin.  I assume there are advantages to having it separate and having it embeded (?)

Thanks for the feedback and if you have any more thoughts, please let me know !

Apple-Z

[Chronon]

Yes, I guess that conjugation of verbs follows a more or less predicatable pattern that can't be excluded by copyright.  I just don't want any obstructions due to copyright of a particular presentation of material.