IDic v0.7

François Pessaux (c) sept 2009

 

What is IDic ?

IDic is a basically a dictionary program. It basically provides 3 main features:

Dictionaries are database containing all the words that are assumed to be known. It's possible to change the dictionary as the user wishes. This means that IDic is independent of the language. Just provide it a dictionary database containing the words you assume to be allowed, and IDic will work with it.

Two additional features that are saved in the user's preferences allow you to:

Currently, 7 dictionaries are available (English, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish), with different numbers of words for each. Some of them have been submitted by users of the previous versions of the software. Some have more words than others. Anyway, if you are interested in contributed to new or more extended dictionaries, please feel free to contact me.

What is the status of IDic ?

IDic is freeware. This means that you do not have anything to pay to use it.

This program is provided without any warranties. This means that I won't be responsible in any case of whatever happens if you use it. I also have no obligation to change, fix, upgrade or whatever IDic. This program is gracefully provided to who wants and need it, in any case I remain the author, with the right to do whatever I want with it.

Once it will reach a stable state, sources will be released to provide support and example for people wishing to develop on the machine.

How to use it ?

IDic presents 3 views you can switch between with the bottom tap bar.

The "Search" view allows to interact with searches, "Options" enables to save usage preferences (selected dictionary and case sensitivity of searches), and "Help" ... displays this help.

Words and patterns to process must be entered in the upper text field of the screen.

To submit the request, you can either tap the top-right green button or validate the "Done" touch of the popup keyboard that arises as soon as you are typing a text in the upper text field of the screen.
According to the selected processing mode, thanks to the 3 mutually exclusive bottom buttons "Spell", "Check" and "Cheat",

IDic will process differently your request.

  Finding spelling suggestions for a word

You are given the words belonging to the current dictionary, whose spelling is close from the submitted word. Note that IDic does not verify is the word already exists in the dictionary. This means that even if the word is correctly spelt, suggestions will be provided.

 Searching if a word exists in a dictionary

This is a "yes / no" answer telling if the submitted word belongs to the current dictionary.

  Finding all the words matching a pattern

This feature can be used to cheat in crosswords. Instead of a word, you submit a pattern in the upper text field. A pattern is a "word" that can contain special characters called wildcards. There are 3 kinds of wildcards that are '?', '*' and '+'. Once you entered your pattern, you'll be given all the words in the current dictionary that match this pattern.
The 3 available wildcards are pretty close to those used in regular expression, like in Lex, Sed and other programs.

Meaning of the wildcards in a pattern:

Options

By defaults, saved options are loaded when IDic launches. If you want to change options, go in the "Options" tab in the lower tabbar. When you leave this window, either by going back to the "Search" or "Help" views or by quitting the application, new options are recorded an immediately applied. This means that if you changed the currently used dictionary, then this dictionary will be the active one.

 Case sensitivity

This toggle button allows to perform searches taking or not into account the case sensitivity of words. If search is case sensitive then upper-case and lower-case (for example "A" and "a") letters will be considered as different. If search is case insensitive, then they will be considered as the same letter.

Dictionary

Allows to select the currently used dictionary. Just select it via the spinning wheel. The short name of the language of the dictionary is displayed in the "Search" view as a reminder, on the left of the "Suggestions" label.

Restore saved settings

Restores the setting previously saved in the preferences and that were those in use before you went into this options view.

How to reach me ?

I will stay open to any suggestion, bug report, and so on... (this doesn't mean that I will take anything into account ;)). So if you want to reach me, you can try my email address: francois_pessaux@yahoo.fr.

I hope this little piece of software will be useful and you will enjoy it !... Cheers,

    -- Didou