Lexica: a graphical interface to Unix/Linux dictionary resources

Miguel Filgueiras
 
DCC-FC & LIACC, Universidade do Porto

last changes on 30 March 2001

Lexica is a graphical interface to Unix/Linux dictionary resources. It is implemented in Tcl/Tk (version 8.0 or better) and provides access to:

dict

a client for the Dictionary Server Protocol (DICT), that provides access to dictionary definitions from a set of natural language dictionary databases, by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu).

wn

a command line interface to the WordNet lexical database developed at Princeton University (there is also a Tcl/Tk interface to this database: wb WordNet Browser, by David Slomin).

grep

a standard Unix utility for finding patterns in text files and used here for finding words in word lists.

You may have a look at Lexica's main window.

Features

Lexica (version 3.0) has the following features:

• automatic configuration: the interface will only show the programs and databases that are actually available.
• compound words can be searched using dict or wn by preceding each space by a backslash; for instance:
  New\ York.
• results of a database look up are shown in a separate window; clicking on a word in it will enter the word in the entries of the main window for a subsequent look up, while double-clicking on a word will look it up using the same program and database.
• direct access to all the options provided by dict: choice of database, matching strategy, whether to use spelling correction, whether to find a definition or a match.
• choice of wn search strategy in a (cascaded) menu.
• choice of word list for use with grep; users may add and remove their word lists to the selection menu (see the personal configuration below).
• personal configuration: some parameters (such as keys, window geometry and colours, personal word lists) can be configured by using the dialog initiated by the Options button; they will be saved on an options file (usually ~/.lexica).

Pre-requisites

1. Tcl/Tk version 8.0 or better.
2. at least one of dict, wn, or grep and access to suitable databases (see the dict/dictd and wordnet manual pages; grep may be used on word lists such as wgerman or wfrench).

Installation and Configuration

1. get the lexica package (this is a gziped-tar file).
2. unpack to get lexica (the Tcl/Tk program), a README file and lexica-doc.ps (this text in Postscript).
3. edit the lexica file to
   1. set the correct path to the user options file.
   2. set the initial positions for the main window, sub-windows (note that these will be cascaded), and message windows.
   3. set the size of lists when showing files in a directory.
   4. decide on the use of the DELETE key to delete the previous character and of compose character bindings for entries.
   5. set the interface colours.
   6. set the correct paths of the dict, grep and wn programs, and of the directory where files to be used by grep are located.
   7. add paths to directories of files to be used by grep to the list GREPDIRS, the names of the files to the list GREPDICTS and also their extended names (to appear in menus) to the GREPDSDESCR array; there is no need for removing anything here: non-accessible files will be disregarded.
   8. change the set of wn strategies and their menu names; this will only be needed if the wn version you have is not 1.6, in which case you should also change the help message WNHELP.
4. move the lexica file to /usr/local/bin or some other suitable place.