Re: General Purpose Dictionary Generator

Gary,

2006/10/24, Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...>:
> I've written a couple of dictionary generator programs for a few of my earlier
> conlangs, and one for Larry Sulky's Elomi. The problem is every language
> requires something a little different in the way of formatting a dictionary,
> and everyone who wants to create a bilingual dictionary has a different idea of
> how they would like to format their dictionary. What I have in mind to build is
> a dictionary generator that is completely customizable and configurable to
> handle any type of language and any kind of dictionary layout and formatting.
This is a splendid idea! It's something for which many of us will be
very grateful to you. (:

> Before I start writing the code, however, I'd like to hear what people would
> like to have in the way of features and capabilities.
>
> The generator program would be written in JAVA so it will run on any platform
> under Windows, Linux, MAC, etc.
>
> Input comes from a spreadsheet file in CSV (Comma Separated Values) format.
> Output is in the form of formatted HTML pages ready for printing or uploading
> to a web site.
>
> The column headings describe the type of data in each column, and are used in
> the format patterns for formatting the HTML dictionary entries. All column
> headings are optional, and all are invented by the user to suit the needs of
> his specific language. For example, an English-Latin dictionary spreadsheet
> might include a column with the heading "pr-pts" for the principle parts of the
> Latin verb. Such a column would not exist in an English-Japanese dictionary. A
> language like Swahili might have a column to name which noun class a noun
> belongs to.
Would the program support IPA symbols? It would be immensely helpful
to those who need or wish to incorporate information regarding
pronunciation.

The rest of the program sounds like the flexible creature it is
intended to be. Promising. (:

Eugene

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