A wiki can be used to create a community dictionary, and accessed by a desktop application
A wiki can be great tool to create a community dictionary accessible to all. However, a dictionary platform is little different from a regular wiki:
- There are lot of terms, like 100,000 vs 500-1000 wiki pages in a regular wiki.
- Each term is very small, just few lines of text
- Almost no markup needed, since the structure of a term is very simple
- You want to dictionary to be inside your application, and not on the web.
How a dictionary desktop application should work
You would like to select a word in a browser, then click a shortcut key or select a menu, and open a dictionary definition for that word. You don't want to copy the word, go to the http://dictwiki, paste the word in the search field, and click enter - too much work. This is actually a very simple DesktopWiki, which is much simpler to create.
Wiki dictionary application can be browse-only. We can have an edit link to open an edit window in a browser. This could be enough for the first release or even for the future, because most people that use a dictionary does not edit it.
A wiki dictionary desktop application could be very simple. Something that works like this description could be very easy to create.
Similar client software (add more):
OmniDictionary - dict.org client for Mac OS X. http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidictionary/
What is missing, is a protocol to communicate with the wiki. This can use xml rpc
A wikidict proxy
Another option, is a dict server that can serve existing dict clients, and return results from a wiki instead of a dict database.
See dict protocol - ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2229.txt
How the wiki should work
Huge amount of pages
We need an efficient way to keep and search huge amount of pages:
- keeping an index of all pages in memory or on disk.
- Page might be save under A B C... letter directories, as 100,000 directory entries is little too much for file systems. So the concept of one wiki namespaces == file system namespace might not work.
Term structure
We need an easy way to add terms without formating errors. A template page with standard markup could be enough, or maybe a form.
- Term - page name
- Type of word
- List of definitions
- Links to similar terms
Here is an example from http://dict.org (I looked for wiki, but could not find it):
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913):
Dictionary \Dic"tion*a*ry\, n.; pl. Dictionaries. [Cf. F.
dictionnaire. See Diction.]
1. A book containing the words of a language, arranged
alphabetically, with explanations of their meanings; a
lexicon; a vocabulary; a wordbook.
I applied myself to the perusal of our writers; and
noting whatever might be of use to ascertain or
illustrate any word or phrase, accumulated in time
the materials of a dictionary. --Johnson.
2. Hence, a book containing the words belonging to any system
or province of knowledge, arranged alphabetically; as, a
dictionary of medicine or of botany; a biographical
dictionary.
-----------------
From WordNet (r) 2.0:
dictionary
n : a reference book containing an alphabetical list of words
with information about them [syn: lexicon]
-----------------
From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993):
DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth
of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary,
however, is a most useful work.
Multi language dictionary
Each term can have translations in many languages, probably showing only two at a time:
- The user language
- Other language
Discussion
I don't know if this pages makes sense in the MoinMoin wiki. There already is a Wiki dictionary. They already use a WikiEngine that is optimised for a large amount of pages/data/traffic -- the MediaWiki Engine. The idea of a desktop application is very interesting but would perhaps better be placed either in the Wiktionary or the Wikipedia Metawiki. -- FlorianFesti 2004-09-26 08:56:39