[What is tkjmdict?] [System requirements] [Short user guide] [Copying policy and non-warranty] [JMdict license information] [Download tkjmdict] [Development] [JMdict parser] [Search time statistics] [Useful links] [contact author]

tkjmdict 0.94

New in Release 0.94

What is tkjmdict?

tkjmdict is a free program for searching words from Japanese multilingual dictionary, also known as JMdict. JMdict, of course, is compiled and maintained by Jim Breen and The Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group at Monash University, Australia. Currently JMdict has more than 90000 entries translated to English. Some entries are translated also to German, French, and Russian.

You can search dictionary entries with romaji, kana, or kanji keywords. There is also virtual keyboard (Kana Board, type CTRL-J) for entering hirakana and katagana if special input methods are not supported in your computer. Searching with kanji keywords is supported if you can enter them to the input field. Copy/paste from other applications works as well, or you can open a separate file and then select the search keyword(s) with mouse.

System requirements

Hardware
This program reads the whole dictionary into memory and with English dictionary it means about 40Mb. For this reason I wouldn't recommend anybody to try this out with anything less than 64Mb of RAM. Full search with 363MHz Pentium-II takes about three seconds. See also search time statistics.
Software
This program has been implemented by using Tcl/Tk scripting language and you can use it on several platforms: GNU/Linux, UNIX, Mac OS X, Wintel... Consider one of the following:
  1. Wintel users can download a single binary executable that includes Tcl/Tk, tkjmdict, and the dictionary data files. You need then only to install one executable to your computer. Link to this file can be found from the download section.
  2. Install Tcl/Tk to your computer, version 8.2 or newer is recommended. This should work with 8.1 but it has not been verified. You can get Tcl/Tk for free from http://tcl.activestate.com/. After this you need only the tkjmdict script and the pre-processed dictionary files - see the download section below for details.
  3. Instead of installing the entire Tcl/Tk, you can go and get freeWrap and use it to run the tkjmdict script.
Japanese Fonts
You will need some font that include Japanese characters. In Western versions of most of the operating systems such fonts are not installed by default. In GNU/Linux or UNIX this can be solved by installing international font set [link missing!]. In Windows I solved the problem by installing something that is called Global IME, see this page for more information. Surprise: it's free although it comes from Microsoft. The link section may point you to right direction if this information is not enough.

Short user guide

The main window

main.jpeg

  1. The text area where search results are shown.
  2. The input keyword entry field - typing Ctrl-n puts focus to this field.
  3. Search options, use Ctrl-m to toggle the selected mode.
  4. Search button, shortcut key is Ctrl-s.
  5. Number of matches found in the last search.

Kana Board - select 'Insert Kana' from 'Options' menu or press Ctrl-j. You will then get a new window like this one:

kb1.jpeg

When this window is active, the following key bindings are defined:

  • Take mouse over the window click on the character; the same character is inserted into the input field.
  • In order to make the search, press Enter or Ctrl-s.
  • Press the Tabulator key to get the next virtual keyboard. There are six of them altogether: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], and [6].
  • Press any of the number keys from 1 to 6 and you will get the corresponding virtual keyboard to use.
  • In order to close the keyboard window, press the Escape key.

Changing language - see 'Languages' from 'Options' menu.

Saving the search result - choose 'Save As...' from 'File' menu or press Ctrl-Shift-s. Note that you have to select the file encoding, euc-jp or shiftjis are save choices when you have English dictionary in use. With German one, consider utf-8.

Inserting external file to text field - choose 'Insert File' from 'File' menu.

Start tkjmdict with German dictionary loaded - use command line option -lang de, for instance:

tkjmdict -lang de

Quit tkjmdict - type Ctrl-q.

Copying policy and non-warranty

tkjmdict - Tcl/Tk application for JMdict
Copyright (C) 2000-2003 Petteri Kettunen

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA

JMdict license information

The JMdict i.e. Japanese Multilangual dictionary data is copyrighted by:

The Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group
School of Computer Science and Software Engineering
Monash University
CLAYTON VIC 3168
Australia
http://www.dgs.monash.edu.au/edrdg/

The JMdict license allows you to use and modify the data free of charge for non-commercial use. There is also an option for commercial license. For more details, see their general dictionary license statement

Download TkJMdict

Download directory contains:
GNU/Linux packages
  • RPM and SRPM packages.
  • Debian package created from RPM package using `alien' converter.
Sources (you need to have Tcl/Tk installed in order to use these scripts)
  • tkjmdict-X.XX.tar.gz: includes source and pre-processed dictionary files. These should work on any platform which has Tcl/Tk interpreter `wish' installed (Mac OS X, Wintel).
  • tkjmdict-X.XX-src.tar.gz: sources only, no dictionary data.
FreeWrap'ed Wintel executables (Tcl/Tk included)
  • tkjmdict-X.XX.zip: standalone executable.

Development

Ideas/plans:
  • Multilingual GUI.
  • Improve the documentation.
  • Option for client/server mode. This will be done by using HTTP protocol so people can access servers in the internet from private [corporate] networks through proxy servers.
  • Integration with Jim Breen's kanjidic (???).
  • Finnish and Swedish translations [to JMdict, TkJMdict support is ready for them].
  • ROBODoc headers.
  • Option for line translation (LF or CR-LF) selection. Currently the system default is used.

JMdict parser

The parser that generates the data dictionary files (jmdict_*.bin) from JMdict XML file is inclusive in the tkjmdict code. Tcl-XML package from Steve Ball/Zveno is an additional requirement for this feature (see links below OR download ActiveTcl from ActiveState which includes this additional library). Note that Tk is not required for parsing, so you can just type:

tclsh tkjmdict -parse <path to JMdict XML file>

As an side effect, file jmdict.log is produced that contains some simple information on the parsed dictionaries.

Search time statistics

There is a build-in benchmark code that can be executed by pressing key combination Ctrl-T (Control-Shift-t). It makes ten searches and then displays the results. Patience... it may take couple of seconds. Search time is calculated each time. You can view the statistics by pressing Ctrl-t (Control-t).

ProcessorClock Speed (MHz)OS load time of en dictionary (sec) Avg search time (sec) tkjmdict/Tcl version/JMdict version
Pentium 42800Win2k 1.9354290.46114790.94/8.4.1/2003-03 10 June
Pentium Celeron1300GNU/Linux 2.4.18-14 (RH8.0) 4.5501.13930.93/8.3.5/2003.02.04
Pentium-II361Win98 SE 4.10 11.83.30.93/8.3.5/2003.02.04
PPC G4400Darwin 5.5 19.8786.1120.93/8.4a4/2003.02.04
Pentium-II363WinNT 4.0 7.7412.27130.91/8.3.2/2001-xx-xx
PPC G4400Darwin 1.4 13.3353.7380.91/8.4a4/2001-xx-xx

Useful links

Jim Breen's Japanese page - this is very good starting point if you need more information on Japanese software and JMdict.
Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group - Monash University.
The Japanisation FAQ for computers running Western Windows.
Microsoft Global IME - this package provides Japanese fonts for non-Japanese versions of Windows.
freeWrap builds stand-alone Tcl/Tk executables without a compiler.
Tcl/Tk at ActiveState.
Tcl-XML parser.
Wintel application using JMdict by Mike Sampson.
KanjiSharp by Michael Auerswald

$Date: 2003/07/26 03:07:48 $