dbWRITER Dictionary and Thesaurus Desk Accessory 1.0 ---------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1992, David Becker Compuserve 73030,3562 GEnie D.Becker8 * Search the 40,000 word dbWRITER dictionary from within any GEM application. * Access the dbWRITER 30,000 word thesaurus from within any GEM program. * Many different search and seek options including a recursive thesaurus. * Scroll through the dictionary page by page. * Print out text from the dictionary or the thesaurus. * Built-in help screen. * Load and use custom supplemental dictionaries. This accessory is freeware along with its support utilities. You will need about 170K of free memory, a hard drive and a monochrome monitor. Installation ------------ Included with this desk accessory is a utility called METAMRPH.PRG used to convert your existing dbWRITER dictionary file into a form used by the accessory. When run, this DICTIONARY METAMORPHOSIS UTILITY will ask you to find your original copy of the dbWRITER dictionary file named DICTIONA.RY (this ASCII dictionary is freeware and available on GEnie and Compuserve or through your local user group). After reading this file into memory, the utility will create a folder on hard drive partition C: named DICT Next it will copy 24 new dictionary files into this directory. You will need 400K of free disk space. Make sure your hard disk is not write protected (yes, there are programs that write protect hard disks) and that you do not already have a folder named DICT in the root of drive C: Do not interrupt the creation process once it has begun! A bar graph will display the progress. It's only going to take a minute. When all the new dictionary files have been written you can exit the utility and copy the file THESDICT.ACC onto drive C: Reboot your computer to install the desk accessory. The dbWRITER thesaurus files, THES1.DAT, THES2.DAT, THES3.DAT AND THES4.DAT should also be placed within this new folder (the thesaurus is also freeware and available on GEnie and Compuserve). If you also use dbWRITER, don't worry, version 1.8 of this freeware text processor will be able to share the new dictionary and thesaurus so you won't need two copies. Operation --------- The new desk accessory menu is titled "dbWRITER Acc 1.0". Click on it from within the desktop and a window will open right smack in the centre of your screen. The first word in the dictionary is "aardvark" and this will appear within the input box. To search and see if a word is spelled correctly you click the left mouse button within the rectangular box at the bottom left of the window. You can now enter a word into this box and press RETURN. The dbWRITER desk accessory stores only one letter of the alphabet in memory at any given time. If the word you have chosen begins with "a" then it will search resident memory. If it began with another letter the correct chapter of the dictionary will first be loaded from the hard disk and then searched. This is still really fast. You can use the up and down arrow keys to scroll through the dictionary page by page or the right and left arrows to fast forward and fast reverse. If you scroll past the current letter in memory, the next letter's chapter will be loaded quickly from the hard disk. You can also touch any alphabet key on the keyboard to load a letter chapter from the hard drive. If you wish to look up the word visible in the input box (perhaps the word was input for the thesaurus) you can do so by pressing RETURN (not ENTER). Hit ESC to redraw the desk accessory window. Searching --------- The dbWRITER desk accessory first searches for an exact match to the word you have input. If it does not find an exact match then the next search level kicks in and removes the last character from the input word. The search then continues. This scan is visible within the input window. You can see the last letters being greyed out as the computer searches! If the computer scans right down the the first two letters and still hasn't found a match it will next begin to replace the second letter of the input word. You can also watch this being done within the input box. As the computer replaces the second letter with lesser letters it continues to search for the closest possible match within the dictionary. In the worst of all possible search situations you will be dumped at the very beginning of the letter chapter and left to fend for yourself. You can use a wildcard within your input word by replacing the unknown letter with a question mark. Example: d?ssolve The computer will replace the question mark with every letter from a-z until it finds a match. You can watch this happen within the input box. After finding "dissolve" you can continue searching for another match by pressing RETURN. You can't use more than one wildcard and you can't put the wildcard at the beginning of your word. You can search for dictionary entries with the same ending as the input word by using the function keys. Press F1 to search for words ending with the last character, F2 for the last two characters, F3 for the last three characters, F4 for the last four characters, etc. Thesaurus --------- Simply click within the input box using the RIGHT mouse button to search the thesaurus. The search will continue until you press UNDO or until it exhausts itself. You can't use wildcards within the thesaurus. If you wish to look up the word visible in the input box (perhaps the word was input for the dictionary) you can do so by pressing ENTER (not RETURN). Icons ----- There are five icons available at the bottom of the window next to the input box. From left to right they are: * The thesaurus recursion icon. When highlighted, the thesaurus continues its search using every word found as a keyword itself. Press UNDO to cancel the search at any time. As the search widens it sometimes becomes abstract. I have, however, found some meaningful words using this option! * The next is the intelligent search icon. If all else fails, try clicking on this icon. The computer will analyze the input word and try to figure out what word you are searching for. Press UNDO to exit this search at any time. * The next icon sends the thesaurus or dictionary text in the window to your printer. * The help icon follows. Click here to review all the basic functions and commands. * The last icon is the supplemental dictionary icon. You can load and use a custom dictionary file by clicking here. I will be uploading custom dictionaries (legal, medical, pharmaceutical, math, biblical, computer, electronic) for use with this desk accessory. There will also be a utility available to transform ASCII lists into dbWRITER supplemental dictionary format. After you have clicked on this icon, the fileselector will appear. Choose a supplemental dictionary file ending in .DAT and this will be loaded from the hard disk into memory. As long as the icon remains highlighted, the custom dictionary will be in use. Click the icon again to unload the supplemental dictionary and return to the normal dictionary. If later on you need the same supplemental dictionary, click this icon with the RIGHT mouse button and it will automatically load your last choice without displaying the fileselector. Click the LEFT mouse button to load a different supplemental dictionary. Extras ------ If you change the extension from .ACC to .PRG you can run the dbWRITER desk accessory as a program. All the same instructions apply. Don't hesitate to contact me online. I hope you enjoy this accessory! This program is freeware. You use the dbWRITER desk accessory and utilities at your own risk.