FAQ section
Questions that you may have on DictionaryForMIDs and answers on these questions.
If your question is not answered here, please register in
our
DictionaryForMIDs forum and post your question there.
General questions
| 1-1 | Can I run DictionaryForMIDs also on a PC? |
| 1-2 | Publishing DictionaryForMIDs on an other internet site. |
| 1-3 | Is there a forum for discussions about DictionaryForMIDs? |
Installation/runtime problems
Development/features
General questions
Can I run DictionaryForMIDs also on a PC?
Yes, this is possible, see
here.
I would like to upload DictionaryForMIDs for language xyz to another internet site. Is this allowed?
Yes of course, you are welcome to do so. If you want to put a link to this web
page, please refer to
http://dictionarymid.sourceforge.net. Please do not publish
our email
addresses there (to avoid spam).
Is there a forum for discussions about DictionaryForMIDs?
Yes, see
here.
Installation/runtime problems
I have an old device that only supports MIDP 1.0, can I run DictionaryForMIDs on that device ?
Yes. While starting with version 3.0 MIDP 2.0 is required, you can use the version 2. For a list of all the files that were released, including the version 2 releases, see list of files that were released and pick a version 2 dictionary.
I installed an old version of DictionaryForMIDs on my very old mobile/PDA. It runs but the search time is long, for some words I wait longer than 10 seconds. What can I do?
Performance has never been a problem on modern mobiles/PDAs. For very old
models, such the old Palm PDAs running with Sun's MIDP SW, the search times
have been too long with versions prior to 2.2.0. This problem is resolved with
DictionaryForMIDs versions starting from 2.2.0 by the setting "Bypass
charset decoding" (see settings).
I installed DictionaryForMIDs on my very old mobile/PDA. It starts, but when I want to translate a word, there is an error message shown that reads something like "OutOfMemoryException". What's wrong?
Oh man, those very old devices ... this error message says that there is not
enough heap memory available for doing the translation. Even though on the
device there may be enough space for the static installation of dictionary
("flash"-memory), there is not enough "RAM"-memory
available to do execute the translation. The only way to try to get around this
problem is to further reduce the size of the search files, index files and the
dictionary files, see section on setting up dictionaries.
I tried to install/start DictionaryForMIDs on mobile. But during the installation (or during startup) of the application there is an error message that indicates that the DictionaryForMIDs is too large to be installed/started. But there is still enough free space on my mobile, so why this message?
On several mobile models the space that is available for Java applications is
limited (for PDAs this should not be a problem). So for example you may have a
model with 20 MB of memory, but with only a maximum of 512 kB of memory for a
JAR application file. See also section cell phones.
If DictionaryForMIDs is set up with a big dictionary, the
resulting JAR-file may be more than 1 MB large.
Depending on your cell phone model, the 'Loadable Dictionaries' may
help.
When you like to
experiment read more about 'Loadable Dictionaries' here.
I can't install more than one dictionary on my cell phone/PDA. When I install the second dictionary, then the first one is replaced. What can I do?
This was a problem with certain cell phones/PDAs that was solved with
JarCreator 2.5.2. Well, unfortunately the the job to maintain the dictionaries
with the latest versions is still vacant ... so for the old versions you will
have to do the following change manually:
- Delete the file DictionaryForMIDs.jad: then you don't have to maintain the data in this file.
-
In the file DictionaryForMIDs.jar edit the file META-INF\MANIFEST.MF, change to
the following line:
MIDlet-Name: DictionaryForMIDs_snd [or whatever name you like]
You can handle the JAR-file with any zip-utility such as WinZip - Re-install the dictionary.
There is a problem/error when I run DictionaryForMIDs on my mobile. What should I do ?
Please do report your problem/error in the DictionaryForMIDs forum !
It is crucial for us developers that we know what problems exist on the devices. For this reason, if you have a problem with the latest version of DictionaryForMIDs, please make an effort and do register in the DictionaryForMIDs forum and post a detailed problem description there. Thanks !!
Development/features
Is it possible to load a dictionary from a file that I copied into one of the folders of my cell phone/PDA?
This is possible. DictionaryForMIDs supports 'Loadable Dictionaries', that is dictionaries can be stored as a normal files on the cell phone / PDA. However, there is still the problem of missing certificate: in order to access dictionary files in the file system, DictionaryForMIDs must get signed with a certificate which costs money. Without the certificate, many cell phone models will ask you for plenty of confirmations to access the dictionary files. You can read more about all this at support for Loadable Dictionaries.
For this reason, currently the support for Loadable Dictionaries
is called 'experimental'. If you still want to try the 'Loadable
Dictionary' feature, then follow the steps for using
the Loadable Dictionaries.
I would like to have a dictionary "languageA to languageB", can you make this for me?
You can do this yourself. See section "Setting up a new dictionary".
If you run into a problem contact us and
we will try to help.
There is an incorrect or missing translation in a dictionary. Can you correct/add it?
The DictionaryForMIDs application itself is only an empty shell that can be set
up (= configurated) with a dictionary. I myself only maintain the
DictionaryForMIDs application, I do not maintain any of the configurated
dictionarys. You need to contact the author of the dictionary if you have a
proposal for improvement. The info-dialog of DictionaryForMIDs shows how to
contact the author of the dictionary.
DictionaryForMIDs is a great application. I just would like to have feature xyz added. Can you implement this also?
If you have any proposal for improvement, send it to
us. When we find time, we
will can try to implement it (ok, finding time is the big problem !!).
DictionaryForMIDs is a great application. I just would like to have feature xyz added. Actually I am familiar with Java and J2ME, so I can do that myself. Is there some documentation about the SW Design ? Where do I find the source code?
An overview over the SW Design is found here.
The source code is found here.
I am a Java developer and I noted that the current version of DictionaryForMIDs is obfuscated. Why?
Because this keeps the JAR-file a little bit smaller and faster to execute.
There are other dictionaries for mobiles. Why did you write DictionaryForMIDs?
Originally I (Gert) did not want to write an own dictionary application for mobiles/PDAs. Instead I searched for an existing application that I could set up with my preferred dictionary, which is Richard Tschumpel's dictionary. However I only found applications that a) were tied to a specific cell phone model or b) were tied to a specific dictionary. So I started writing DictionaryForMIDs.
Meanwhile more people joined the DictionaryForMIDs project for
various tasks - DictionaryForMIDs is a true international open
source project by now.
Why isn't DictionaryForMIDs using the DICT file format and possibly JDictd internally?
Actually the file format of DictionaryForMIDs is close to the DICT file format. But beyond that, the DictionaryForMIDs file format, and all the modules that read the files, are specifically optimized to provide fast translation responses time on J2ME devices. A lot of effort was put into this optimization. Response times with using the plain DICT format on a J2ME device would be slower by the order of magnitudes.
There is the DictdToDictionaryForMIDs conversion tool that does convert the DICT file for use by DictionaryForMIDs. So there is no problem to use DICT dictionaries with DictionaryForMIDs.
Finally, for the Java 'gurus': yes, it is possible to integrate a
component such as JDictd into DictionaryForMIDs (some adaptation to
CDLC may be neccessary). DictionaryForMIDs has a modular design,
where further translation components can be added to the translation
layer, for more information see here.
I have an acronym list, or a list of domain specific terms, or something similar. This is not a language dictionary, but is it still possible to set up such a list with DictionaryForMIDs?
Of course, just set up your dictionary as described under Setting
up a new dictionary for DictionaryForMIDs. Actually there are plenty of
domain specific lists/dictionaries around, such as for engineering, aeronautic,
pharmacy, etc. All of them can be set up for use with DictionaryForMIDs. Also
note that with the Normation feature there
is a powerful way of supporting 'unprecise' queries for terms.
I have a dictionary or list that I want to use with DictionaryForMIDs, but I do not want to release this dictionary with DictionaryForMIDs to the public because it contains company internal data. Is it allowed that I set up this dictionary with DictionaryForMIDs but I do not release the set up dictionary to the public?
Yes this is allowed. In general I would encourage people and organizations to
release their dictionaries for public use under whatever copyright conditions.
However if for example the dictionary contains company internal data, then it
is allowed to use DictionaryForMIDs with this dictionary and not to release it
to the public. There is even some preliminary work for crypting/obfuscating the
dictionary within DictionaryForMIDs.
Can I download the dictionaries from this web site directly from my cell phone via OTA (Over The Air)?
No, OTA/WAP downloads are not yet supported from this site. Maybe there is someone how
volunteers to set up a web site where the dictionaries can be downloaded via
OTA?
Of course, you still can do an html-download with your cell phone, as you would
do with your PC. And if you have an unzip-utility on your mobile you may be
able to directly install the dictionary on your cell phone.
Why are the additional dictionaries for download at http://www.kugihan.de/dict/dicts.htm not downloadable from this site?
All dictionaries from this site are 100% 'open', that means that these
dictionaries are available under the GPL or public domain or similar. The
dictionaries are http://www.kugihan.de/dict/dicts.htm
are all available for free also, but they may not be exactly conforming to
sourceforge's definition of open source. So I did not want to put these
dictionaries here at the sourceforge site.
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