The PAdict homepage

PAdict, the "Personal Assistant Dictionary", offers EDICT based lookup for the PalmOS platform without requiring external libraries.

• Four dictionaries to choose from:

  ~ Japanese - English common words (1.4 MB, 19907 Entries)
  ~ Japanese - English full EDICT (4.1 MB, 65536 Entries)
  ~ Japanese - French (1.5 MB, 17592 Entries)
  ~ Empty dictionary for kanji-only information - (0 MB, 1 Entry)

• FAST search by Translation, Kana, Romanji, Handwriting recognition, or Multiradical method.
• Tested and working on PalmOS 3.3 and higher. (Untested on 3.1)
• SD card suppot through MsMount (more information at the Handhelds mini-FAQ)

Upcoming Features:

• Support for multiple dictionaries
• Support for native Japanese PalmOS and CJKOS Fonts

Downloads & Installation:

The SourceForge download page provides current and older releases, but here are some more direct links:

padict-0.3.0-binaries.zip

Required to install:
padict.prc
kanjifnt.pdb
radkfile.pdb
jstroke.pdb
jstroke_h.pdb
jstroke_k.pdb

Optional:
elisa.pdb (small font)
kjdef.pdb (kanji definition database)

One of the following dictionary databases:

padict-0.3.0-database.zip
padict-0.3.0-database_full.zip
padict-0.3.0-database_french.zip
padict-0.3.0-database_empty.zip

Which database to use? Normally, I would advise you to start with the default database ( padict-0.3.0-database.zip). The full database is much bigger, and tends to give you more results than you really want - on the other hand, there are more words in it. If you do not want an English database, your choice is obviously more limited.

At the moment it's impossible to install more than one database for PAdict.

Walkthrough:

Once you have installed everything correctly, running PAdict will start up in "browse mode", and you can browse through every entry in your dictionary, with romanji, definitions, kana only and kanji/kani display. Of course, it is not likely you want to browse the whole dictionary.

Tapping the buttons below takes you to the many search options.

Optional: If the word that's displayed contains any kanji and you installed the kanji definition database, you can tap on the kanji to get more information about that specific kanji (ON/kun readings, character and dictionary codes, meaning of the kanji). This option is available in the search screens through the "kanji"-button, too.

Optional: The "multiple result browser". It uses a much smaller japanese font, but you can see four results at once. You can disable it completly in the Preferences, but you can always switch between the two browse modes by tapping the small "M" or "S" button. You can also switch from multiple to single by tapping one of the results.

Search by Meaning

Enter your words via graffiti or on-screen keyboard. Searching with less frequently used words first (like "sleep to" in the example) does really speed up your search.

All the other search methods - Hiragana, Katakana, Romanji, PocketKanji , and Multiradical have a similar set of options. The first row of buttons - HKRKM - lets you to switch between the various search modes.

Second is a drop-down list. The default selection, "kana", which searches for exact matches in the kana reading. Also available is kana* mode, which searches for any entries starting with those characters in the kana* reading, (equivelent to the old fuzzy search), and Kanji, which searches for entries starting with those characters in the Kanji reading.

"Search" does what one would expect it to do - start a search.

"Clear" removes all characters from the search string.

"Del" removes one character before the highlight.

"Kanji", if a kanji is currently highlighted, leads you to a definition page that includes meaning, various pronunciations, and other information. This feature is only available if you installed the optional kanji definition database (kjdef.pdb).

"Cancel" returns you to your last list.

Hiragana Input

Tapping once on a kana character will add it to a search list. Tapping on a character in the search list will make it cycle through accented and small characters - try it! You can also insert characters you forgot by moving the highlight (click where you want it to be). The highlight mostly works as a normal text cursor.

Tapping on the characters in the search list, as in previous versions, cycles through their accented versions. An alternative is to enable "kana corner tap" or "kana double tap" in /menu/setup/preferences.

Kana corner tap takes a tap ont the upper right corner of a kana in the table to add it's soft counterpart . Those like (pa,pi,pu,pe,po) can be added by tapping the lower right corner.

Kana double tap, only working on PalmOS >= 4.0, does just the same - tap a kana twice and get ba, triple to get pa.

Katakana Input

Strikingly similar to Hiragana Input.

Romanji Input

Use graffiti or the on-screen keyboard. One can choose between hiragana and katakana interpretation.

Note: Switching to this method after entering characters in another mode will give the romanji of whatever had been previously entered. Kanji are represented by their EUC number.

PocketKanji

...Is a great way to test your handwriting, including stroke order, if nothing else.

Just draw the character you want to add and tap "Kanji"/"Hiragana"/"Katakana". Up to eight characters will appear; hopefully, one of them is the one you wanted. Tap it to add it to the search string.

Multiradical Lookup

New to 0.3.0, the radical lookup method will search for a kanji by with to four radicals.

1. Select up to 4 radicals by tapping on them. Radicals are sorted by their stroke count; use the dropdown in the upper left corner to display the other radicals.

After being tapped, they appear in the small boxes on the lower right corner. Tapping on a radical in the box removes it.

2. If you know the stroke count of your kanji, enter it in the "stroke count" area. You can simply enter one value or a range if you are unsure.

3. Tap "lookup" - the matching kanji are displayed. If your kanji is there, tap it to add it to the search string. If you did not find your kanji, you can reset the whole form, or just add more radicals. The last results are always available through the "R" option in the radical selection dropdown. You can also change your stroke count and lookup again.

Other Options to Explore

Most of the things listed here can be found in the main screen menus. Some are currently in development.

• The Trainer - drill on dictionary entries
• The Hotlist - save your searches
• Preferences
• In-program Help
• SD card support via MsMount

Support:

The SourceForge Forums, or

Contact the project Admin largegreenwood@users.sourceforge.net

Developers Resources

Developer binaries

It's strongly advised that you do NOT use these binaries or databases on your PDA. They are often very unstable and may use debugging functions that will *crash* your PDA. The main database files from the sourceforge.net archives will be usable with these releases until specialized database files appear here. Also, remember that the databases available here can be *only* used with the developer binary below, not the regular version of PAdict!

New: Nightly archives & zip packages!
instead of downloading the files below one by one, you can grab the whole nightly with all databases (that are newer than the release databases) as a zip file. Those files are also stored in the archive.

most recent version: padict_nightly_20061209_760S.zip [2006-12-10 00:14]

Single files:
PAdict binary: padict.prc [unstable] [2005-01-29 23:03]

Databases:
use the database files from the 0.3.0 release, they are valid for this build!

Additional/changed databases:

There are many ways to contribute. You could help in making the core program better (faster, nicer, smaller...), help writing better documentation, or adding strokes for more kanji to the kanji database...

If you are interested in the actual, unstable development code of PAdict or the database generator code, both are in the CVS on SourceForge. The database generator is mostly quick&dirty C++, but seems to compile with Cygnus gcc under windows and GNU/gcc under Linux. I have only tested it on x86 machines, but the different data alignment on other systems may create corrupt output.

Developer resources

The Mailing List

The TODO list

I have made up some database descriptions. Those are only interesting for developers. I'm not quite sure that's it's possible to understand them, but give it a try ;)

developers_notes.txt - some global database formats and descriptions

structures_tree.png - how the index trees for kana and kanji are build and stored

Tech Stuff & Thanks:

I'd like to mention the great edict project and Jim Breen, which database we use. Thanks a lot!

Also I'd like to thank Ciaran Keating from Australia, who did much of the database search logic work here.

The hand writing recognition is based on PocketKanji by Ivan Kanis ( http://www.kanis.cc/pocketkanji_en.html), which is based on jstroke by Robert Wells ( http://www.wellscs.com/pilot/)

Credits also go to Stephan Matthiesen for revising the kanji recognetion and made the database for kana recognition.

Additional font and high resolution device support has been done by Benoit Cerrina.

The website for version 0.3.0 was developed by Sudrien, who claims no Megane were drawn during the making of this site.

PAdict is maintained (and improved on) by Lars Grunewaldt.