StarDict

StarDict

StarDict screenshot
Stable release 3.0.4 / January 3, 2013
Written in C++
Operating system Cross-platform
Type Dictionary
License GPL
Website code.google.com/p/stardict-3

StarDict, developed by Hu Zheng (胡正), is a free GUI released under the GPL for accessing StarDict dictionary files (a dictionary shell). It is the successor of the program StarDic, developed by Ma Su'an (馬蘇安). The version number of StarDict follows that of StarDic.

According to StarDict's earlier homepage on Sourceforge, the project has been removed from SourceForge due to copyright infringement reports.[1] There is now a StarDict project on Google Code.

Supported platforms

StarDict runs under Linux, Microsoft Windows, FreeBSD, Maemo and Solaris. Dictionaries of the user's choice are installed separately. Dictionary files can be created by converting DICT files.[2]

Several programs compatible with the StarDict dictionary format are available for different platforms. For the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, applications available in the App Store include GuruDic, TouchDict, weDict, Dictionary Universal, Fora Dictionary and others, as well as the free iStarDict, which is available for the Cydia Store.

Android-based devices may try GoldenDict ColorDict, Wordmate Fora Dictionary or AntTek Dict.

There is also gTongue Dictionary for Windows Phone.

The NewDictS homebrew Nintendo DS program is also available for StarDict.

For the Maemo and MeeGo platforms, there is mDictionary, which among other dictionary formats, supports StarDict.

Dictionaries available

One can find here the partial list of FreeDict dictionaries which can be converted to the StarDict format. These include, in particular, some older versions of Webster's dictionary and many dictionaries for various languages.

Other features

While StarDict is in scan mode, results are displayed in a tooltip, allowing easy dictionary lookup. When combined with Freedict, StarDict will quickly provide rough translations of foreign language websites.

On September 25, 2006, an online version of Stardict began operation. This online version includes access to all the major dictionaries of StarDict, as well as Wikipedia in Chinese.

Previous versions of StarDict were very similar to the PowerWord[3] dictionary program, which is developed by a Chinese company, KingSoft. Since version 2.4.2, however, StarDict has diverged from the design of PowerWord by increasing its search capabilities and adding lexicons in a variety of languages. This was assisted by the collaboration of many developers with the author.

Evgeniy A. Dushistov produced the command line version of StarDict called sdcv.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "StarDict -Sourceforge". Retrieved 18 November 2011.
  2. ↑ The program to do this conversion is installed to /usr/lib/stardict-tools/dictd2dic by the stardict-tools package.
  3. ↑ PowerWord

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to StarDict.