========================================= CEL (Chinese-English Lookup) Version 2.0 ========================================= Documentation Notes -- 20 January 1999 CONTENTS: What is CEL? CEL's dictionary Operating system requirements Big-5 and GB encoded Chinese text File list Installing CEL Uninstalling CEL New Features in Version 2.0 Hints on efficient use of CEL Additional information about CEL Web site for downloading CEL CEL copyright notice and terms of use CEDICT licence and copyright notice What is CEL? ^^^^^^^^^^^^ CEL is a Chinese-English dictionary search utility that is designed to help Chinese language learners to read Chinese electronic texts in other applications such as Web browsers and word processors. CEL detects text newly copied to the Windows Clipboard, and searches a Chinese-English dictionary for entries containing that text. Matching dictionary entries are displayed in CEL's window. You can highlight text in your Web browser or word processor, then copy it, and CEL will find the text on the Clipboard, search the dictionary and display the results. CEL's dictionary ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ CEL searches CEDICT, a public-domain electronic Chinese-English dictionary. The CEDICT Web site is at http://www.mindspring.com/~paul_denisowski/cedict.html CEDICT is growing as people contribute new dictionary entries. One of the purposes of creating CEL was to make it easier to identify words that are not in CEDICT, in the hope that some CEL users would contribute to the dictionary's growth themselves. The file CEDICT.DOC, which comes with CEL, provides guidelines for contributing new entries or corrections of existing entries to the CEDICT project. The CEDICT licence and copyright notice is reproduced at the end of this documentation file. Operating system requirements ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ CEL works best in Chinese Windows, but you can also use it in English- language Windows, provided you use a program that allows you to view Chinese text (such as Twinbridge, RichWin, WinMASS, UnionWay, DynaLab Asia Surf, or NJWin). Some of the latter are available as free demo programs. Some work better than others, particularly in regard to readability of characters and how they handle text selection (highlighting). Choosing a fixed-width font (like Courier New) of the right point-size can help to make text-selection work better. Font readability and text selection should not be a problem if you are using a Chinese-language version of Windows. CEL is a 16-bit program, and can therefore run under Windows 3.x as well as Win95/98. Big-5 and GB encoded Chinese text ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ CEL was originally designed to work with Big5 text only. However, it seems to work fine with GB text too, provided you use a GB version of the dictionary (CEDICT). I have not gotten around to checking the program logic to verify that it *always* works with GB text, but in practice it seems that it does. Note that the GB version of the dictionary needs to be renamed CEDICT.B5, as that is the only dictionary filename CEL will accept. If you work with both GB and Big5 text, you need to install CEL in two parallel directories (say C:\CELB5 and C:\CELGB). The files in each would be the same, except that in the CELGB directory the dictionary file CEDICT.B5 would be a GB version of CEDICT (in spite of its "B5" filename extension). Improvement in the handling of different encodings is on my list for future versions of CEL, so that this workaround won't be necessary. File list ^^^^^^^^^ Files needed to run CEL: CEL.EXE CEL executable file VBRUN300.DLL Visual Basic runtime file CMDIALOG.VBX Visual Basic extension file CEDICT.B5 Chinese-English dictionary, Big5 version (or use a GB-encoded version of CEDICT renamed CEDICT.B5) Other files: CEL2DOC.TXT This documentation file (for CEl 2.0) CEDICT.DOC The ReadMe file for CEDICT CEL.INI The options settings file for CEL (generated by CEL, not distributed) STUDY.TXT Dictionary entries saved by the user (generated by CEL, not distributed) Installing CEL ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Create a new directory such as C:\CEL2 and put the download files CEL2.ZIP and CEDICTB5.ZIP in it, then unzip them. (If you need a utility for unzipping you can download an evaluation version of WinZip from http://www.winzip.com). Then, if you don't already have VBRUN300.DLL in the System sub-directory of your Windows directory, put VBRUN300.ZIP there and unzip it. Check that you have CEL.EXE, CMDIALOG.VBX and CEDICT.B5 in the directory you created, and that VBRUN300.DLL is in the System sub-directory of your Windows directory. Start CEL by double-clicking its icon in Windows Explorer or My Computer (or create a shortcut). To find out how to add CEL to your Start menu in Win95 or 98, click Start, Help and look up "Start menu" in the index, sub- heading "adding programs to". When you first start CEL, you may be disconcerted to read a message like "No matching entries in CEDICT for ... ", but it's nothing to worry about. It is just CEL telling you that the text currently on the Clipboard can not be found in the Chinese-English dictionary -- which is only to be expected for an arbitrary piece of text. Uninstalling CEL ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Delete the directory C:\CEL. If you are sure no other executable files on your computer depend on VBRUN300.DLL, then it may be deleted too. If you are not sure, it's probably best to leave it there. New Features in Version 2.0 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The most obvious change is the addition of a menu bar, through which most of new functionality can be accessed. The menu items are documented here. - Actions, Lookup This triggers a search of CEDICT for any text you have selected in the CEL window, if any; otherwise it triggers a search for whatever text is on the clipboard. Use Lookup * for looking up text that is displayed in CEL's window (select it first); * when Auto-Lookup (see "Options, Auto-Lookup" below) is disabled (un-checked). - Actions, Save line for study When you click on a line of the search results in CEL's window, then click "Options, Save line for study", CEL appends the selected line to a file named STUDY.TXT which is in the same directory as CEL.EXE. This is intended as a way of saving dictionary entries for later reference or study. The "study" file may be viewed or edited with a text editor. If a dictionary entry is displayed over several lines the whole entry is saved to the file, not just the line you click on. - Options, Font This allows you to specify the font used to display search results. - Options, Auto-Lookup This item may be checked or un-checked. Clicking it toggles its status. (It is said to be "checked" if there is a tick alongside it in the menu and un-checked if there is no tick.) When checked, this option makes CEL constantly monitor the clipboard, and conduct a search if new text has been copied to the clipboard. Auto-Lookup should be un-checked (disabled) if you want to copy text in another application without triggering CEL's search function, but do not wish to shut down CEL. Searches can still be triggered manually using the Lookup item in the Actions menu. Auto-lookup was a feature of CEL Version 1. In Version 2 it is an option. - Options, Window, Always on top This item may be checked or un-checked. Clicking it toggles its status. When checked, CEL's window "floats above" all other windows, so that as you select-and-copy in another application you can still see CEL's window in front of your application, and you don't need to Alt-Tab to CEL to see search results. Note that it is possible to minimize CEL's window even when it is "always on top". When the "Always on top" menu item is not checked, CEL's window behaves as a normal window that can be obscured by other windows. - Options, Window, Read-only This item may be checked or un-checked. Clicking it toggles its status. When checked, the text that appears in CEL's window can not be edited, though it is possible to select and copy text. When it is un-checked the text in CEL's window becomes editable. - Options, Romanisation There are five options, one of which may be checked. The option that is checked determines what type of Romanisation is used to indicate the pronunciation of Chinese words in dictionary entries. There are two types of Romanisation that can be used in this version of CEL: Pinyin and Gwoyeu Romatzyh ("GR"). You can choose to have either, or both, or neither of these displayed in dictionary entries. If you choose to have both, you can have Pinyin first, then GR, or you can have it the other way around. Pinyin is displayed within square brackets [...] while GR is displayed between angle brackets <...>. The Romanisation used by CEDICT itself is Pinyin, so the GR-display feature depends on a conversion program within CEL. In a small number of cases, the conversion fails and in such cases the original Pinyin used in CEDICT is displayed, instead of GR, followed by --??. Gwoyeu Romatzyh ("GR") is less widely known and used than Pinyin, but is considered by some to be a superior system of Romanisation, at least for certain purposes. Two pages on the Web that discuss GR are David P. Branner's "A Guide to Gwoyeu Romatzyh Tonal Spelling of Chinese", which is at http://weber.u.washington.edu/~yuenren/Romatzyh.html while the URL of my own page on GR is http://inside.com.tw/user/richwarm/gr.htm - Help, Documentation Displays this documentation file (CEL2DOC.TXT) which should be in the same directory as CEL.EXE. - Help, Terms of Use Displays the name, version number, copyright notice, and terms of use of the program. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - That completes the description of the new functions and options in CEL 2.0 that can be accessed via the menu bar. One other new feature is that the size and position of CEL's window are recorded when you exit from the program, for the next time you use CEL. These settings, along with settings for all the options mentioned above, are recorded in a file named CEL.INI, which is updated by CEL (or generated if it is missing) when you exit the program. Hints on efficient use of CEL ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Entries whose headword exactly matches the search key are displayed first. To use other applications you can minimize the CEL window (otherwise CEL may obscure part of your application's window). If you are using Auto- Lookup, CEL will detect the next time you select-and-copy, and automatically restore its window to normal size. You can select text shown in the CEL display window. To make CEL search for the selected text, click Actions, Lookup (or type Ctrl-L). You can also type text into the window (provided you have not made it read-only using Options, Window, Read-only). You can then select what you typed and click Actions, Lookup (or type Ctrl-L) to initiate a search. You may wish to look up a word that is part of the text of a link in a Web browser, but you can not normally select just one part of text in a hyperlink. One to get around the problem is to select text that contains the entire link text, then copy it. The selected text is unlikely to be found in the dictionary so CEL would display a message like "No matching entries in CEDICT for ...", where "..." is the text you copied. Now, just select the text you want to look up (in CEL's window) and press Ctrl-L to trigger a search. You can use CEL to help with reading transcripts of Voice of America Chinese language broadcasts available at Ocrat Chinese Pages http://www.ocrat.com/voa/ Most words in the transcripts are in CEDICT, because Ocrat has donated his vocabulary lists to the CEDICT project. Additional information about CEL ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This program bears some resemblance to another called KAKITORI by Ken Laux, and I acknowlege that the idea for CEL came from KAKITORI, which was designed for use with Japanese-English dictionaries. Ken Laux also kindly helped me with some specific points of programming CEL in Visual Basic. Versions 1 and 2 of CEL are not particularly efficient in their dictionary search, but while CEDICT remains not too large (still less than 1 megabyte as of December 1998) CEL takes only about one second to search through CEDICT on my (Pentium) computer. I have done some work on an index for CEDICT to make searching much faster, but I don't intend to implement it in the immediate future. Web site for downloading CEL ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The latest releases of CEL are made available at the following Web page: http://inside.com.tw/user/richwarm/cel.htm Links to the most up-to-date version of CEDICT are also on this page. CEL copyright notice and terms of use ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ CEL (Chinese-English Lookup) is Copyright (C) 1998-1999 Richard Gordon Warmington. CEL may be distributed freely but copyright is reserved. CEL has been tested informally but it is not guaranteed to function correctly. The author is not responsible for any consequences of the use of the program. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Having thus disclaimed responsibility, I nevertheless welcome bug reports, comments and suggestions. Send them to richwarm@inside.com.tw CEDICT licence and copyright notice ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Before using CEDICT please read its licence and copyright notice, which is reproduced below: > CEDICT LICENCE STATEMENT > > Copyright (C) 1997, 1998 Paul Andrew Denisowski > > This licence statement and copyright notice applies to the CEDICT > Chinese/English Dictionary file, the associated documentation file > CEDICT.DOC, and any data files which are derived from them. > > COPYING AND DISTRIBUTION > > Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of these > files provided this copyright notice and permission notice is > distributed with all copies. Any distribution of the files must take > place without a financial return, except a charge to cover the cost of > the distribution medium. > > Permission is granted to make and distribute extracts or subsets of > the CEDICT file under the same conditions applying to verbatim copies. > > Permission is granted to translate the English elements of the CEDICT > file into other languages, and to make and distribute copies of those > translations under the same conditions applying to verbatim copies. > > USAGE > > These files may be freely used by individuals, and may be accessed by > software belonging to, or operated by, such individuals. > > The files, extracts from the files, and translations of the files must > not be sold as part of any commercial software package, nor must they > be incorporated in any published dictionary or other printed document > without the specific permission of the copyright holder. > > COPYRIGHT > > Copyright over the documents covered by this statement is held by Paul > Denisowski. > > ---------End of CEDICT Licence Statement------------------------------