On which systems does Magic-Dic run?
It is designed for Linux but since version 0.93 many adpaptions have been made to run it
on other than Linux systems. Test have been made so far on HP-UX and SUN. It was even
reported to run in CYGWIN without the emailing functions, but there is a work around
to send in new words: The email message can be created as file and send with a different email
program if „mailto“ or „mail“ or „sendmail“ does not work in CYGWIN.
But it does not run on my system. What can I do?
Generally Magic-Dic uses exptra features of GNU programs, e.g. gawk, date, agrep, wget. If similar tools
from your system does not work with the options that are called in the code of Magic-Dic, you can install
these GNU tools in /usr/local/lib/magic-dic/bin and it should run fine. Read README for details or the documentary.
Which character set does Magic-Dic support?
Until version 0.96 dictionaries have only been in iso-8859-1. Above that version utf-8 is supported but needs
some extra requirements. It is a bit tricky on heterogene system to use utf-8. The database is now available in iso-8859-1 and utf-8
and both can be used. See README or documentary for details.
Why don't I get any Russian or Chinese or any other non latin1 languages?
Yet the database was created for latin1 languages fist because of the display limitations of console with iso-8859-1, but now with the
ability to use utf-8 character set all other non latin1 languages can be displayed. I am looking for help to get Slavic, Arabian and Asian language dictionaries
too to expand the utf-8 database. Users being interesed in non latin1 languages may check out the utf-8 database with 'di -u8 -q' and should generally try to set
up a utf-8 system or try to read through the work arounds in heterogenic systems, e.g. using iso-8859-4 with uft-8 in the documentary. If no dictionary is available yet
for your language, please try to find a free one and convert it with 'di -convert [...]' options for your needs and send it to me too please. :-)
Why appears e.g. Russian in the languages list, when there is no dictionary availabe yet?
One has to distinguish between listing of the language names '-L' and the listing of the available dictionaries '-l' (for locally installed) '-q' (the list of the
magic-dic server). The listing of language may contain languages for which are no dictionaries available yet, but in order users to send in new dictionaries
the language name has to exist in the magic-dic first. So I try to add successively all languages that theoretically for all languages dictionaries can be created.
Since 18.05.2002 the online services in Magic-Dic don't work any more. Why?
There was unfortunately a change of the web-server IP address. Now Magic-Dic has an own domain name:
'magic-dic.homeunix.net' that should be the replacement now. Please install a actual version and call 'di -www' to make the update
also in your configuration file.
I made an update to take advantage of the change of the IP/DNS but the online services are still not reachable. Why?
Probably you forgot to call 'di -www' to force the IP/DNS change become valid in your magic-dic.conf file. In normal
reconfiguration mode of the configuration file such as called with 'di -C' or invoced automatically after an update, will not
touch the web-settings. If you call with -www your personal settings are replaced by the new defaults.
Does Magic-Dic send emails from my computer without letting me know?
1.) Before ever emailing, the skript does ask you, if you wish it.
2.) You can set, if "sendmail" is configured or not. Set it to "no" and no
email will be send from your computer. Instead a file is created with the
contence of the new or deleted words. You can send this file then from
where ever you want by hand with every email program you like.
3.) The entire skrip just uses standard programs on a unix/linux. For
emailing the skrip uses the program "mail" (alternatively directly
"sendmail" if you wish to have a different return address) and it is up to
the administrator's business to take care about proper and secure
configuration.
4.) The skript only offers an email part, after you created new word
entries or deleted entries. You can also communicate with a user who
created word entries via sending him an email. These are the only
situations, where the skript offers and asks sending an email, that can be
set per default (sendmail no) as been created as simple file only.
5.) Because it is requied to have an email address in the posting of a new
word entry to finally make it possible to let Magic-Dic users communicate
with each other about their translations, you can
a.) set an email address you want for that
b.) set mail privacy. This means that your email address will not
be shown up in the official dictionaries. Users who want to
email you, will have to communicate via the Magic-Dic word
centre email forward service. So your email address is then
known only in the Magic-Dic word centre.
What is the difference of a monolithic and a modular version and what is the sense of that?
The script coded has reached almost 10000 lines and hence it takes a certain time for the shell to go through it.
The increase of search time is a disadvantange that can be compensated by using a modular way with sourcing the
script with the desired parts it needs. For excample documentation is not needed always and only needs to beloaded
by request. It becomes signifficant faster that way. Although the advantage of a monolithic script, that can be easily
copied with full functionality, will be continued with. In point of program code both are identical and just differ in speed.
Both version can run simultaneously as long as they have the same version number.
What are and what is the sense of „user“ and „global“ dictionaries? (A question mainly from people only familiar with Windows)
To decide between "global" and "user" dictionaries is a philosophy that
comes from UNIX, because all programs in UNIX architecture have a system
wide installtion and when a users starts it, it will be adapted to his
personal configuration. I follow this idea and offer a set of "global"
installed dictionaries that are shared by all users. The "user"
dictionaries are a personal a sublementation to the standard database and
are loaded per default every time too. Users can insert simply words and
save them in the "user" dictionary file, because they do not have write
permissions for the "global" dictionaries". The "user" dictionaries can be
shared among users via magic-dic service, by emailing the entries of the
"user" dictionary to the service, where they are merged together and the
"user" dictionary can be uptdated with. That allows many people to work on differnt
word lists in any combination. The use dictionary are then an addition to the
standard base. To destinguish between "user" and
"global" dictionaries has a second reason: The sources of the "global"
dictionaries are almost secure in correctness, while the "user" added
section can contain errors. To merge everything simply together would
impure the original source. It is planned to add these new translations
after a proving time later to that source. In the use of the program it is
possible to disable loading the "user" dictionaries with the '-NU' option
and have a higher security in the translations correctness.