Pingguo Dictionary 1.0.0.3 (Pinyin Edition) Pingguo Dictionary 1.0.0.3 (Zhuyin Edition)
Requirements
- Mac OS X 10.5+
Version History
1.0.0.3 – August 7, 2011
- Fixed crashing under OS X 10.7 (Lion).
- Based on the 2011-08-07 20:56:03 GMT release of CC-CEDICT.
1.0.0.2 – May 3, 2009
- No functional changes.
- Based on the 2010-05-02 21:59:33 GMT release of CC-CEDICT.
1.0.0.1 – June 3, 2009
- No functional changes.
- Based on the 2009-06-03 05:51:07 GMT release of CC-CEDICT.
1.0 – November 10, 2008
- Split into two dictionary files — one for Pinyin and the other for Zhuyin.
- Gives pronunciation in contextual menu dictionary panel.
- Using different fonts for traditional and simplified characters.
- Based on the 2008-11-08 21:00:48 GMT release of CC-CEDICT.
0.6 – July 7, 2008
- Added support for Zhuyin fuhao (bopomofo). The display of the phonetic system can be configured in the dictionary application’s Preferences.
- Based on the 2008-05-25 11:49:13 GMT release of CC-CEDICT.
0.5 – June 18, 2008
- First public release.
- Includes searches based on Chinese characters (traditional and simplified), pinyin (with or within tone marks) and English.
- Based on the 2008-05-25 11:49:13 GMT release of CC-CEDICT.
Copyright © 2008-2011 Alexander Chow. Dictionary contents are distributed as CC-CEDICT by MDBG under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license.
Tags: Chinese language, OS X
Pingback from alex and betty · In Pursuit of Chinese on 18 June 2008 at 2:12 pm
There are a number of Dictionary plugins for Chinese out there, and up to now this one is by far the best! Thanks a lot! That said, I have a few suggestions, though:
You should use different fonts for traditional and simplified characters in your CSS. The Taiwanese Song counterparts are usually called Ming (e.g., MingLiU). Additionally, you could tag the variants in your xml markup with “zh-TW” and “zh-CN” respectively. (You can see the differences in 草, 請, 道, 骨 and many more. If no font is specified, OS X will pick one depending to the system prefs.)
The big advantage with this plugin is that you can look up words given in phonetic transcription. However, I can only search single syllables without accents, like “pin yin”, not “pinyin” or “pīn yīn”.
It would also be quite useful to have the pinyin and/or zhuyin spelling displayed in the gray top bar of the dictionary popup, like in Apple’s original plugin for the Oxford Dict.
Does this tool need to be rebuilt when a new version of CC-CEDICT is released? The 0.5 version uses the 052508 of CC-CEDICT, which version does the 0.6 release use? Thanks.
–jc
@ Georg
I’ve been a little behind on updating this, but will try to get another release out next two weeks to integrate a lot of these tips. Also, as far as the pinyin searching is concerned, you can type “pin1 yin1″. Thanks.
@ Jimen
It currently uses the same version. I will update it with the next release. Cheers!
Thanks a lot for the update, Alex! This makes a great tool even better, especially for those who want to learn both simplified and traditional Hanzi.
Yes, much thanks for the update.
Just wondering, is it possible to create a jyutping version to go along with pinyin/zhuyin?
very nice alex! I’m just sad that it’s a pingguo and not a pc. =)
I’ve started my first few months of real chinese classes now, and have also been on the hunt for some good learning tools. Somehow, it’d be nice to have the data absorption capacity of a 5 year old and just pick up language w/o really trying.
I love this program. However, I do have a small problem with the Pinyin 1.0 release (running on a German MacBook with an up-to-date OS X 10.5.5): The hanzi display fine, but roman characters with tone marks are only shown in the search field of the Dictionary GUI, not in the results field. Roman characters without tone marks are displayed in the results field, but accented roman characters just show as blank spaces. Is there any way to fix this?
Hey Peter! After installation, try playing around with the CSS file included in the bundle. I use SIL’s Andika Basic for the “a” and “.syntax” selectors. Not a beauty, but it has all the diacritical marks you need and it’s legible at small font sizes.
Hi Alex,
first off, I applaud your idea about Pingguo Dictionary, it’s a great little addition to my Macbook Pro, esp. considering that Sinology is my major.However, I would like to point out that the dictionary still lacks certain individual characters’ definitions as well as countless 2-character words and 4-character idioms (成語).
Are the definitions getting an update in the near future?
Thanks and keep up the good work!
Hello Matic,
Thanks for your comments. FYI, the dictionary contents are not mine — I use the CC-CEDICT by MDBG. They welcome additional words and phrases to their database which you can easily submit online.
MDBG updates their database every few weeks. I need to update the software to use the latest dictionary files but have planned to do that every six months or so — so I am due to update soon too! However, my PhD and other matters have distracted me a bit. In any case, I will try to get another update out within the next couple of weeks.
Cheers!
Hi Alex!
Sounds good. Please do let me know once the update is out!
Have a good day,
MaticAs promised, I just released another update.. 1.0.0.1 including the latest CC-CEDICT from earlier today.
I’m a bit late on replying, but thanks again Alex! Much appreciated.
Thanks, Alex. We don’t really expect you to be updating this wonderful addition to Apple’s Dictionary so often. Is there any way we can manually update the CEDICT database ourselves?
@steven I plan to release an edition at least twice a year (to keep up-to-date with CEDICT). but in the future, when i have time to refine it, I plan on releasing my generation code into the open source.
Brilliant!
Hi alex,
when do you plan on updating the CEDICT database again?Thanks!
Hi All,
Sorry for the delay, but I just updated the dictionary files – version 1.0.0.2 released!
Hi Alex!
The current version 1.0.0.2 appears to cause crashes under Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion”. Has anyone else experienced this bug? I had to deactivate Pingguo for now. Hoping for an update in the near future.Hi Georg,
Thanks for noticing. I haven’t had a chance to download Lion… until this very minute! I hope to have a fix (with an updated database) in the next week or so.
Alex
Hey Alex,
I have the same problem as Georg. For now I will just disabled the dictionary.
Hi guys,
Just letting you know that I have just released a new version (1.0.0.3), compatible with Lion. Sorry for the delay… turns out Apple changed a little bit of their API.
Let me know if there are any more problems.Alex
download link seems to be broken – any mirrors available?
It’s been fixed! Thanks for pointing it out to me.
Sincere thanks and appreciations and the blessings you bring to the world with this.
Hey Alex, thanks for the update!
My only question would be, how come the Chinese font has changed to the very basic one when before it was the 标楷体 (or one of those nicer looking ones)?
你好, Alex!
I was wondering how do you manage to make a CEDICT dictionary file that works with the Apple’s Dict app?
I would really like to keep my version of CEDICT up to date and was wondering if you could share your method of converting the CEDICT data into a file compatible with the Dict app?
Thanks!
Hi Matt,
Yah, I try to update the database around once a year. Alternatively, you can update the files yourself if you have some programming knowledge.
The SDK to produce Apple dictionary files is distributed with Xcode. I basically wrote a Java application to convert the CC-CEDICT file to the proper format for the SDK. The code can be found on github.
Alex
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