Dictionaries & Language

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Dictionary Manager v1.4 Acropolis Software Dictionary Management Utility (C) Copyright 1991, Acropolis Software Acropolis Software P.O. Box 5037 Fair Oaks, CA 95628 THE LEGAL STUFF Dictionary Manager is provided on an "as is" basis without warranty of any kind expressed or implied. In no event will Acropolis Software be liable to you for any damages, including any lost profits, lost savings or other incidental or con- sequential damages arising out of the use of or inability to use the program, even if Acropolis Software has been advised of the possibility of such damages, or for any claim by any other party. Dictionary Manager v1.4 is a utility program for maintaining the dictionary file included with Acropolis software products which include but are not limited to ShareSpell and Acropolis BBS. Distribution for any other purpose is not allowed. Dictionary Manager is copyrighted by Acropolis Software. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ...................................... 1 File list ...................................... 1 Installation ...................................... 2 Using Dictionary Manager ...................................... 3 Quick Reference ...................................... 5 Use with BBS software ...................................... 6 Page 1 INTRODUCTION Dictionary Manager version 1.4 is a utility program for maintaining the dictionary file included with Acropolis software products which include but are not limited to ShareSpell, and Acropolis BBS version 4.22 or higher. Dictionary Manager allows you to add and delete words from the dictionary used with either ShareSpell or Acropolis BBS. FILE LIST Dictionary Manager comes with the following files: DICMAN.EXE The Dictionary Manager Program. DICMAN.DOC This manual. DICMAN14.NEW New features / bug fix reports. It you give copies of this program away you MUST include all three files in their original form. Distribution with one or more of the files missing or altered in anyway is strictly prohibited. In addition you should distribute it only with another Acropolis Software product that makes use of it. Page 2 INSTALLATION OF DICTIONARY MANAGER Installation of Dictionary Manager is simple to perform. The only special consideration is whether you are using a hard disk based system or a floppy disk based system. With ShareSpell: HARD DISK SYSTEM: Copy DICMAN.EXE to the directory were you have ShareSpell installed. If the ShareSpell is installed properly Dictionary Manager will be able to find the dictionary file for you when it is executed. Proper installation only requires that the dictionary file ACROP.DIC is in either the directory that Dictionary Manager is being executed from or in a directory included in the PATH that MSDOS searches for files. FLOPPY INSTALLATION: Copy DICMAN.EXE to the floppy disk that holds the program you are using and the ACROP.DIC file. If you plan on adding a large number of word to the dictionary I recommend that you place ACROP.DIC on a floppy by itself and add the drive the dictionary is to the path with the use of the MSDOS PATH= command. With Acropolis BBS: Copy DICMAN.EXE to the directory were the BBS.EXE file is kept. There are a few special considerations to account for when using Dictionary Manager with Acropolis BBS. See the section "Use with BBS Software" for more information. Page 3 USING DICTIONARY MANAGER To use Dictionary Manager type DICMAN at the DOS prompt. It will search for the dictionary file and then read in all of the words added by the user. The screen is divided into three sections. On the left of the screen are the words that will be in the dictionary. At first this list will contain the words loaded from the dictionary. It may be empty if no words have yet been added to it. In the middle of the screen is the list of available commands in addition input widows will appear in this area. On the right side of the screen is the holding list. The holding list is useful for temporarily storing lists of words before adding them to the dictionary or completely deleting them. The most basic commands are the arrow keys Page Up/Down and the Spacebar. They allow you to navigate around the word lists and to mark the words to be operated on. The Left and Right arrow keys allow you to select the currently active word list. Pressing the Left arrow moves you to the "Word List" column on the left part of the screen. The Right arrow moves you to the "Holding List" column on the right part of the screen. The currently selected column is indicated by its name at the top of the column flashing. Knowing which list is currently selected is important since the other commands operate on the current list. The Up and Down arrow keys allow you to move up and down in the words displayed in the currently selected word list. Page Up and Down move through the list a screen at a time. The high lighted word in the center of the list is the current word. Pressing the Spacebar will mark the current word. Marked words are indicated by a right pointing triangle to their left. The commands are: [A]dd single word You will be prompted to enter a word in a window in the middle of the screen. The word you enter will be added to the list of words in the currently selected column. The exception is if the word is already present in the list it will not be added. Added words will be maintained in alphabetical order. If you decide not to add a word just press [RETURN] and nothing will be added. [M]ark all words This will mark all of the words in the currently selected list. You will be prompted to confirm the command before the words are marked. [U]nmark all words This will unmark all of the words in the currently selected list. You will be prompted to confirm the command before the words are unmarked. Page 4 [L]oad file of words You will be asked if you want to unmark the words that are marked in the current word list. A no response will leave the words marked. Yes will unmark all of them. This allows you to distinguish the words that were already in the list from the words that are loaded from the file since the newly loaded words will be marked as they are loaded. If the file you specify cannot be found you will be prompted again for a file name. If you decide not to load a list of words just press the [RETURN] key. The format for the list of words is simple. One word after another each on its own line. EXAMPLE: BOY DOG CAT [E]xchange marked words Moves the marked words in the currently selected list to the other list. You will be prompted to confirm the move before it takes place. A good example for this command is: Load a list of words into the Holding list with the [L]oad command. Now scan through the words and use the Spacebar to unmark the words you do not wish to include in the dictionary. Use the [E]xchange command to move the still marked words to the Word list for inclusion in the dictionary. [D]elete marked words Deletes the marked words from the currently selected list. Use this command with caution, once the words are deleted you will have to manually re-enter them. You will be prompted to confirm the deletion before it takes place. Use it when you have some words that you've added to the dictionary and decided that you no longer want there. [W]rite words to file Write the words from the current list to a disk file. You will be prompted for the name of the file to save the list of words to. If you decide not to save the word list just press the [RETURN] key. With this command and the [L]oad file of words command you can easily move your personal words from one version of the dictionary to the next by [W]riting the word list from the old dictionary and then [L]oading the word list into the new dictionary. [Q]uit and abandon changes Quits Dictionary Manager without applying any of the changes you have made to the dictionary. It is a "save out" if you think you have mangled the word list beyond all hopes of putting it into the condition that you wanted it in. Example: You deleted all of the words. You will be prompted to confirm the operation. [S]ave Word List & Quit This is the normal why of exiting Dictionary Manager. All of the user supplied words will be removed from the dictionary and the new list of words in the "Word List" column on the left side of the screen will be place into the dictionary. Only the words from the "Word List" will be place in the dictionary regardless of whether it is the currently selected list or not. Page 5 QUICK REFERENCE Left / Right Arrows The left and right arrows select which word list is the currently selected list. The left arrow moves to "Word List" and the right arrow moves to "Holding List". The current list is indicated by the name at the top of the column flashing. The list that is currently selected affects the operation of the [L]oad, [D]elete, [A]dd, [M]ark, [U]nmark, and [E]xchange commands. Up / Down Arrows The up and down arrows let you move through the current list. [SPACEBAR] mark word The word that is highlighted in the current list is marked or unmarked. The right pointing triangle to the left of the word indicates that it is marked. [A]dd Single Word Allows you to type in a word manually to add to the currently selected list. [L]oad file of words Load a file containing a list of word into the currently selected word list. The file must have a format of one word per line. [W]rite words to file Write the words from the current list to a disk file. [E]xchange marked words Move the marked words from the currently selected list to the other list. If the "Word List" is flashing then the marked words from it will be moved to the holding list. If "Holding List" is flashing then the marked words from it will be moved to the other list. [D]elete marked words Delete the marked words in the currently selected list. *WARNING* once deleted you cannot retrieve the words again without manually entering them or recovering them from a file. [M]ark all words Mark all words in the currently selected list. [U]nmark all words Unmark all words in the currently selected list. [Q]uit and abandon changes Quit Dictionary Manager and abandon any changes make to the dictionary. [S]ave Word List & Quit Save the words in "Word List" back into the dictionary. The old user created words are removed from the dictionary and replaced with the words in that list. Page 6 USE WITH ACROPOLIS BBS SOFTWARE Using Dictionary Manager with Acropolis BBS software adds a small amount of complexity to the problem of maintaining the dictionary. Since the BBS software doesn't allow the direct addition of words to the dictionary all of the new words come from a file stored with the BBS data files. So you will be using it mostly to add the file ADDLIST.TXT from the DFS directory. The recommendation is to create a batch file to start Dictionary Manager and then delete the ADDLIST.TXT file so you do not have the same list of words to add again and again. Create a batch file that looks like the following: COPY DFS\ADDLIST.TXT ADDLIST.TXT DICMAN DEL DFS\ADDLIST.TXT Call it something like ADDDICT.BAT. That way the dictionary addition file created by the BBS will be deleted when you finish adding the words. The reason for copying the addition list file is that if you use the [Q]uit and abandon changes option the batch file would have deleted your only copy of the file containing the words. Another benefit is that you do not have to type in the path as part of the file name when you load the word list in, just type ADDLIST.TXT. It makes life a little simpler.