WordNetDT for Windows Based PC's
(WordNetDT: WordNet Desktop)
FREE/DONATEWARE
WordNetDT 2.6 Released 22 April 2005!!!
Introduction
This is part of a series of projects that I started after checking out the
efforts of
Malcolm Crowe in
creating a .Net port for WordNet.
His excellent port supports WordNet 1.6. I have modified his port with the
new 2.1 changes to make it compatible with the 2.1 database. The goal of
my project is to make a high quality, free dictionary/thesaurus for the PC
platform. To date there is nothing out there that's both free and high
quality.
Here's the official description of the WordNet
database:
"WordNet® is an online lexical reference system
whose design is inspired by current psycholinguistic theories of human lexical
memory. English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized into synonym
sets, each representing one underlying lexical concept. Different relations link
the synonym sets."
Although you will find WordNetDT operates almost exactly the same as WordNet software I have added powerful search features not included
in the WordNet distribution. The added search features are Wildcard,
Regular Expression, Anagram and Scrabble solving assistant. These features
are generally only found in commercial products, so I bring it to you for free.
This Release
This release brings forth some serious new features that leave the old
version in the dust. Here's the new features straight from my change log:
- Updated to WordNet 2.1
database
- Fixed bugs and layout
Give me some feedback on this release, and as always, watch out for bugs!
WordNetDT Features
The features that set WordNetDT apart, even from many commercial
dictionary/thesaurus's are:
- It's FREE! Price is always a factor when making a product choice
;).
- It works. The frustrating thing about some software is that you
have a certain expectation level, but within the first few hours of use you
find it falls short, and you feel that you've wasted time and effort on
something that will never do the job. Well you won't be disappointed
with WordNetDT; with an ever-growing list of advanced features, your
experience with this software is going to start off great and just get
better.
- It's easy to use. Having a lot of features is always nice, but
sometimes a software interface can be overwhelming. WordNetDT uses the
same basic design as the original WordNet 2.1 which I always enjoyed using
for its simplicity. More advanced features are behind the scenes, and
not accessing them does not lessen your experience with WordNetDT.
Don't ignore the 'Advanced Search' section though because that's where some
real power searching can be found.
- Powerful search features. Advanced search features equal or
surpass most available electronic dictionary/thesaurus's. WordNetDT
has search capabilities for: wildcard, regular expression, anagram,
scrabble®, sounds like. With that arsenal you can search words in an
almost infinite number of ways. You can even use the anagram feature
to create your own puzzles, by taking a word and finding all anagrams of it.
WordNetDT also contains all of the relations searching you will find in WordNet, in the same convenient way. Noun, Verb, Adjective and Adverb
buttons along the top of a screen let you take an overview search further by
branching into synonyms, meronyms, and a lot of other relation matching
searches.
- British/US spelling. You can search with either spelling and it
will give you both. This is a feature most available electronic
dictionaries are missing.
- Scrabble® accepted words searching. This is a powerful feature for
scrabble® players, this is a complete list of the accepted words (~209,000
words) with scoring.
- VGA compatible. WordNetDT provides a number of in-built features
which makes working with VGA screens a breeze. The software will
automatically adjust its size for landscape layout, and font size selection
means you'll never be squinting to read results.
- Large, modern word list. WordNet is quite a massive project that
is still evolving with more words and more relations. At present there
are 144,309 unique words in WordNet. A great many modern terms can be
found too. One way to judge a dictionary is to challenge it with words
such as 'spam' and see if you get reference to email as well as the canned version.
- Formatted, colour-coded results. Search results are easy to read
with the colour-coding. Synonyms, the definition and quoted sample
sentences are each colour-coded to allow quick reference to whichever search
results component you are looking for.
- Hyperlinked results. All searchable words are hyperlinked so that
you can quickly branch off to retrieve a new word overview simply by
clicking on the hyperlinked word.
Selected Testimonials
WordNetDT is a new product, so there are no testimonials. Be the
first and email one in after you review this software.
Screenshot of WordNetDT
How You Can Assist
| I will not charge for WordNetDT,
however I will gladly accept donations
to try and keep this website alive. Internet hosting costs money,
and donations will help me to purchase equipment and software so that
more quality freeware can be delivered from ebswift.com.
Thankyou in advance, your donation will be appreciated and put to
good use for your future benefit. I am an Australian
developer working full-time, and maintaining this site in my spare time.
I write the software, documentation, web pages and maintain the site
myself.
|
Installation
Providing you have the
Microsoft .Net Framework 1.1 installed, download my customised port of
WordNet.
Unzip the downloaded file to a temporary location, and run the extracted WordNetDTSetup.msi.
If you don't have the
Microsoft .Net Framework 1.1 installed you will be asked whether you wish to
download it. If you decline, the setup process will terminate. You
may decline to install the .Net Framework from the Microsoft site and install it
manually from another source if you have it available.
Download
ADVERTISEMENTS
License and Download page for WordNetDT.
Please report any bugs/suggestions using the email link at the bottom of this
page.
View the Change Log.
Bug Tracker
Acknowledgements
Thankyou and acknowledgement for intellectual resources goes to:
- Malcolm Crowe for the original .Net port
- Adam Nelson for the
Metaphone.Net class