PDA

View Full Version : Announcing Artha ~ An off-line English thesaurus with hot key look up & notifications



legends2k
February 10th, 2009, 02:59 AM
New version 1.0.2 released for both Windows and Linux!


Hi,

I would like to announce Artha (http://sourceforge.net/projects/artha) - A handy off-line English thesaurus based on WordNet (http://wordnet.princeton.edu/). Artha has unique features like hot key look up, passive desktop notifications, regular expression based search, spelling suggestions, etc.


https://sourceforge.net/dbimage.php?id=204250


When executed, Artha sits on the system tray monitoring for a set hot key combination. When the user selects some text on any window and presses this hot key, Artha pops up with the definitions of the selection. Should the user prefer notifications over pop-ups, he/she can enable notifications, where instead of popping-up, is shows passive notification of the selected text's most important definition alone. With the 0.9.1 release, Artha also has regex based search for finding words that are vaguely known. Wildcard (*), Joker (?), Range ([, ]), etc. can be used in the regex search pattern to zero-in the sought word.




https://sourceforge.net/dbimage.php?id=202156



Apart from showing the definitions of a word, it also shows its relatives like Synonyms, Antonyms, Derivatives, Attributes, Pertainyms, Similar term and 6 more detailed trees. It can also show domain terms i.e. if 'photography' is searched for, in the 'Domain' tab results, it lists jargon words used in the photography domain like contrast, blow-up, solarise, retouch, intensify, sensitise, etc.

Artha has two modes: simple and detailed. While the former is for a casual user, latter is for people who need more detailed analysis of a given word. In detailed mode, for a given word, Artha displays trees of information like 'Type of', 'Types', 'Part of', 'Parts', etc. (e.g. see screenshot 1, for 'water' is kind of... tree)

For many recently-migrated-from-Windows users, WordWeb (proprietary) would have been a very handy tool there and they ask for a clone/replacement of WordWeb in Linux. Well, Artha could be used as an advanced replacement for WordWeb in *nix environments by not a clone, as it has a wider feature list than WordWeb.

Artha comes in .deb fromat, for easy installation in Ubuntu. Simply double click the .deb or type in the following command. Please do not use dpkg, as it doesn't have the ability to resolve dependencies automatically.


$ sudo gdebi artha_1.0.2-1_amd64.debDownload for i386 - artha_1.0.2-1_i386.deb
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/artha/files/artha/1.0.2/artha_1.0.2-1_i386.deb/download) Download for amd64 - artha_1.0.2-1_amd64.deb (http://sourceforge.net/projects/artha/files/artha/1.0.2/artha_1.0.2-1_amd64.deb/download)

Homepage: http://artha.sourceforge.net/

P.S.: This is my first open-source application :D

sharathpaps
February 10th, 2009, 04:21 AM
@Sundaram,
Artha is a wonderful name for this really really nice app. I liked the interface, its clean and very usable. Everything is working flawlessly. Congratulations. Looking forward to this one reaching the repos soon.

Tekmoor
February 10th, 2009, 04:39 AM
I agree, very clean and usable. It works good, I'm really liking it so far. I wanted something like this, great job!

anechoic
February 10th, 2009, 04:46 AM
a nice tool for a writer/word nerd! nice job! :)

Faolan84
February 10th, 2009, 05:39 AM
SWEET! This is something that should be included on the Jaunty disc. It's something that's simple, elegant, and very useful. Having a dictionary feature here would make it rock twice as much.

pt123
February 11th, 2009, 09:09 AM
impressive

Chokkan
February 11th, 2009, 11:23 AM
This looks awesome. Great job.

kostkon
February 11th, 2009, 12:44 PM
Great work, really great.

Ah, and you can use a PPA if you want to more easily distribute it (for Ubuntu users, that is).

Nevon
February 11th, 2009, 01:15 PM
Great! As for feature requests, I think you should be able to configure the hotkey for calling Artha. Also, a more long term goal should be to include other languages besides English.

GrouchoMarx
February 11th, 2009, 03:59 PM
I was just thinking the other day how nice it would be to have a decent off-line thesaurus. Looks great. However the excessive tool-tips are annoying and get in the way when scanning text.

imlinux
February 11th, 2009, 06:53 PM
will that notifications feature work in lxde environment?

Faolan84
February 12th, 2009, 02:56 AM
After a day's use, I can't imagine not having it. This should definitely be default in the Jaunty install.

5 stars out of 5.

Incense
February 12th, 2009, 03:04 AM
After a day's use, I can't imagine not having it. This should definitely be default in the Jaunty install.

5 stars out of 5.

+1, What a very useful app! I've been waiting for something like this for quite some time.

Mr. Picklesworth
February 12th, 2009, 04:52 AM
I wish Artha was a bit quieter and stayed off the notification area unless actually notifying me about something. For much of my time its icon is just wasting space, but when I need a thesaurus it is spectacularly handy :)

Wish list: It would be awesome to add dictionaries, espacially if they could work through a little plugin system. Imagine having a dictionary that talks to all your code documentation (eg Devhelp)!

PS:
18 °C in January?! I am jealous.
It's 5° and "feels like -2" (more like -50) here :(

Nevon
February 12th, 2009, 08:40 AM
PS:
18 °C in January?! I am jealous.
It's 5° and "feels like -2" (more like -50) here :(

Dude. I just checked the temperature. It's -22°C here.:P

Faolan84
February 12th, 2009, 08:40 PM
Partly Sunny, 75 F here in beautiful Tallahassee, FL :P

ameermawia
February 15th, 2009, 03:58 PM
i install arhta on my machine but is not being installed ,first time it gave dependency error(when i downloaded for i386) and next time it gave wrong architecture error when i donloaded for AMD64(i have AMD 64 ATHLON processor)..........can some body tell from where to downloaded the exact package and how to install (better by command line)..........

Mr. Picklesworth
February 15th, 2009, 06:28 PM
i install arhta on my machine but is not being installed ,first time it gave dependency error(when i downloaded for i386) and next time it gave wrong architecture error when i donloaded for AMD64(i have AMD 64 ATHLON processor)..........can some body tell from where to downloaded the exact package and how to install (better by command line)..........

Do you have the AMD64 build of Ubuntu? In this case, the software is completely abstracted from your computer hardware; what Artha needs is the appropriate operating system which is either using the 64-bit stuff or not

As for the dependency error, you'll encounter that either way. It's completely normal; the package needs some other packages to be installed. If it got that far, the first one you downloaded was probably the appropriate package. Is it saying that it can't find the dependencees, or that they are the wrong version? What version of Ubuntu are you running (7.10, 8.04, etc)? Have you changed anything with Ubuntu's Software Sources list?

legends2k
February 16th, 2009, 11:11 AM
Hey guys,
Thanks for the wonderful comments, its really encouraging to see so many. And sorry for replying late as I couldn't get online for a few days.

Now for your queries:


Great work, really great.

Ah, and you can use a PPA if you want to more easily distribute it (for Ubuntu users, that is).

@kostkon: Artha is getting into Debian's Main repos (got a sponsor and the process is happening). Hence when Ubuntu is synced with Debian, it should automatically move to Ubuntu's Universe. Even I am waiting for that to happen. If it will take time, I will put it in PPA.


Great! As for feature requests, I think you should be able to configure the hotkey for calling Artha. Also, a more long term goal should be to include other languages besides English.

@Nevon: Your request is actually one of the TODOs top most, since I want it cusomizable too. I was just trying out the hot key coding and I just released it with 4 hardcoded options to see how it goes. I will, in the next release, in which I am planning for a preferences box, make it choosable. As for the long term goal, I have written it as generic as possible, and in no way it is tied hard to the Eng. WordNet, when we have a decent WordNet for some other language, we can see if Artha works fine with it. And if yes, we can make it pluggable. But as you mentioned, its for the long term plans :D


I was just thinking the other day how nice it would be to have a decent off-line thesaurus. Looks great. However the excessive tool-tips are annoying and get in the way when scanning text.

@GrouchoMarx: I sometimes find it annoying too, thanks for notifying me of it, I will trim them in the next release


will that notifications feature work in lxde environment?

@imlinux: Ideally, as far as other notifications like System Update, etc. come up, then Artha's should also work, as there is no diff. in the library used. But I am not 100% sure, since I haven't used LXDE, while you could try it & post the results here :)


I wish Artha was a bit quieter and stayed off the notification area unless actually notifying me about something. For much of my time its icon is just wasting space, but when I need a thesaurus it is spectacularly handy :)

Wish list: It would be awesome to add dictionaries, espacially if they could work through a little plugin system. Imagine having a dictionary that talks to all your code documentation (eg Devhelp)!

@Mr. Picklesworth: In the next release, I will add an option for toggling sys. try icon's visibility like Always, Only when notifying and Never. As for you wish, Artha works completely on WordNet's protocol right now; what you ask for is something like a dictionary could be compiled and made to work with as a plugin for Artha (like Nevon has asked for Artha on other languages). May be I can unify both the ideas and create a tool to compile dictionaries and make reqd. changes in Artha to use the tool's result at runtime. This will be a nice long term feature. Well, thanks for the suggestion :P


i install arhta on my machine but is not being installed ,first time it gave dependency error(when i downloaded for i386) and next time it gave wrong architecture error when i donloaded for AMD64(i have AMD 64 ATHLON processor)..........can some body tell from where to downloaded the exact package and how to install (better by command line)..........

@ameermawia: Its easy to fix this. First, your machine is i386 and hence please do not use AMD64. Next is, you may have used dpkg to install the downloaded i386 deb file. Please do not use dpkg. It does not have the ability to resolve dependency, hence use gdebi (has the ability to resolve dependencies).

Most importantly, make sure Universe repositories are enabled. Uncomment the following lines in /etc/apt/sources.list (gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list)



deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid universe
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid universe
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-updates universe
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-updates universe


Then do:



sudo apt-get update
gdebi artha_0.8.0-1_i386.deb (http://downloads.sourceforge.net/artha/artha_0.8.0-1_i386.deb?modtime=1234245725&big_mirror=0&filesize=56432)



Thanks for all your valuable feedbacks :P I will try to incorporate as many as possible in the future releases.

twipley
April 22nd, 2009, 02:15 AM
Dude. I just checked the temperature. It's -22°C here.:P

dudes, -22°c is nothing, believe me. in february, it fell to -43°c for three days in a row in my hometown, breaking a record (in addition to breaking our cars!). :)

concerning the port to linux of wordweb (wordnet), i think it would be very nice to have this added to ubuntu. far too people are not even aware of the existence of that dictionary. thank you, princeton! (and all wordnet-related developers).

peace out,
twipley

legends2k
April 23rd, 2009, 02:52 AM
Yes Twipley, I think I will make another release for Artha (with regex search options :) and then submit it to Debian for inclusion in its apt repositories, which in turn will be reflected in the next Ubuntu release (9.10) when it's getting sync'd with Debian. Until then we have 2 options: Personal Package Archives of a gentleman named Arnaud: https://launchpad.net/~weboide/+archive/ppa (https://launchpad.net/%7Eweboide/+archive/ppa) using with Artha can be apt-get installed, or direct downloading of the deb from http://artha.sourceforge.net.

And yay! Today is 9.04 release of Ubuntu, sit back and enjoy while it gets installed/upgraded!!!

brallan
May 21st, 2009, 01:47 AM
BRILLIANT! thank you soooooo much for this wonderful program! wordweb was one of the things keeping me in windows for a long time. eventually I just got fed up with dual booting and said goodbye to wordweb, but now and then an unbearable nostalgia would overtake me! I was going to try installing it in wine, and lo and behold, no need thanks to another generous community member working hard to give us a wonderful tool!


And yay! Today is 9.04 release of Ubuntu, sit back and enjoy while it gets installed/upgraded!!!

I'd also like to tell mac users about it, is there a mac (or windows .exe) installer yet?

monsterstack
May 21st, 2009, 04:33 AM
This is one of the best apps I've come across in a while. Really useful stuff. Light enough to keep running in the background, too. I think that's crucial. Well done. :)

legends2k
May 22nd, 2009, 07:18 AM
@brallan: Thank you for your compliments! Have you tried the new release Artha 0.9.1 (or the prev. one 0.8.0)? It has the additional feature of regular expressions based search; this will match Artha with WordWeb Pro too :) I am yet to port it to Mac and Windows. I will do it sometime.

@monsterstack: Thank you! :)

Artha 0.9.1 (both .deb and .tar.gz) can be downloaded from here: http://artha.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download

joemun
May 28th, 2009, 05:45 PM
Artha rocks!...to the repos please...it works flawlessly. Thanks and congrats.

kickwin
May 29th, 2009, 10:48 PM
Works like a charm. Thanks a ton to the developer.

I have been looking for a Wordweb-like app for linux and Artha is the solution. Though, I have to say, it was not easy to find it by searching online. I think it needs a little PR work.

Btw, I have a couple of quick questions. When I press the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl + Alt + A or W), I always find Artha minimized on the task bar. Then I have to Alt+Tab to go the Artha. Is it how it is built or I have tweak something?

Also I don't see the "Detailed Lookup" button on the notification when the "Notify" mode is enabled.

Thanks once again for the great app.

brallan
May 30th, 2009, 10:06 AM
Though, I have to say, it was not easy to find it by searching online. I think it needs a little PR work.

I agree.

I included a link on the WordNet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordnet) wikipedia page, as well as a mention in the WordWeb article.

there is no Artha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artha) article in wikipedia yet (only the hindu concept), but would likely be impossible to make one until there is some media attention for the project.

on the website, folks can nominate it for the community choice awards:
http://artha.sourceforge.net/

perhaps we can add a mention in some of the pages which list windows equivalencies.

Looking at the wordnet wikipedia page, it seems that something like wordnet is available for a number of other languages. Balkanet, etc. Should Artha become multilingual, it could offer things that wordweb does not. it could then produce quite a sensation and publicity might get rolling just by authors and journalists using it, particularly if ported to mac and windows.

legends2k
May 30th, 2009, 07:36 PM
@joemun (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=131103): Thank you!

@kickwin (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=840263):

I think it needs a little PR work. Yeah, I think so, but I should say I'm not good at selling things ;) Probably you guys can help me out here. [already joemun had sent a mail on Artha to Life Hacker (http://lifehacker.com/)]


I always find Artha minimized on the task bar. Then I have to Alt+Tab to go the Artha. Is it how it is built or I have tweak something?I find this annoying too. But no, Artha's not designed so. In other distros like Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Fedora flavours, etc. when the user presses the hot key it gets presented to the user with the keyboard focus in it; while on Ubuntu, it doesn't.


I don't see the "Detailed Lookup" button on the notification when the "Notify" mode is enabled. The latest release of Ubuntu (9.04) doesn't support buttons on passive desktop notifications and hence I removed it. I forgot to change the help text and the screenshots accordingly; will do so in the next release. However, clicking on the earlier available 'Detailed Lookup' button will just show Artha's window on the desktop. This can be done by clicking on the Artha's status icon itself, hence removing it is not loss of any feature :)

Thanks for your comments!

@brallan (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=52299): Thanks :)
Long back, I did send a mail to WordNet webpage maintainer, asking to add Artha to their Related Projects (http://wordnet.princeton.edu/links) page. He said he will do so, I could never see it get listed. I send another mail with no response.

As for other language WordNets, Artha should work perfectly fine as long as they follow the same protocol as the English WordNet does. But I haven't tried it yet on other languages.

Am now porting it to Windows, but I have a missing piece in the puzzle; am not able to get the selected text on Windows. Hence I'm still stuck on this one, with no fruitful help by Googling. Probably some community member can help me out if they know; let's see.

kickwin
May 30th, 2009, 09:57 PM
I have also mentioned Artha in some ubuntu forum posts which were the top google search results for queries like "linux wordweb".

meho_r
May 30th, 2009, 10:46 PM
Thank you for this fantastic app. I think it goes in Startup Applications from now on ;) I've been using StarDict for a long time now, but I'm not sure if the project is alive anymore :( And I had some issues with it. But it really has nice features I would love to see in Artha some day in future, e.g., support for Babylon etc. dictionaries. And one more thing comes in mind: is it possible to include some kind of pronunciation addon or something (voice would be nice too)? It would help a lot in learning english. Thanks again.

kickwin
May 31st, 2009, 06:51 AM
And one more thing comes in mind: is it possible to include some kind of pronunciation addon or something (voice would be nice too)?

I second that. IMO, pronunciation help like in Wordweb would suffice.

Viva
May 31st, 2009, 11:09 PM
Excellent alternative to wordweb

legends2k
June 1st, 2009, 01:24 PM
Looks like pronunciation is one of the most wanted feature! I agree that pronunciation would be a good aid in learning English. There are two forms, one is to display phonetics for a word (text) and the other is vocal pronunciation of the word (audio). The latter is possible, I will work on it, probably in the next release, we can have that feature.

But for the former I.e. to display phonetics for every word, does anyone know of a free phonetics database or some kind of library which can be used to get the phonetics a word? If so, we can integrate that too.

oOarthurOo
June 1st, 2009, 05:16 PM
I'm confused... is it a thesaurus, or a dictionary/thesaurus? The screenshot suggests the latter.

kickwin
June 1st, 2009, 05:30 PM
I'm confused... is it a thesaurus, or a dictionary/thesaurus? The screenshot suggests the latter.

Artha is a dictionary. The screenshot shows the OP querying the definition of the word 'thesaurus'.

kickwin
June 1st, 2009, 06:01 PM
There are two forms, one is to display phonetics for a word (text) and the other is vocal pronunciation of the word (audio). The latter is possible, I will work on it, probably in the next release, we can have that feature.

Wouldn't this (latter one) make the app heavy?

legends2k
June 2nd, 2009, 07:19 AM
I'm confused... is it a thesaurus, or a dictionary/thesaurus? The screenshot suggests the latter.
@oOarthurOo (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=690246): You are right, it is a dictionary and thesaurus. It is based on WordNet (http://wordnet.princeton.edu/) the famous thesaurus by Princeton University.


@kickwin: It is not a dictionary alone, but a thesaurus too. Dictionary is something that gives the definition(s) of a given word, thats it. It doesn't tell you about a word's relatives like synonyms, antonyms, etc. Artha gives a long list of a word's relatives apart from it's definitions, and hence is a thesaurus and a dictionary.

And giving a vocal pronunciation shouldn't make it heavy, since we have very good text to speech engines available on Linux, which will get the word and spell it out. Don't worry, we'll never bloat Artha, I want it as light as possible. Thanks the inputs :)

Kushal Sejwal
June 8th, 2009, 05:54 PM
Great app, brilliant effort Sundaram. Proved to me that there is no single app that cannot have a even better Open-source alternative. Kudos to your effort.

Sweet, simple, straight! Just loving it.

ws.venkateswaran
June 22nd, 2009, 03:09 AM
thanks... really nice app..

how do i keep it updated... is there an method or should i keep checking the site..

legends2k
June 22nd, 2009, 08:22 AM
@Kushal: Thanks!

@Ventakeswaran: If you are asking about updates to Artha, yes, you can check the website (http://artha.sourceforge.net/). But if you are asking for an update to the dict/thesaurus database Artha uses, namely WordNet (http://wordnet.princeton.edu/), it won't be updated daily or so. It' primarily aimed at off-line usage.

lammoth
July 5th, 2009, 10:50 AM
anyway to change the shortcuts for artha? i tried in man artha, couldnt find any way

legends2k
July 6th, 2009, 07:34 AM
Hi lammoth (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=868673),
I guess you are trying to change Artha's hotkey (and not the shortcut, which will be in Applications->Accessories on a Ubuntu machine). As of now, Artha doesn't allow to change the set hot key I.e. it is not customizable; I will be working on this feature in the next release to make it customizable. In the latest release (0.9.1) Artha tries to set a hot key in the following order: Ctrl + Alt + [ W | A | T | Q ] I.e. first Ctrl + Alt + W, if it is occupied by some other app. then A and so on.

Hope that helps :)

ugutugut
July 28th, 2009, 05:51 AM
to : legends2k

Thank you very much for your contribution in this computing world.
Your software is really useful.

bhadotia
July 29th, 2009, 06:47 PM
So will it be in the official karmic universe repos?

And thanks for this great piece of software! ;)

EDIT:
Never mind, I see its in the karmic repos now.

jabe_z
December 17th, 2009, 10:59 AM
Hi,

very Nice application. I use wordweb alot on windows and found Artha very much better than Wordweb.

When i enabled Notification, its not giving any notification. I'm just getting another small popup with Warning symbol on the windows. Is this the right way how notification comes??? I'm asking this because, when i saw the Screenshot in Artha's home page, Notification is showing in a different way.

I'm using it on Ubuntu 9.10.

legends2k
December 19th, 2009, 04:17 AM
Hi jabe_z (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=701960),
What you're getting is a alert box (with an exclamatory symbol on it). Are you getting it as a message box or as a notification? What message do you get on the box with the exclamatory 'pop-up'? Is it showing the queried word's definition in the box? Could you post a screen shot or give some more details?

What version of Artha are you using? How did you install it?

Linuxforall
December 19th, 2009, 04:23 AM
Thank you very much for this app, after stardic, this is my second preference. Since stardict development has stopped, I was worried about the future of the offline thesarus and dictionary in Linux, your app fills that void.

lelamal
December 28th, 2009, 04:52 PM
Hi jabe_z (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=701960),
What you're getting is a alert box (with an exclamatory symbol on it). Are you getting it as a message box or as a notification? What message do you get on the box with the exclamatory 'pop-up'? Is it showing the queried word's definition in the box? Could you post a screen shot or give some more details?

What version of Artha are you using? How did you install it?

Hi, I'll try to answer on his behalf, if that's OK, for I've been wondering the same thing. Basically, on Ubuntu Jaunty what you got was a notification (if enabled) while now on Karmic you only get a message box, which you have to close manually.

Interestingly enough, though, today I found out that when the word is not found, Artha will show a notification (see Screenshot 1.png), while will pop up an alert box when the word is found (see Screenshot 2.png) - most of the times, that is.

Artha version 0.8.0, installed through Synaptic. Many thanks!

legends2k
December 30th, 2009, 03:02 PM
@lelamal (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=702367) and jabe_z (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=701960),
From Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope (9.04) onwards Mark Shuttleworth changed the Notifications scheme in Ubuntu, where the notification looks sleek and semi-transparent, but with NO buttons on it. Ubuntu versions prior to it have a kind of Window's balloon tip look and feel, which allowed buttons on it or a pie chart to show the time out period remaining (image attached for ref.).

Until Artha 0.8.0, notifications in Artha have a Detailed Lookup button on them where the user can click on it and get the actual Artha main window popped up; but once this new scheme came into place, the handling done by the Ubuntu 9.04 (or later) is to show the notification as a message box, if it has buttons I.e. when a notification doesn't have a button, then it shows it in the newer, sleekier way; but if the code asks for buttons to be shown, it never shows it as a passive notification window, but as a message box. More on this here: http://wiki.ubuntu.com/NotifyOSD

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/9003/notifications.jpg
This is the reason you get the "Oops - Queried term not found" notification as a notification (since it doesn't have any buttons attached to it) while the actual succeeded lookup as a message box (since it has buttons on it). So as to avoid this problem, I've altogether removed buttons in notifications from Artha 0.9.1 onwards; so both failed and succeeded look-ups don't ask the notification daemon to show a notification with buttons, so the user always get the notifications as notifications rather than as message boxes.

Ubuntu repos now have only Artha 0.8.0; The newer 0.9.1 is yet to be synced. You can either wait for that to happen, or download the deb for your architecture from http://artha.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download and install it.

Hope this helps :)

lelamal
December 30th, 2009, 03:26 PM
Hope this helps :)

Definitely! Many thanks for your detailed explanation, and for all your good work.

legends2k
January 15th, 2010, 07:22 AM
Guys, a new version of Artha (1.0.0) is released! It has the most wanted hot-key customization feature now :)
Apart from, in it's previous versions, Artha wouldn't always come to the user's focus on the hot-key summon, this too is fixed now. Also it's got lot of minor optimzations and fixes.


Great! As for feature requests, I think you should be able to configure the hotkey for calling Artha. Also, a more long term goal should be to include other languages besides English.@Nevon: This hotkey customization feature is now done in 1.0.0 release of Artha :)

Linuxforall
January 15th, 2010, 07:30 AM
How bout setting up a ppa for Ubuntu users? That way updates would be far more convenient.

legends2k
January 15th, 2010, 07:33 AM
Right now 0.9.1 is present in Lucid, I guess. The newer versions take time to reach Ubuntu's repos usually. Am working on getting this 1.0.0 updated in Debian (who too has 0.9.1), if this is done within the Lucid's Debian Import Freeze date (Feb. 14th), then 1.0.0 will make it into Lucid's repos. Meanwhile someone can probably can set up a PPA.

kickwin
January 15th, 2010, 10:43 AM
Apart from, in it's previous versions, Artha wouldn't always come to the user's focus on the hot-key summon, this too is fixed now.
Feature works great. Keep up the good work.=D>

Pronunciation tip is the only thing that I think is missing from Artha.

handy
January 15th, 2010, 11:58 AM
@legends2k: I've just tried to install the newly superseded version of Artha on Arch via AUR, but after dealing with wordpress it failed as follows:

==> ERROR: Failure while downloading artha-0.9.1.tar.bz2
Aborting...
Error: Makepkg was unable to build artha package.

Anyway, I marked the 0.9.1 package as out of date over at AUR, so hopefully the package maintainer will be able to organise the PKGBUILD for us Arch users who already do use Artha, & for me too, who wants to.

Artha looks like an incredibly useful tool, thanks you for making it for us. :)

bryonak
January 15th, 2010, 01:28 PM
I was using StarDict for a long time and it did the job fine, except for a few glitches.
When the rumours of it's development stop came about, I switched to the then new GoldenDict, which is basically a StarDict clone with many improvements (similar interface, supports all dict formats, WebKit rendering, GPLv3, full text translation, web templates, audio spelling ...) and I'm quite happy with it.

Enough about that, I'm going to give Artha a spin if it seems like it can fit my bill.
That is: how does Artha compare to GoldenDict? Does it support all those dictionaries StarDict supported? I mean .ifo/.dict./.idx/.syn/.bgl/.dsl ... WordNet alone isn't enough for me ;)

Besides, I'm not sure StarDict is really dead, with the latest stable release being in May 2009. The forums however don't work.

Linuxforall
January 15th, 2010, 01:38 PM
Stardict works fine here for me, the pronounciation also works via tts file, does Goldendict support pronounciation as well? I don't see it mentioned anywhere on their site.

legends2k
January 16th, 2010, 09:55 AM
@kickwin: Thank you for your kind words :) I'll try to implement the pronunciation and region flag (UK/US/Aus, etc.)

@handy: Am not sure of Arch linux's package management, however, Artha should be build-able on any system with glib, gtk+, dbus and wordnet development headers availability. You can download the source from http://artha.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download

@bryonak: There are lot of heavy weight dictionaries/thesaurus like StartDict, GoldenDict, etc. out there, which cater a larger crowd, who wish to have all the dictionary databases in their disposal; but the whole purpose of Artha is to have something very handy and minimal, with a simple interface and bare dependencies, that it works on even a mobile without hassle (it's run on maemo ~ Nokia 810). So, no, Artha doesn't support anything other than WordNet; am not sure, if it ever will.

handy
January 16th, 2010, 10:23 AM
@handy: Am not sure of Arch linux's package management, however, Artha should be build-able on any system with glib, gtk+, dbus and wordnet development headers availability. You can download the source from http://artha.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download

The previous version was being used on Arch, via the AUR (Arch User Repositories). For some reason the package fails to complete it's installation process at the moment.

I am inexperienced with more than minor editing of PKGBUILD files. Even so, I spent some time this morning trying to get your current version to install, but I couldn't quite crack it.

I tried using both the source & using the .deb package via deb2targz before I gave up. I really didn't feel like spending the hours learning all of the fine details of editing PKGBUILD files today. :)

The WordNet package already exists in AUR which is helpful too.

Anyway, thanks for your reply, I'm sure it won't be too long before the maintainer has a look at the comments & modifies the PKGBUILD. :)

legends2k
January 16th, 2010, 10:31 AM
Just in case, actually, in the newer 1.0.0 version, dependencies are now reduced. I.e. libnotify and python are no more needed to build artha from source. So the same dependencies list of 0.9.1 is not needed, it's actually less. http://artha.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Installation ~ This paage has instructions on building and also try to look @ the INSTALL file I.e. if you've the mood ;)

handy
January 16th, 2010, 10:49 AM
@legends2k: In case you are curious, I've posted a PKGBUILD that apparently worked fine for installing artha on Arch:



pkgname=artha
pkgver=0.9
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="English thesaurus that works completely off-line and is based on WordNet"
arch=(i686 x86_64)
url="http://artha.sourceforge.net/"
license="custom"

depends=(
'glib'
'gtk2'
'wordnet'
)

source=(
"http://sunet.dl.sourceforge.net/project/$pkgname/$pkgname/$pkgver.$pkgrel/$pkgname-$pkgver.$pkgrel.tar.bz2"
)

md5sums=(
'6614a81980e7bccf55449ad6ab9ee080'
)

build() {
cd $startdir/src/$pkgname-$pkgver.$pkgrel
./configure --prefix=/usr || return 1
make || return 1
make DESTDIR=$startdir/pkg install || return 1
}

bryonak
January 16th, 2010, 09:39 PM
@legends2k:
Thanks for the info, I just gave v1.0.0 a try.
I like the clean interface as well as the speed... performance always caters to me.
Somehow I wasn't able to bind the Super (Meta, Win) key as lookup hotkey, for example "Super+<" triggers on "<" only but not on "Super" and "<".
Speaking of which, using the notification system is really cool, but it doesn't display two subsequent lookups at the same time (above each other, like the usual notifications). Try looking up more than 3 words in a one-second-intervall to see what I mean.

Like stated, WordNet isn't enough for me, so I probably won't be using Artha...
Great job nevertheless!


@Linuxforall:
Yes, GoldenDict supports pronunciation.

Shazaam
January 17th, 2010, 12:08 AM
Good work with Artha!

One thing I would like to see is an Artha right-click context menu entry for highlighted text. Then there would be no need for a hotkey.

legends2k
January 17th, 2010, 01:51 AM
@handy: I see that you've missed dbus-glib-1 dependency in your PKGBUILD. Try adding that for 1.0.0 and executing the same. Without dbus-glib Artha won't run.

@bryonak: Thanks for notifying me of the Super key, it's actually a bug I see in 1.0.0, I've fixed it, this can be in seen in the next release.

@Shazaam: Thanks :) Although am not very sure of context sensitive menus in Linux, I'll see if I can make one for Artha.

handy
January 17th, 2010, 02:33 PM
@handy: I see that you've missed dbus-glib-1 dependency in your PKGBUILD. Try adding that for 1.0.0 and executing the same. Without dbus-glib Artha won't run.


Thanks, I'll give that a try & see how it goes.

handy
January 18th, 2010, 10:42 AM
@legends2k: I gave it a shot with the dbus-glib-1 package as a dependency but it got an error that basically said Arch doesn't use it. :)

legends2k
January 19th, 2010, 01:56 AM
@handy: Oops! Change the dbus-glib-1 to dbus-glib. It is available in Arch, refer this http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/i686/dbus-glib/

handy
January 19th, 2010, 10:04 AM
@handy: Oops! Change the dbus-glib-1 to dbus-glib. It is available in Arch, refer this http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/i686/dbus-glib/

@legends2k: dbus-glib was in the system already; I added it as a dependency anyway, but still no go?

I just emailed the guy that maintains Artha in AUR, so hopefully he'll make a few mod's to the PKGBUILD, test it & release it into the wild!

legends2k
January 20th, 2010, 06:28 AM
Artha 1.0.1 (https://sourceforge.net/projects/artha/files/) is released!

* Suggestions are now made with priority given to the English locale thats set in the user's session
* Fixes for hotkeys with mods like Super, Hyper, etc. are now made to work
* Artha fully works on KDE 4.3 from this release

It's recommended that you update to this release, from now on :)

handy
January 25th, 2010, 01:52 AM
@legends2k: After 10 days of waiting, I asked on the Arch/AUR sub-forum, if anyone could help me with a PKGBUILD.

Very quickly that AUR package maintainer was dumped from Artha & the other packages that he used to maintain.

Someone posted a new PKGBUILD in answer, & on waking this morning, I look to find that someone who hadn't made any communication in the thread I started on this topic has adopted the package & made a new PKGBUILD that worked beautifully for me. :)

So Artha 1.0.1-1 is installed on my 64bit Arch/Openbox, I have Openbox configured via .config/openbox/autostart.sh to call Artha when Openbox starts, which it does quietly & cleanly, putting its icon in my uncluttered xfce4-panel.

From my thus-far brief experience with Artha, I think it will become a permanent part of my system.

So thanks legend2k, for all of your work on Artha. :)

Here is the PKGBUILD that works for anyone interested:


# Contributor: ShadowKyogre <shadowkyogre@gmail.com>
# Maintainer: res <andres87p gmail>
pkgname=artha
pkgver=1.0.1
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc='A free cross-platform English thesaurus based on WordNet'
arch=(i686 x86_64)
url=http://$pkgname.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Home
license=(GPL)
depends=(wordnet gtk2 dbus-glib)
source=(http://downloads.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/$pkgname/$pkgname-$pkgver.tar.bz2)
md5sums=(53c533dee11af70d6592eea43891e1cd)

build() {
cd $pkgname-$pkgver

./configure --prefix=/usr
make || return 1
make DESTDIR=$pkgdir install
}

meho_r
January 26th, 2010, 12:53 AM
Ah, I simply love this application :) An idea (sorry if it was mentioned before): is it possible to make the hotkey a switch, so when you press it first time it summons Artha, and when you press it second time it minimizes it to the notification area?

legends2k
January 26th, 2010, 08:48 AM
@handy (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=55341): Thanks for your kind words :) I hope this helps other Arch users to install Artha.

@meho_r (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=281491): No one has suggested it yet, you're the first to do so :) But once Artha gets summoned on a lookup, we've the Escape key to push it back to the system tray, if you've not noticed it yet. Will that be sufficient? Or do we still need to make the hotkey a switch?

Thanks for the comments guys!

handy
January 26th, 2010, 09:48 AM
@handy (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=55341): Thanks for your kind words :) I hope this helps other Arch users to install Artha.

Now that Artha has a knowledgeable & conscientious package maintainer, it will be as easy & simple as it is supposed to be to install on Arch.

Thanks again, you have done a really nice job. :)

meho_r
January 26th, 2010, 02:31 PM
...

@meho_r (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=281491): No one has suggested it yet, you're the first to do so :) But once Artha gets summoned on a lookup, we've the Escape key to push it back to the system tray, if you've not noticed it yet. Will that be sufficient? Or do we still need to make the hotkey a switch?

Thanks for the comments guys!

I caught myself keeping my hand on the hotkey combination on the keyboard while reading translations of a sequence of words, and that's when I noticed that it may be a good idea. Of course, Esc still do the job, but you must move your hand up-down all the time (and that can be annoying in some cases, believe me :D) What others think? Of course, if it's a lot of work to implement, just leave it, this is absolutely the lowest priority request :)

sarthorks
February 14th, 2010, 01:34 PM
Thanks legends2k! I had been waiting for this for soo long! Thanks a ton. However, I wish Artha soon incoporates the WordWeb pronunciation key feature, its a boon for any dictionary.

I am having a problem. Everytime i try to use the wildcards ? or *, in a fashin like:


a*

i get the following error:


File sense.index not found at /usr/share/wordnet
Please install it and restart Artha to do a regular expression based search.


Can you tell me what that means, and what should i do to get it right?
Thanks once again!

legends2k
February 15th, 2010, 04:13 AM
@sarthorks (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=612179): May I know how you installed Artha? What distro are you using? If it's Ubuntu, Artha's direct dependency is WordNet (package: wordnet); there's one more package by the name wordnet-sense-index, this is not a must-have dependency to run Artha but a recommended-to-have package which will enable the regex based search feature of Artha. If that is not installed, index.sense file will not be present in the path the error says about. If it's installed, you can make the regex-based search (*, ?, etc.). To install it in Ubuntu/Debian:


sudo apt-get install wordnet-sense-index

Try this, it should fix it; if not you can always ping me regd. the same. Hope it helps :)

@meho_r (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=281491): I've made a note of it, mate :) I'll see how I can fit it in.

sarthorks
February 15th, 2010, 10:40 AM
@sarthorks (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=612179): May I know how you installed Artha? What distro are you using? If it's Ubuntu, Artha's direct dependency is WordNet (package: wordnet); there's one more package by the name wordnet-sense-index, this is not a must-have dependency to run Artha but a recommended-to-have package which will enable the regex based search feature of Artha. If that is not installed, index.sense file will not be present in the path the error says about. If it's installed, you can make the regex-based search (*, ?, etc.). To install it in Ubuntu/Debian:



Try this, it should fix it; if not you can always ping me regd. the same. Hope it helps :)


Thanks! I am using Hardy, and i did as you said. Its working very well now!

johnterdi
February 21st, 2010, 09:29 PM
I really like Artha. A sound replacement for wordweb on linux platform. I just love the simple design Artha is given. I don't think I can switch to other dictionary as this one is proving itself to be very compact and reliable.

I'd love to see phonetic transcriptions added as an important core feature. It would help a lot when trying to learn English and its pronunciations.

legends2k
February 22nd, 2010, 01:29 AM
I really like Artha. A sound replacement for wordweb on linux platform. I just love the simple design Artha is given. I don't think I can switch to other dictionary as this one is proving itself to be very compact and reliable.

I'd love to see phonetic transcriptions added as an important core feature. It would help a lot when trying to learn English and its pronunciations.

@johnterdi: I'm thinking of implementing pronunciation feature using eSpeak (http://espeak.sourceforge.net/index.html) (both textual and vocal) in the next release :)

johnterdi
February 23rd, 2010, 07:13 AM
Awesome! That's great to hear. I hope it comes out soon so I can use it to studying.

Many thanks.

CupofDice
February 24th, 2010, 05:01 PM
Using opensuse 11.2 KDE 64bit, I have this problem when running Artha in the terminal. I installed first by tracking down a fedora RPM, but that gave me an error and Artha wouldn't search, so then I installed by source code. I have libwordnet-devel installed, which I think is wordnet-dev on ubuntu, but I also installed the wordnet package from the princeton site to see if that would work.

Either way ,I keep getting this error when running Artha in the terminal and my searches turn up empty.


Failed to open WordNet database files!
Make sure WordNet's database files are present at

(null).

If present elsewhere, set the environment variable WNHOME to point to it.

Thanks for any help.

legends2k
February 25th, 2010, 07:49 AM
@CupofDice (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=165588): I installed OpenSUSE 11.2 (with KDE 4.3) fresh in a virtual machine and tried searching for packages 'wordnet', 'wordnet-devel', 'libwordnet-devel' using the command

zypper install wordnet wordnet-devel libwordnet-devel and all of them returned a "'package' not found" message. It is to be noted that the WordNet package is not yet available in the OpenSUSE official repositories. It's currently in their wishlist only (http://en.opensuse.org/Wishlist_Various); so wordnet cannot be installed from OpenSUSE's repositories with a single command; one has to install it from source.

So I downloaded WordNet's tarball from Princeton's site (http://wordnetcode.princeton.edu/3.0/WordNet-3.0.tar.bz2) and tried compiling its source; but for building WordNet from source, Tcl and Tk development headers are required (as told by WordNet build system). Hence I installed them by
zypper install tcl-devel tk-devel. Then I was able to successfully build and install WordNet (tried running command 'wnb' and searched some random terms in the thesaurus for which results got returned properly. Finally, I installed Artha from source (http://sourceforge.net/projects/artha/files/artha/1.0.1/artha-1.0.1.tar.bz2/download). It worked fine the very first time; search returned results normally as it should.

I can see that you've installed Artha from source properly; but I'm skeptical of your WordNet installation. Can you please tell how you installed WordNet in your machine?

CupofDice
March 24th, 2010, 02:10 AM
@CupofDice (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=165588): I installed OpenSUSE 11.2 (with KDE 4.3) fresh in a virtual machine and tried searching for packages 'wordnet', 'wordnet-devel', 'libwordnet-devel' using the command
and all of them returned a "'package' not found" message. It is to be noted that the WordNet package is not yet available in the OpenSUSE official repositories. It's currently in their wishlist only (http://en.opensuse.org/Wishlist_Various); so wordnet cannot be installed from OpenSUSE's repositories with a single command; one has to install it from source.

So I downloaded WordNet's tarball from Princeton's site (http://wordnetcode.princeton.edu/3.0/WordNet-3.0.tar.bz2) and tried compiling its source; but for building WordNet from source, Tcl and Tk development headers are required (as told by WordNet build system). Hence I installed them by . Then I was able to successfully build and install WordNet (tried running command 'wnb' and searched some random terms in the thesaurus for which results got returned properly. Finally, I installed Artha from source (http://sourceforge.net/projects/artha/files/artha/1.0.1/artha-1.0.1.tar.bz2/download). It worked fine the very first time; search returned results normally as it should.

I can see that you've installed Artha from source properly; but I'm skeptical of your WordNet installation. Can you please tell how you installed WordNet in your machine?

Thanks legends2k. I followed your instructions, but they didn't work, but 'cnf wnb' told me that there was now a 'wordnet' package. Also, I have some repositories (like packman) which is where I think I got the other wordnet packages from. Not really sure though.

Opensuse handles repositories differently than Ubuntu and confuses me a bit.

But it is now working. Thanks again for the great app! :D

gvlists
April 19th, 2010, 12:32 AM
This is exactly the tool I was looking for as I am out of internet when I am travelling. Gnome-dictionary is almost not usable for me then. May be it is a wordweb hangover. The shortcut and notification feature of artha fits my requirement better. Thanks again.

go_beep_yourself
April 21st, 2010, 06:03 PM
Can Artha do Language to Other Language definitions and vise versa? That would be nice!

legends2k
April 22nd, 2010, 04:35 AM
@gvlists: Am glad it helps :)

@go_beep_yourself: No, it doesn't. Artha's primary goal is to be a very light thesaurus. I'm planning to make Artha work with more than one WordNet i.e. it works with the English WordNet now, but I want it to work with other language WordNets too; in fact, right now, any WordNet that follows English WordNet's format should work with Artha fine ~ so only integrations is something I'm trying to work on, but translations ~ nope. It would make it heavy.

theoryl
May 23rd, 2010, 03:03 PM
Thanks Legends2k for your awesome work! I really enjoy using your great app. I have one suggestion, which is to have a "history" that remembers the past queries. It will be useful for an English learner to remind himself of the unfamiliar words.

Thanks again!

legends2k
May 24th, 2010, 06:11 AM
Thanks for the compliments theoryl. Even I've been wanting to do Persistent History for some time now, but pushed it to the back of the ToDo list in favour of other ones, but now it's moved from the ToDo list to User's Wishlist; so yes, in version next to the coming one you'll have it :)

Attached is a sneak peek of the next release (M$ Windows version is imminent)!

theoryl
May 24th, 2010, 08:40 AM
Thank you in advance, I'll look forward to it! Although of course I'm already a happy Artha user without the "history" feature. =)

kltpzyxm
May 27th, 2010, 07:28 PM
Wow! Just wow! I never thought I'd come close to liking any app as much as WordWeb, but now, I can't stand to use WordWeb on Windows. Take a bow, legends2k. This is just an incredible program.

A couple of things:

1. I know you've included a hotkey editor, but I just can't seem to find it. The wiki says "press the hotkey button on the toolbar", but i don't see any hotkey button on the program's toolbar. I'm new to linux, so could anyone please give me a dummy's pointer to it? I'm using Ubuntu Lucid Lynx.

2. A feature request, if you're taking them: In WordWeb, I had gotten used to just clicking on a word (not highlighting it, just clicking on it) and hitting the hotkey to bring up the definition. Could the same functionality be brought to Artha?

Also, i'm with Mehr_o for the feature request to make the hotkey into a switch instead of the current "hotkey to bring it up, Esc to shut down" option.

legends2k
May 28th, 2010, 03:19 AM
Artha 1.0.2 (https://sourceforge.net/projects/artha/files/) released!

* Artha fully ported to Microsoft Windows ~ works on XP and above (both 32 & 64-bit)
* Notification turnaround should be a lot quicker
* Futile search notifications now show the searched word
* Lots of minor fixes

It's recommended to update to this release from now on :smile:

Please help me spread the word by suggesting your Windows friends to try Artha for Windows (http://sourceforge.net/projects/artha/files/artha/1.0.2/artha_1.0.2.0.exe/download), which is a better option than WordWeb Pro ~ WordWeb (free) doesn't have regex based search and only the Pro version (not free) has it; while Artha, apart from having the regex feature, it has additional ones like notifications, detailed mode, etc., above all it's open and free!

Linuxforall
May 28th, 2010, 03:24 AM
Is Artha supporting pronunciation yet via TTS files?

legends2k
May 28th, 2010, 03:26 AM
@kltpzyxm: Thanks a lot for your kind words of appreciation. I'm glad that Artha is of use to you. Here goes your replies:

1. Hotkey editor feature was implemented in 1.0.0 ~ so it'll be available on that or later versions of Artha; while Lucid Lynx repository has only 0.9.1. So I recommend that you install it via the deb file provided @ Artha's Homepage -> Download (http://artha.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download) section.

2. I'll check it's feasibility first. If so, I'll surely implement it. Although I should say that it isn't the top priority one in ToDo right now; it's the pronunciation feature requested by so many learners ~ once it's done, I'll look into this.

3. As for making the hotkey a switch ~ yes, I've noted it down in my ToDo list, you'll have it in the next release :)

Hope it helps!

legends2k
May 28th, 2010, 03:29 AM
@Linuxforall: I'm afraid, not yet. In the next release, textual phonetics will be displayed next to each word, since I've felt phonetics are the most proper way to learn the pronunciation properly; TTS is not human-like and is sometimes confusing. Although, it'll be implemented after phonetics option; probably both together in the next release. Sorry, if you've been expecting it dearly :(

Linuxforall
May 28th, 2010, 03:35 AM
@Linuxforall: I'm afraid, not yet. In the next release, textual phonetics will be displayed next to each word, since I've felt phonetics are the most proper way to learn the pronunciation properly; TTS is not human-like and is sometimes confusing. Although, it'll be implemented after phonetics option; probably both together in the next release. Sorry, if you've been expecting it dearly :(

legends2k,

No issues really, keep up your good work. The TTS sometimes gives a fair amount of idea on how close one is to the correct word and it comes in handy then.

Also do consider a ppa for Artha, that way it would automatically update to latest edition when released and users don't have to hunt for it.

legends2k
May 28th, 2010, 03:38 AM
@Linuxforall: Yeah, I should setup a PPA, it should be a lot helpful. Thanks for reminding me :)

Linuxforall
May 28th, 2010, 03:42 AM
With death of Stardict, your work now is more important than ever.

legends2k
May 28th, 2010, 03:54 AM
Startdict dead? I didn't know that. But hey, I tried http://stardict.sourceforge.net/ it seems to be normal?

Anyways, it's always sad to hear the death of an open-source project, the project's initial conceiver will feel bad more than anybody else :(

Linuxforall
May 28th, 2010, 04:03 AM
Development stopped a year back, there is Goldendict but the interface isn't as functional. Now the onus is on you. Also most critical dictionaries have gone missing from Stardict servers, Moby Thesarus being an important one.

kltpzyxm
May 28th, 2010, 05:09 AM
@legends2k Updated deb package worked perfectly, thanks :)

It's working smoothly and v1.2 seems to have much faster notification pop-ups than the 0.9 i was on. Great work!

yargy
June 17th, 2010, 05:30 AM
Hey I think it would be great if you could save a definition list as well! I use artha a lot when I am reading Ebooks, to lookup words so I think it would be handy to be able to save a list of words I looked up for each book that I read.

Also another feature that I think would be great would be if Artha could be integrated with http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ and things like wikipedia and also if it supported Bablyon dictionaries!

I really love Artha though and was thrilled to see a wordweb/bablyon replacement for linux. Thanks for everything!! Keep up the good work!!

sethupathy
June 18th, 2010, 08:11 AM
Actually it is available in ubuntu software centre... :-)

Linuxforall
June 18th, 2010, 08:15 AM
It is but I would rather have a ppa for getting latest one automatically.

meho_r
June 20th, 2010, 12:26 PM
@Linuxforall: I'm afraid, not yet. In the next release, textual phonetics will be displayed next to each word, since I've felt phonetics are the most proper way to learn the pronunciation properly; TTS is not human-like and is sometimes confusing. Although, it'll be implemented after phonetics option; probably both together in the next release. Sorry, if you've been expecting it dearly :(

This is a great news. Phonetics are essential indeed. I have two questions/suggestions, they may be "you-wish-too-much" stuff, but I'll still ask:

1. Is it possible to have hyphenation patterns for words, like Merriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/) dictionary?

2. Is it possible to link pronunciation of a word to some of online sources which have real speakers pronouncing the word, like Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/)?

Again, thanks for your effort, you've really made life easier for many of us. :)

uttam2707
June 25th, 2010, 07:44 PM
sir, if you make artha to show the past and past participle forms of the verbs also, it will be of more help. i know it is a thesaurus...even though...

pbenerjee
June 30th, 2010, 04:09 AM
Shame that I got to know about Artha only yesterday although it seems to be around for fairly long time.
I think enough has been rightly said about this great application. Its robustness, clean interface and hot key feature makes it an ideal candidate for being default dictionary in most distros.

Seriously, show me a better one. I think the default dictionary that came with GNOME applications menu is a crap (sorry to developers of that application). Artha should be immediately elevated to default dictionary item in main menu. Offcourse we ( me and wife) did it on our laptops.

I want to autostart Artha in Lucid Lynx. Which is the script/program I need to call ?

pbenerjee
June 30th, 2010, 04:51 AM
Hi, I got it myself. That was very simple.
From Main menu->System->Prefereces->Startup Applications
Click 'Add' then the command is artha

It rocks :guitar:

nomnex
July 1st, 2010, 06:58 AM
legends2k, congratulation for this app. I found reference to Artha on another thread about off-line dictionaries.

I would too welcome a PPA, and a word pronunciation feature.

a side-note reading the GUI:

- I would replace the star icon by the dictionary icon (star is commonly associated with the bookmark feature) or any other icon.

- Isn't there another exit button than this ugly red (qt look like) icon?

- an option to reduce the icon size (big, medium, small - no icon and some menus) would be welcome, the icons are a bit invasive one a small display.

But never mind, these are little details anyway.

legends2k
July 2nd, 2010, 02:05 AM
@nomex: Except for Artha's "open-book" dictionary icon, none other icons are packed with it i.e. they're taken from the users machine. Icons for QUIT, ABOUT, NOTIFY, etc. are stock icons used from the user's machine and are not pre-packed and shipped. Change your icon theme and you'll see them changed in your Artha window too. Revert in case you have confusions.

@pbenerjee: Thanks for the compliments, glad you like it :)

@uttam2707: That is a bit far fetched I guess, yet I'll add it to user's wish list.

@meho_r: I'm thinking of getting the pronunciation data from the English Wiktionary site, since it's the only database, I know of, that has pronunciation which is free to use, copy and redistribute. I'll see what I can do about the hyphenation pattern, it should be possible. And linking it to an on-line dict. site to have original pronunciation audio file is easy.

@yargy: I've noted down your request in saving word look up history/ Will be there in the next release. Although integrating Artha with on-line sites is not a short term goal, it's already there in the long term goals.

Pronunciation, hyphenation, persistent work look up history (savable to a file as well) and setting up a PPA are the prime concerns of the forth coming release, I'm yet to work on it since I'm a bit caught up personally and professionally too; however, I'll start working on it in a few days.

Hope it helps guys :)

nomnex
July 2nd, 2010, 03:56 AM
legends2k, good point regarding the icons. what about an option "Default size" | "Small size" in the widget toolkit? maybe other could tell?

I usually keep the GUI open with the option "always on top" when I look up for definitions. My screen size is small and the default title bar + the icons of Artha eat up quite a lot of space.

a way to minimize the GUI would come in handy. My reasoning is the pop-up windows is nice feature, but the information is a little sparse. "always on top" and moving the GUI over a text is a better option when I need to learn some definitions.

legends2k
July 3rd, 2010, 05:09 AM
May I know what is the machine you're using nomnex? Is it desktop or is it a mobile like Nokia N900 (Maemo)? Also minimizing, on a normal desktop machine should make Artha get iconified in the system tray area.

As for the toolbar icons display settings, it's also not part of Artha, but system settings controlled. If you want smaller ones or you what only text and not the icons, etc. go to System -> Preferences -> Appearances. In that choose Interface tab. Change the settings in the drop down combo Toolbar button labels.

Hope it helps :)

nomnex
July 3rd, 2010, 08:02 AM
The smaller machine is a Panasonic Let's note notebook CF-R9K 10' LCD, resolution 1024x768.

http://panasonic.jp/pc/products/r9k/index.html

The icon in the taskbar is nice, but the information available in the pop-up window is limited. A system wide change is not a convenient solution either.

Some GUI configurations to have a bar minimum window (e.g. icon, or/and title bar enabled/disabled) would be helpful when needing the full Artha features (i.e. having the Artha window open over a text file or a html page.) on a small LCD display.

whollycow
July 5th, 2010, 06:39 PM
Very useful! Thanks!

1) Any news on a ppa?
2) What about the ability to hide the icon in the notification area? It would be nice if it could run invisibly)
3) Any progress on integrating other languages? I'd like to brush up on my Italian...

brallan
July 6th, 2010, 10:03 AM
Artha should be immediately elevated to default dictionary item in main menu.?

You should know that the dictionaries and the programs are different. Artha (just like its proprietary equivalent Wordweb) is a front-end for Wordnet, but the development of wordnets in languages other than English (i don't know of a single one) is slow and inadecuate to make them useful for a multilingual distro like ubuntu. So unless many other-language wordnets were to be developed, this would be very hard to see at any point in the future.

But lets dream about that and meanwhile pass Artha on to all our english-speaking friends. (windows, too!) The more people who see how useful wordnet is, the more of us will be dreaming of other language wordnet projects!

brallan
July 6th, 2010, 10:47 AM
so happy to see that the windows version works, as i have been forced while traveling to use a friend's netbook with 7. I also updated the info on:

http://alternativeto.net/desktop/artha

let me know if anything needs changing.

quadraphenia
July 15th, 2010, 07:00 AM
:) Thank you for the share!
Makes life so much easier :KS:KS:KS:KS:KS

shan23
October 18th, 2010, 08:16 AM
Well - I know I'm a LOT late in congratulating the author for such a good and much-needed app - but the plus side is, all the suggestions are now implemented AFAIK, so I can just sit back and use it with my spanking new install of Ubuntu 10.10 !! It is killer apps like these that would make users switch over from Windows in future...

brallan
November 4th, 2010, 06:46 PM
Any reason not to include the regular expressions search capaility (wordnet-sense-index) by default?

This is one of the best features, and will convince many wordweb pro users to consider a freeware alternative or to help them consider migrating to linux, especially in crossword puzzle circles.

thanks for all your hard work, legends2k!


@sarthorks (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=612179): May I know how you installed Artha? What distro are you using? If it's Ubuntu, Artha's direct dependency is WordNet (package: wordnet); there's one more package by the name wordnet-sense-index, this is not a must-have dependency to run Artha but a recommended-to-have package which will enable the regex based search feature of Artha. If that is not installed, index.sense file will not be present in the path the error says about. If it's installed, you can make the regex-based search (*, ?, etc.). To install it in Ubuntu/Debian:



Try this, it should fix it; if not you can always ping me regd. the same. Hope it helps :)

@meho_r (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=281491): I've made a note of it, mate :) I'll see how I can fit it in.

legends2k
November 24th, 2010, 08:09 AM
Sorry for tha late reply guys, have been really caught up with many other things in life. In the coming weeks, I'm going to work on Artha :) I'm making a list of ToDo's for this (next post). If you wanna add more to it, please do.

@brallan: I do agree, regex search is one of the best features in Artha. In Debian, for creating deb package rules, there's Depends field where, only what is bare minimum necessary for the package to run should be added; since wordnet-sense-index is like a plug-in for Artha (i.e. Artha will work even wtihout it, but if found, it'll allow regex searches too) the Debian sponsor who allowed it inside Debian project said it shoulnd't be added, ideally. Hence I added it to the Recommends field; but I guess it can be added to Depends since it makes it the main differentiator.

@brallan & pbenerjee: WordNets for other languages are starting to get developed, I've seen some :D Once they're mature (i.e. they're inline with Eng. thesaurus protocols), I can try wrapping them up with Artha, which would unify all language WordNet usages into one simple app :)

@whollycow: In the coming release PPA and status icon invisible features will be done!

@nomnex: In the coming release, I'll try giving the feature of enabling/disabling the title bar, icons, etc. for smaller devices, where the job can be done by shortcuts.

legends2k
November 24th, 2010, 08:12 AM
ToDo list for the forthcoming release:

0. Phonetics, Hyphenation and Pronunciation
1. Bookmarks
2. Persistant and save-able history
3. Icon and Title bars (chrome) enable/disable or make smaller
4. Invisible status bar icon
5. Ctrl W/Q for Quit (aliging with Linux philosophy)
6. Starting a PPA
7. Getting the latest version in to Debian and thereby Ubuntu

vamsi_spr
December 28th, 2010, 10:44 AM
ToDo list for the forthcoming release:

0. Phonetics, Hyphenation and Pronunciation
1. Bookmarks
2. Persistant and save-able history
3. Icon and Title bars (chrome) enable/disable or make smaller
4. Invisible status bar icon
5. Ctrl W/Q for Quit (aliging with Linux philosophy)
6. Starting a PPA
7. Getting the latest version in to Debian and thereby Ubuntu

Thumbs up bro ...looking forward for this release , tired of emulating wordweb in wine ..really in need of all these features !!

coldraven
March 22nd, 2011, 12:42 PM
Hi legends2k, Thanks for Artha, it's extremely handy.
Just to inform you that none of the images will enlarge at
http://artha.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Home
Keep up the good work :)

spinifex
April 30th, 2011, 07:15 PM
Another pat on the back for you legends2k.

I have been using WordWeb in XP for years and, to be honest, it was the dealbreaker when it came to using Linux.

Really, this is fantastic.

I have been stuffing around with WordWeb in Wine, it (WordWeb) throwing up errors here and there, and basically just not working seamlessly, and came across your App whilst troubleshooting.

Artha is excellent. I love it! I really do. Thankyou for building this. It has saved me much heartache.

FYI, am actually using Fedora 14-64 and got it straight from the repo but wordnet-sense-index isn't in the Fedora repo so not sure if I have all the Artha features enabled.

I can't wait for future builds as you increase the feature set. But, hey, it already does what I need.

Really good work. Well done!

marl30
April 30th, 2011, 07:38 PM
I've been using this dictionary ever since I found it. It's quite handy, especially with the ctr+alt+w shortcut for quickly looking up highlighted words. It works well with OOo/LO.

legends2k
May 1st, 2011, 05:59 AM
@spinifwex: From what I remember last, Fedora repos doesn't have wordnet-sense-index separately, it's already part of the wordnet package! So I think you already have the full working Artha installed :) Thanks for the appriciation, but I've to admit that I've not updated Artha for quite a long time now, it's high-time that I should really have to dive deep into it.

@marl30: Thanks man.

Copper Bezel
May 1st, 2011, 07:03 AM
I hadn't seen this before. Sweet tool; I've been wondering if something like this existed. I love the regular expression searches! = )

(I wonder if an option to disable the system tray icon might be offered? If Artha's bound to a keystroke, it doesn't seem to be needed, and even if it's set to Notify, running the app again loads the full UI.)

Edit: Mistyped something.

spinifex
May 2nd, 2011, 06:29 AM
@spinifwex: From what I remember last, Fedora repos doesn't have wordnet-sense-index separately, it's already part of the wordnet package! So I think you already have the full working Artha installed :) Thanks for the appriciation, but I've to admit that I've not updated Artha for quite a long time now, it's high-time that I should really have to dive deep into it.

@marl30: Thanks man.

Yeah, Artha is working. I don't think its missing anything. I do have WordWeb still installed, but it is buggy.

PLEASE PLEASE do some more work on Artha. I can't wait. I love it. WordWeb, as I said before, (and this sounds insane) is what kept me bound to XP for several years. All the other Linux Dictionaries just don't cut it. Now, Artha isn't 'perfect' BUT its Bl**dy good ... and I have it running right now.

Would you consider taking 'feature requests'????? Seriously, this is a showcase piece of software you have here. I would even pay you for it (or donate) if you added some more features and prettied it up. I have PAID over $200 bucks for WordWeb and updates etc since Version 2 years ago. WordWeb is VERY usable and intuitive. I do love it. But running it through Wine is just too buggy. Artha just WORKS!..... and works well..

Seriously, I encourage you to expand the feature set. I have come across a few words not in Artha that are in WordWeb so not sure about the database WordWeb uses.

Also, I like the Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives etc buttons in WordWeb. That would be something to consider as it ads to the cross functionality.

BIGGIE of a request, some how integrate it into OpenOffice spell check???? WOOOOHOOOOO.... yeah!!!! now your talking... but I am totally out of my depth there....

One thing with Artha I am trying to get use to and that is Tabing through definitions, synonyms etc. It is a bit more drawn out. But, I still love it.

Its the best Linux Thesaurus I've used so far. Please keep it up... :)

silent_shade
May 4th, 2011, 01:12 PM
thanks! lovely piece of software. since i cannot work around some weird problem with dictd server on my machine, Artha IS oh, so very welcome

CentralCaFan
May 11th, 2011, 06:49 PM
Problem with fonts rendering for description paragraph in entries with Artha. Instead what displays are consecutive square boxes where if I copy and paste into my browser search area the text from the description area for the entry displays.

I have KDE (version installed with) Kubuntu 11.04.

I like Artha, prefer it to KThesaurus for one because KThesaurus would require part or all of KOffice which I don't use.

(I've searched for a bit in various places for an answer, Googled, here on this forum site and on the Artha application page, but found no solution yet. Should this have been a separate post?)

spinifex
June 27th, 2011, 06:38 PM
Interested in Keyboard Shortcuts for Artha.

Are there any? I haven't been able to locate any.

Keyboard Shortcuts would be a boon for Artha's usability.

When will 1.0.2 be updated in the Redhat/Fedora Repo?

nomnex
July 6th, 2011, 12:10 PM
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/artha-1.0.2-1.fc14?_csrf_token=c53962164183b33e8c23ba434778027 d6b5345e2

it's there.

twipley
July 16th, 2011, 03:05 AM
Hello legends2k, hope you are going well.

Version 3.1 is now out, how cool is that?
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

I think that the WordNet project is a very important one. Language is just everything, in this world of ours.

I have given some feedback the other night, see:
https://answers.launchpad.net/artha/+question/163342

Please forgive the "ugliness" mentions. Overall, this is an application I would recommend any day to any one.

Peace out,
twipley

rkanth
August 6th, 2011, 06:22 PM
Hi. Thanks for a very useful software.
Is there any way I can add Artha's functionality to right-click menu? like, I highlight a word and right-click it to choose something like 'look up with artha'?
2. Is there a way to have only one shortcut key-combo for Artha? It changes between ctrl+alt+q to ctrl+alt+a to ctrl+alt+w etc. everytime I launch the program.
Thanks

legends2k
August 8th, 2011, 04:15 AM
Thanks for the comments. As for your questions:

i. Right now the right-click functionality is not there. The hot key/shortcut key feature is for this purpose only.
ii. The shortcut key you've set for Artha should stay the same forever unless you change it. If it changes without your intervention, then it's a bug. Can you please tell me what you've done? Or the steps to reproduce this bug.

anieruddha
August 9th, 2011, 03:52 PM
simple interface. do what it suppose to do. Great and keep it up.
Thanks just downloaded and installed it.
Will use regularly

Why u name "artha" because of word "अर्थ"

Kushal Sejwal
August 31st, 2011, 10:55 AM
Hi Sundaram,

I have been eagerly awaiting for the pronunciation feature which I see in the "sneak peaks of the next release"

Any updates, when we should expect the next version?

Thanks,

Kushal

legends2k
September 1st, 2011, 06:53 PM
@Kushal: The problem of Artha with pronunciation getting delayed this much is that there're not any open source phonetic database available. Even if text to speech engines are available, it's customized to a specific region (en_GB, en_US, en_IN, etc.), while Artha depends on WordNet which is region agnostic, hence tying it up with a specific region's pronunciation would be killing of it's generic behaviour. Even libhypen which provides hypenates (breaks down) complex words into syllables for easy pronunciation has the same issue. Thus the delay :(

sffvba[e0rt
September 1st, 2011, 06:55 PM
Cool... didn't know there was an Artha thread... just like to say I think it is an awesome application :)


404

Docaltmed
September 1st, 2011, 10:36 PM
Artha is simply the Best Program I Have Ever Used. I use it multiple times daily.

Thank you!!!!

tumerictj
September 9th, 2011, 05:46 AM
I love Artha and am so thankful that you made such a practical and crucial contribution to the open-source community.

My one complaint is that I can't figure out how to increase the font size.

Thank you.

rojaasensei
September 9th, 2011, 08:40 AM
I just discovered Artha last week. It's a great addition to my Xubuntu desktop.

anshulfy
October 16th, 2011, 03:03 PM
I was looking for a similar app........thanks for the info :)

altocumulus
February 5th, 2012, 12:37 PM
I've just discovered artha as an alternative to wordweb, and it's an interesting app. However, in contrast to wordweb, artha does not provide the phonetic/syllable info of words....Would that be a possible addon sometime ?;)

legends2k
February 7th, 2012, 03:24 AM
@altocumulus: Thanks for your compliments; as for the phonetic/syllable info, if you follow up this thread, you'll see that I couldn't locate a single open-source/GPL'd English phonetic database that is up to the mark to be used; hence this state.

It would be much appreciated if someone point me to such a free, open-source English phonetic database.

twipley
February 15th, 2012, 04:15 PM
Just as a curiosity, and feelings on how it seems to be taking such a long time for the new version database files to be released?

Also, I realize I have not been given any feedback on both of my ideas. Perhaps, re-reading it again after such a long time, I had been unjustly harsh in my wording choice. If this is the case, then let me apologize, and restate everything anew.

Let this turn into a brainstorm, then! ;)

(1) is it just me, or word tags such as "rare" or "common" do not seem to fit well, in esthetical terms, in the overall interface? Or perhaps are they part of the official database files, and that is the reason for their inclusion? If this is the case, I would really like to be able to disable those mentions through a setting toggle, though;

(2) WordWeb (well, I guess most reading this thread are already familiar with it) had a feature through which one could click on chosen "meaning numbers," which would then produce synonym highlighting for that specific word meaning. I think that might be a nice addition to Artha in the future, although I am aware that the reverse feature, which is returning through highlighting the specific meaning number following a click on a chosen synonym, is already implemented and working well.

Hope those criticisms are now a little more constructive. Let us contribute for the better to this flowering open-source world, then! :)

bobchillaxed
March 17th, 2012, 11:33 AM
Is Artha still being updated?

sunfromhere
April 26th, 2012, 10:38 PM
I just recently discovered this program and it's great.
However, notifications don't work in Ubuntu 12.04 (I have libnotify installed).
Anyone got it going?

go_beep_yourself
May 10th, 2012, 03:14 AM
For those of you that like Text To Speech (TTS) Software, this is a new one and best one hands down I've found for linux.

http://linuxinnovations.blogspot.com/2012/05/jspeak-ultimate-in-linux-text-to-speach.html

squidlips89
June 12th, 2012, 03:50 AM
Is there a way to add your own words and definitions into Artha? That would be completely amazing! :guitar:

twipley
August 28th, 2012, 01:21 AM
Is there a way to add your own words and definitions into Artha? That would be completely amazing! :guitar:

I always have been seeing Artha as a GUI to WordNet, and nothing more, though.

A yummy GUI though, indeed! (A sure alternative to the official WordNet-Browser GUI.)

legends2k
October 16th, 2012, 09:00 AM
I've finally gotten enough time to release a new version of Artha, this version has the following in it:



One-the-fly search/filtering (http://artha.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Features#On-the-fly_Search) of wordnet terms as you type
Lookup history made persistant (http://artha.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Features#Persistant_History); can be cleared or stored for user's reference
Status/tray icon display now made optional
Familiarity/Polysemy count display now made optional
Show window on startup made optional
Lots of bug fixes

http://artha.sourceforge.net/wiki/images/0/09/Autocomplete.png


Apologies for not yet implementing the most sought-after feature of "Pronunciation", I surely hope that it will be in next release.

stinkeye
October 16th, 2012, 09:32 AM
Thank you very much for this update, specifically the reimplementation of
the notifications.
One of my first installed applications.
Do you have a way to donate or somewhere you would like a donation sent?

twipley
November 18th, 2012, 08:50 PM
legends2k: wow very nice, i'm glad i've checked this topic back.

download link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/artha/files/artha/

the new interface feels great! :)

does 1.0.3 include the latest, 3.1 wordnet database files?
-- http://wordnetcode.princeton.edu/wn3.1.dict.tar.gz

twipley
November 18th, 2012, 09:13 PM
Just some feature requests in case you would be craving for them. :)


It would be nice to be able to highlight particular senses directly by clicking on the margin numbers. WordWeb (which this application replaces) does this, and it is quite convenient. One can that way see, in a fast manner, which relatives (e.g., synonyms) stand for each sense.

For example, having looked for "great," one could click on its second meaning, "of major significance or importance," and then the "outstanding" synonym would get highlighted, which is linked to that particular sense.

Of course, the converse feature works (returning sense highlighting through selecting specific relatives), although it might not be as convenient in all cases.


Another feature suggestion would be to link a combo such as "alt+left" to the back button, and "alt+right" to the next-search-term one, which would permit increased comfort of keyboard navigation.

Nice again to see the app being improved. Kudos. ;)

Beardedturtle
November 19th, 2012, 01:33 AM
sudo gdebi artha_1.0.2-1_amd64.deb

When i put this command in it will say not a valid command.

Edit I got it to install via the software center

ottadini
December 9th, 2012, 06:59 AM
Are there any command-line options?

I would like to call artha from another programme, by supplying a selected word to artha and have it return suggestions.

twipley
December 16th, 2012, 04:20 PM
I feel like I am monopolizing the topic. :oops:

Take it as a compliment towards software-greatness recognition, though. :)

I was wondering the reason no WordNet GUI to date uses the 3.1 database. Is it because the guys over at Princeton have not yet published the necessary files for 3.1 to be available offline? (Just curious.)

twipley
December 20th, 2012, 09:25 PM
Bug report: I have installed this on some Windows-XP machines, although upon moving its window Artha freezes and then crashes (a minute or so later).

The workaround is not to move the window, or to maximize it on start, so as to prevent it being movable. The problem remained even using custom settings. Take note that the freeze are happening on Windows XP, although this is a custom operating-system built of mine that I have installed here and there. However, I have never seen an incompatibleness between this distro and custom software, except this one.

Cheers!

patrick-gelin
December 18th, 2013, 09:18 PM
Thank you for this excellent software ! I would like to know how you edit the content of the thesaurus ? My idea where to edit content with my own french words for professionnal needs. Is-it possible ? Thank you for your response.

rewyllys
December 22nd, 2013, 12:26 PM
To Legends2k:
Many thanks for Artha! I've used it for several years, and find it invaluable.

LillyDragon
December 26th, 2013, 04:35 AM
I have to chime in myself to praise Artha! It has been my go-to thesaurus and dictionary for everything for the past two years, on both Windows and Linux. I can't remember the last time I visited Thesaurus.com! (It loaded slowly anyway. =P) Artha has put any new or barely used word I want to know instantaneously at my fingertips, I love it.