New Sindarin Dictionary application

[Lúthien]

I finished the database!

[Eryniel]

YAY

[Lúthien]

[youtube][/youtube]Progress ...

I decided to switch over to another interface toolkit. Java Swing is getting deprecated slowly, and since last fall there's a wonderful new thing called JavaFX2. With that you can create things that were previously unheard of in Java.
For now I just ported the existing dictionary functionality to JavaFX2, with the addition of having the English - Sindarin, German - Sindarin and Sindarin - German / English on three different tabs. This makes switching easier and more intuitive.
From here on, we'll go add some missing entries, and then create new functionality such as loading / saving of data-sets, adding custom entries, etcetera.

Here's an impression of the new version:



If you want to try it out yourself let me know. This app needs the JavaFX2 runtime; it does not run on just Java alone. You can download this JavaFX2 runtime free of charge from Oracle at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javafx/downloads/index.html (windows version)
OSX and Linux developer preview versions van be obtained here: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javafx/downloads/devpreview-1429449.html

[Ar-Curunir]

Hi Luthien,

Is it possible to obtain the source code for Ithildin? I'd like to take a look at your database, and the code at Sourceforge is no longer available . Thanks!

[Lúthien]

Of course!
I have it as a Netbeans project, which includes the SQLite database. Last time I checked it had a build error, but that's probably something trivial.

Hey, I'm really glad that someone else is interested
My problem when I am the only one "pulling the cart" is that I can only keep up motivation to work on it for a few weeks. It's too much a vacuum, without anyone to be talk to about it. This doesn't apply to the others here who were working on the data themselves - I mean the coding.

You know what - I'll check the Sourceforge site and if possible, I will check it in there. If it takes too long, I can ftp it here on the server.

And of course, welcome on the forum!

[Lúthien]

ok, I'm setting up the SF repository now. Since it works with mercurial and I've never used that before, I need to figure out a couple of things .. but it shouldn't be too long.

[Lúthien]

OK, I have committed the source code to Sourceforge. If you click the Browse Code button on the project page you should see the two Mercurial repositories at https://sourceforge.net/projects/ithildin/.
The ithildin repository contains the application itself - including database. The database is a single file under /lib called ithildin-13-11-11.db. There are all sorts of handy GUI tools to manage / view SWLite databases with - including a Firefox plugin.
I just tried, and the project builds and runs fine on Netbeans 7.2 (7.3 is the latest, which will presumably work as well). You will need to install a recent version of Java - a very late 1.6 plus JavaFX or 1.7, which comes bundled with JavaFX. I didn't try yet to run it outside of the IDE - learning to deal with Mercurial took up all the available time tonight, I'm afraid! I might try that tomorrow.

The other repository contains the preloader, which I am unsure of whether it really does anything at the moment you needn't bother with it this time anyhow, the .jar is included in the ithildin app anyhow.

Let me know how it goes!

[Ar-Curunir]

Hi Luthien!

Thanks for uploading the code at such short notice! I'll definitely have a look at the database and try to fit it into my project over at github:

https://github.com/CurunirAran/e2s

I could help with the coding for Ithildin, but as you'll find out pretty soon if you read my code, I'm rather new to database AND GUI programming. In fact I learnt how to parse XML documents and use Swing in a couple of days just for this project. So while I'm a quick learner, I'm not very experienced with programming large applications. However, I'd like to help in anyway I can.

Thanks again!

[Lúthien]

I haven't looked at your project yet (I'm in the train right now) but are you directly using the XML, like Didier's application did?

I wanted to switch to using a relational DB because I find XML both performs not very well, and is quite inflexible. Despite what you can do with XSL or whatever, there's no easy way to add data to it other than editing it directly. I admit that it's also a personal preference: I'm just not too fond of working with XML - I find thinking in relational terms easier.

I wrote a perl parser to convert Didier's TEI XML schema into a series of SQL statements, but since Aran (and others from Sindarin.de) have released a more recent data-set, I have switched to using that one instead.

This it not, however, a large application - its only a small database, and for now does only read. There are plans to allow users to add notes, their own constructions and possibly a submit-option to a centrally managed "central dictionary".

I stopped using Swing in favour of JavaFX because it offers a much better look & feel, and it's possible to deploy it online and as a desktop application.

Anyhow, it's great that someone's interested - regardless of how you'd want to contribute.