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Why isn't DSLGD even considered here ?

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Why isn't DSLGD even considered here ?

Postby medwatt » Fri Aug 01, 2014 8:48 am

Hello,
I've been using Goldendict for about 2 years now and to say its the best dictionary is a gross understatement. I have about 40 of the best dictionaries in English from Oxford to who-knows-what. Its because of Goldendict that I've been able to add at least 5000 new words to my vocabulary and the number is growing. I've also created a few dictionaries (about 5) mainly using scanned PDF formats of these dictionaries. You can find them online at: http://forum.ru-board.com/.
However, it was in the midst of creating a Physics encyclopedia that I became aware or at least realised the inherent weakness of the DSL format. The DSL format only includes a modicum of HTML tags that are necessary for displaying texts. Luckily, someone has taken the initiative and improved Goldendict to understand more tags, the manifestation which is called GoldenDict + DSLGD. It includes the much needed [tbl] tag along with myriad others. Discovering it was happy coincidence only to realise later that its not supported as one would expect. For one all those fellows at forum.ru-board seem to totally ignore it and instead continue to find very crude workarounds such as saving tabular data as mere jpg images. So I ask the question why ?? Why the apparent lack of interest ?
Thanks.
PS: I have been using GoldenDict + DSLGD and have also created dictionaries which take advantage of the new tags but cannot share them because most tags are unrecognised by GoldenDict. You can check out GoldenDict + DSLGD at : http://forum.ru-board.com/topic.cgi?for ... &start=140
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Re: Why isn't DSLGD even considered here ?

Postby dg333 » Fri Aug 01, 2014 7:25 pm

1. It’s a fork.
2. It keeps on being published violating the GPL (i. e., so far no source code has been published).
3. Who cares about HTML codes?
4. Conclusion: it sucks. It does not add anything valuable, yet it compromises compatibility with mainstream DSL.
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Re: Why isn't DSLGD even considered here ?

Postby medwatt » Sat Aug 02, 2014 5:33 am

Thanks for your reply. The only reason why I am talking about DSLGD is because it has an added [tbl] tag which is very valuable. The dictionaries that I create are Physics based and have many tables. Using the current workaround technique is inconceivable given the amount of data. I understand that the DSL format was introduced by Abbyy. I wonder why the developers of Goldendict are reluctant to add few more tags to extend the functionality without compromising the comparability of old dictionaries; by that I mean structural tags, not formatting tags. Surely, adding a single [tbl] tag will not have any effect of DSLs that don't make use of it.
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Re: Why isn't DSLGD even considered here ?

Postby dg333 » Sat Aug 02, 2014 6:06 am

How many dictionaries using DSLGD are there? One or two? Then why should the developers bother? Of course, they can have other reasons. Also, DSL has never been meant to be for logical markup, solely for visual. If you want something logical, try XDXF instead.
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Re: Why isn't DSLGD even considered here ?

Postby medwatt » Sat Aug 02, 2014 7:56 am

I've checked xdxf before. It doesn't have a strong visual appeal. After all thats my original intention. I believe one of the reasons why DSLGD is not gaining grounds is due to the lack of transparency on the developer's otherwise it transcends the dictionary creation. Dictionaries are after all meant to be read by the human eye, therefore visual appeal should be the rule rather than the exception. The short-sightedness of the good folks at ABBYY might be due to the fact that they didn't expect their product to reach this far.
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Re: Why isn't DSLGD even considered here ?

Postby ikm » Sun Aug 03, 2014 10:33 am

The author of DSLGD has generally been unwilling to cooperate with the rest of the community. The general consensus is that DSL should only be extended and maintained by ABBYY. Creating forks of the language would hurt everyone in that ecosystem. If the DSL format is not up to the task, another format should just be used. For instance, Stardict format allows including pure unconstrained html.

On the other hand, if the goal is to create a new, better format, then DSL just doesn't feel like the best foundation to start with.
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