Ancient Wisdom for the Modern Mind ™

Download Dictionary Search 1.0, a free utility for searching glossaries and dictionary databases. Designed for the Ranjung Yeshe Tibetan-English dictionary database (personal version), you can also use the program to search any glossary or database of your choosing.

The utility speeds searches of the personal edition of the Tibetan-English dictionary using technology developed for our on-line search engine. You can search only for Tibetan terms, or search for English terms as well. After you get search results, you can search those results for any word using the "find" function. You can also use the right click button to quickly search for any words you find in the results.

Download the file. (The program and instructions are contained in a 187k zip file.)

HOW TO USE THIS PROGRAM

There are three basic steps to using the program.  First tell the program where a glossary file is located.  Next  activate the glossary file of interest (you can only search through one glossary file at a time).  Finally, search for words.

1.  Telling the program where the glossary is located.

From the Options menu, select Edit Glossary File List. There should be at least one entry in the list called dsample.txt. This is a sample glossary that was created using Microsoft Word. 

If you wish to add the Ranjung Yeshe Concise Dharma Dictionary to the set of Glossary Files, press the Add File button.  An Open dialog box will appear.

In the dialog box, find the Concise Dharma Dictionary on your hard drive (it may be named "cd" depending on the version). Click on the file name and press the Open button.

The Concise Dharma Dictionary file name will now appear in the Glossary File List.

Now click on the x button in the upper right corner to dismiss the dialog box.

2.  Activating the glossary file of interest

Select the glossary file name of interest in the Glossary Files drop-down menu in the main window.

This file will now be the active dictionary file.

3.  Searching for words in the glossary

In the small window at the top, type the Tibetan term of interest in Wylie transliteration.  For example, type the word khang.  Then press Search or hit the Enter key.  After a brief moment, all the definitions in the glossary that start with the word khang will appear in the bottom window.

Next try pressing the Search All button.  After a brief moment, all the definitions in the glossary that contain the word khang will appear in the bottom window.

The Search All button can also be used for finding Tibetan equivalents for English words.  Simply type the English word and press the Search All button.

4.  Quick search in the bottom window

Once definitions appear in the bottom window, you will likely want to search for additional terms that are in the window.  A quick way to do this is to select the word(s) using the mouse and then click the right mouse button.  A popup menu will appear allowing you to search for the words.

HOW TO ADD YOUR OWN GLOSSARY FILES

Open the dsample.txt file in a word processor.  Notice that dsample.txt is a text file and that every definition begins with a phrase followed by a hyphen.  The definition then follows the hyphen. Also notice that every definition consists of exactly one line of text and that there are no blank lines in between definitions.

In order to create a glossary file that can be searched by dsearch simply make sure that the file satisfies the following rules:

1.  The file is a text file

2.  Every definition begins with a phrase followed by a hyphen followed by the definition

3.  Every definition consists of exactly one line of text (exactly one carriage return is used in ending the definition) and there are no blank lines in between definitions.

Once you have created a text file satisfying these rules, you can then add the glossary file to the search program by telling the program where the glossary file is located. (See instructions above.)