[aspell-devel] Re: Help Save Aspell From being Removed from

[Laura nmi Michaels]

> Andriy Rysin wrote:
> 1. Architecture-dependent dictionaries, I see really no reason in
> making dictionary arch-dependent, and to keep users updated on the
> dictionaries I have to create one for each architecture or let them
> compile it (which for end users is not quite nice).
>...
> 2. No win platform support, it seems that this problem was part of 
> why big projects (OOo and FF) went the other way for hunspell. 

There's a project called xdxf which is attempting to create a dictionary 
interchange format.  It's for more complex dictionary programs like Stardict 
which can give definitions and parts of speech usage, etc., but no reason it 
can't be used for storing just words as well.  The nice part about the 
project is they're attempting to make a universal format that you can 
convert dictionaries to and from so they will work with various dictionary 
programs.  Again, the problem is no Windows support.  I looked at their 
makedict tool and just could not get it to compile on Windows.  It turned 
out easier to put information in Babylon format and import with Stardict's 
tool to create a dictionary.  Anyway, I thought it was a nice concept to 
make good use of xml and be able to convert to whatever format is needed.  
Since it's in xml, you can also any xml tools like xmlstarlet.

Sincerely,
Laura
http://www.distasis.com/cpp