gWaei is a Japanese-English dictionary program for the GNOME desktop.

gWaei   is a Japanese-English dictionary program for the GNOME desktop. It is made to be a modern drop in replacement for Gjiten with many of the same features.

The dictionary files it uses are from Jim Breen's WWWJDIC project and are installed separately through the program.

Features.

    Easy dictionary installation with a click of a button.
    Support for searching using regular expressions.
    Streams results so the interface is never frozen.
    Click Kanji in the results pane to look information on it.
    Simple interface that makes sense.
    Intelligent design. Tab switches dictionaries.
    Organizes relevant matches to the top of the results.

Download and Install.

gWaei 3.2.x's dependencies are:

    gtk+-3.0 >= 3.2.x
    gsettings-desktop-schemas
    libcurl >= 7.21.x
    enchant
    gnome-doc-utils >= 2.20.x
    ttf-kanjistrokeorders

The gWaei download is available from the Sourceforge download page.

1. Features

gWaei has a number of features. Many of them are enabled through installing specific things. You can find out what is available and how to get it working by looking at the "Features" tab in the setting dialog. The major ones are listed below.

1.1. Searching Features

gWaei will do it's best to return the most relevant results. The best ones are organized to the top. A bit farther down, example phrases are shown if available. As you keep going, much like searching in Google, the results will become more and more irrelevant.

Most searches in gWaei support regular expressions. You don't need to be an expert in them to find ways to put them to good use. A way for beginners to get started is to use the insert menu where descriptive names have been used to the characters to to give clues what they do. For a small tutorial on regular expressions, please refer to the Advanced Searching section of this manual.

 

1.2. Kanjipad

Kanjipad is a very simple program for Kanji handwriting recognition. In gWaei's version of it, the user draws a character onto the canvas of the window. With each stroke added, Kanjipad makes new guess at what Kanji character you likely want. By clicking the kanji that appear to the right of the canvas, they will be copied to the search input for you.

1.3. Kanji and Radicals Dictionary Features

Each dictionary on it's own enables features in gWaei. The Kanji dictionary allows you click Kanji in the results pane to quickly look up in the Kanji sidebar. The Radicals dictionary enables the "Radical Search Tool" menu item. When both dictionaries are installed, the "Radical Search Tool" also has a stroke count spinner button.

The Kanji and Radicals dictionaries each provide different information that the other doesn't about individual Kanji characters. Because of this, when they are both installed a file called Mix in the ~/.waei folder will be created, combining the features of both into one. When doing searches from that point on, the Kanji dictionary selection will now use the Mix dictionary file and the Radicals dictionary selection will be hidden.

1.4. Update Dictionary Feature

When Rsync is installed, it is possible for gWaei to update the installed dictionaries through the EDICT Rsync servers with the click of the Update button. This is preferable to doing a straight reinstall, saving the EDICT server's bandwidth, thus saving the maintainers money.

Note: If the Update button in the Preferences dialog is still disabled even though Rsync is installed, it is likely gWaei was compiled on a machine where Rsync was not available at build time. In those cases, the dictionary update mechanism is perminently disabled.

Screenshots.

 

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