1. Launch V&N Lookup (for instance by double-clicking its icon) and if you have the registration code then enter it (if you do not have one just click Not Yet).
2. Choose Preferences from the File menu.
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3. Press the Add V&N Dictionary to List button.
4. Locate any Verbs&Nouns dictionary you have, by using the standard navigation dialog box. When you have located a dictionary you want to use with V&N Lookup, select it in the dialog box. The dictionary you select will be listed in the Preferences window, above the button.
ﾂ Icon of Verbs&Nouns Dictionary
(the main file and the corresponding 'keys' file).
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 to add more dictionaries to the list. To remove a dictionary from the list just select it and choose Clear from the Edit menu. Alternatively you can press the Backspace/Delete key.
As an alternative to steps 3 and 4 you can drag the icons of Verbs&Nouns dictionaries into the icon of V&N Lookup program.
6. Set the check-boxes if needed. You can learn about the meaning of these boxes in the following paragraphs. The check-boxes at left-hand side of the window are used for word searching and the right-hand side part is responsible for the spelling checker functions.
7. Select the spelling dictionary you want to use, by pressing the Select Spelling Dictionary button and using the standard navigation dialog box. V&N Lookup comes complete with an American-English spelling dictionary (it is normally pre-selected). If you want to check English text, select this in the dialog box. Alternatively you can double-click on icon of the chosen spelling dictionary.
ﾂ Icon of Spelling Dictionary
(the main file and the corresponding 'keys' file).
8. Click the OK button.
Note about dictionaries. The files used by this application are called dictionaries. Every dictionary consists of two files - main file and the associated keys file. There are two sorts of dictionaries (they use different icons):
窶｢ Verbs&Nouns Dictionaries are databases created with the Verbs&Nouns application. They contain the foreign language words, their translations, grammar information, and comments. The inflection dictionaries also contain the complete inflection of each word (its declension or conjugation).
窶｢ Spelling Dictionaries are databases created with the V&N Lookup application. They contain lists of words for the spelling-checker. Spelling-dictionaries based on Verbs&Nouns inflection-dictionaries also contain references to the basic forms of words. You can use these references for an 'in depth' search. For example if you add the 'Italian Verbs' inflection-dictionary to your spelling-dictionary then searching for the word sono will find the verb essere.
If you plan to use the program with different sets of dictionaries then you can define several working sets. Click on the New button to create the new set. Then repeat steps 3. to 7. for each set. To switch sets you should use the Sets menu item (see Appendix B).
Searching.
You can go to any text-based file currently open on your computer, select a word or part of it and copy it to the clipboard (竚呂 ). Now you can switch to V&N Lookup to see the following Vocabulary window. The text that you copy has to be shorter than 23 characters to allow a search to be made. Alternatively you can drag a word or a part of the word into the Vocabulary window (it is only possible if your Mac OS supports Drag&Drop - System 7.5 or later).
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You can see a list of words at the left-hand side of the window. These are the words that are the closest to your query. If an exact match exists, then the matching word is selected and the information about it is displayed.
You can select any other word from the list. If the same word is included in two dictionaries then you can click it again to see the second entry (for example the Italian word essere can be used as a noun, 'being', or as a verb, 'to be', and you can click on essere to switch between these meanings). The program allows you to make entries in a Comment-box. Your entries or changes to existing entries are automatically saved to disk.
You can also select Find by pressing 竚炉 or by choosing it from the File menu and entering the word (or the beginning of the word) there. You can also search for the native word (the program treats all words presented in the translation-box as native, and words presented at the left-hand side scroll list as foreign words - for example if you use English to German dictionary then foreign are the English words).
There are four check-boxes in the Preferences window related to word-searching:
窶｢ Show in alphabetical order? - If this box is left unchecked, words from different dictionaries are presented in separate groups. If it is checked, then all the words that are the closest to your query are sorted alphabetically in a single group.
窶｢ Use Spelling Dictionary? - You can check this box to perform an 'in depth' search. For example, if you have added the 'Italian Verbs' inflection-dictionary to your default spelling dictionary, and you search for the word sono, then the word essere will be found because sono is the first-person form of the Italian verb essere.
窶｢ Use sys. script for word bounds? - You should uncheck this box if you use non-Roman font with the Roman system script.
窶｢ Play sound? - If the database contains pre-recorded sound samples then the program will play sound associated with the word that has been found.
Tip. Option-click on any word in the Comment-box, Translation window, or the Spelling Checker window will show explanation for this word in the Vocabulary window. Option-click on any word inside the translation-box will find the 'back-references' for this translation.
The program cannot search a password-protected dictionary until the password has been entered (use the program Verbs&Nouns to enter the password for each dictionary).
To try out the program you can download dictionaries that are not protected by passwords and play with them. Examples are:
Italian Verbs - ftp://mirrors.aol.com//pub/info-mac/edu/lang/
Italian Nouns - ftp://mirrors.aol.com//pub/info-mac/edu/lang/
English Dictionary - ftp://ftp.pht.com/pub/mac/pht/e/english-dictionary.sit.hqx
English to German Dictionary - ftp://mirrors.aol.com//pub/info-mac/edu/lang/
English to Spanish Dictionary - ftp://mirrors.aol.com//pub/info-mac/edu/lang/
Dictionary of Computing - ftp://mirrors.aol.com//pub/info-mac/edu/lang/
English Nouns - ftp://mirrors.aol.com//pub/info-mac/edu/lang/
You can check the spelling of any text that you copy to the clipboard. Here is the Spelling Checker window:
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To check spelling you should copy the text to be checked from any text-window to the clipboard (the text you copy cannot be longer than 31,000 characters - about 8 pages A4). Then switch to V&N Lookup and press 竚櫓 or choose Check Spelling from the File menu. If you select automatic checking (by clicking the words auto off at the bottom of the Spelling Checker window so it shows auto on) then you don't usually need to press 竚櫓 (but for passages of text longer than 20,000 characters you always have to press 竚櫓). Alternatively you can drag the selected text into the Spelling Checker window (it is only possible if your Mac OS supports Drag&Drop - System 7.5 or later).
The program will check the whole text and will mark any doubtful words with a red-underline. You need look only at the words that are marked to satisfy yourself about them. If you want to change a word, you can do it in the Spelling Checker window. If you want a hint, double-click on any underlined word and the hint list will be displayed at the right-hand side of the window. If you double-click on any word in that list, it will be inserted in the text. You can also search in Verbs&Nouns dictionaries for any word in the Spelling Checker window - option-click on any word to initiate the search.
At the bottom of the window you can see several words and phrases. They act as buttons. You can click on them to carry out various operations:
窶｢ check again - click to check the text currently presented in the Spelling Checker window;
窶｢ check clipb. - click to replace the window contents with the text from the clipboard and check it (this is the same as pressing 竚櫓);
窶｢ copy all - click to copy the whole of the currently-presented text to the clipboard (this allows you to paste the corrected text back into the text-window of another application);
窶｢ add to dict. - after you have corrected the text, if you want to put all the new words from it into your default spelling dictionary (so they will not be marked next time), click this item (if you select part of the text then only words from the selected part will be added to the spelling-dictionary otherwise the words from the whole text will be added);
窶｢ auto on/off - click to enable/disable the automatic checking feature.
There are two sound signals to alert you about the result of checking:
窶｢ single-beep - checking is complete and no errors were found,
窶｢ double-beep - checking is complete and some doubtful words were found.
There are three check-boxes in the Preferences window related to the spelling-checker:
窶｢ <...> aware? - If this box is checked then text enclosed between <...> is marked blue. This is useful for checking HTML documents.
窶｢ Ignore ' and - ? - If this box is checked then hyphens and apostrophes are treated as word separators.
窶｢ Sorting - select the proper sorting for the chosen spelling-dictionary. It is important because the program also uses it to find the word-boundaries and to perform the correct upper to lower-case conversions.
There are several utilities to help you to keep your spelling dictionaries updated. You can create several different spelling dictionaries. You can use only one spelling dictionary at a time. In the Preferences window, choose the dictionary that you want to use.
To create a new empty dictionary and make it the default dictionary you should select New Spelling DB... from the File menu. If you want to add words from all Verbs&Nouns dictionaries that you put on the list in the Preferences window to your current spelling-dictionary then select Update Spelling DB... .
You can extend your default spelling dictionary by selecting the item Add File to Spelling DB... You can add words from any text-file, Verbs&Nouns dictionary, or another spelling-dictionary to your default spelling-dictionary (see also Appendix A).
To remove words from the spelling-dictionary just select them (in the hint list) and press the Backspace/Delete key.
The American-English spelling dictionary is enclosed. You can choose it in the Preferences window.
Translation (Word for Word Translation).
If you read text in a foreign language then it is often useful to generate a vocabulary. V&N Lookup can automatically generate a vocabulary for any text that you copy to the clipboard. Just press 竚漏 or select Batch Translate from the 'File' menu. Alternatively you can drag the selected text into the Translation window (it is only possible if your Mac OS supports Drag&Drop - System 7.5 or later). The program will generate the vocabulary list. The words are shown in the same order as in original sentences (this can be helpful for the most primitive machine translation of text passages). If you want to sort the vocabulary alphabetically then just click on text show in alphabetical order at the bottom of the translation window.
In order to use the 'Batch Translation' feature effectively you should have the Verbs&Nouns inflection-dictionaries for the target language and add these dictionaries to your default spelling-dictionary (by selecting 'Add File to Spelling DB...' or 'Update Spelling DB...') to allow an 'in-depth' search. This is very important for languages with reach inflection.
The result of the batch translation is presented in three-column format. First column contains the words taken from text in clipboard, second contains words in their basic forms (nominative, infinitive etc.), the third one contains translations. Depending on your choice of dictionaries you can translate the chosen text into several languages.
You can use V&N Lookup to automatically generate groups of words to practise on. For example let us assume that you use the 'Italian Verbs' and 'Italian Nouns' inflection-dictionaries, and 'Italian Spelling' dictionary with V&N Lookup. You study an Italian text. First you copy this text into the clipboard and let the V&N Lookup translate it - Batch Translate. Then you can press the button generate vocabulary to see all words used in the Italian text in their basic forms. If you find many new words then you might wish to practise them. To do so just click the button build groups and enter the name for these groups. That is all. Now you can open the 'Italian Nouns' dictionary with Verbs & Nouns and select your group. You can notice that all nouns from the Italian text are copied in their basic forms (other words are not copied). You can do exercises with these nouns or study them in various ways provided by the Verbs & Nouns application (see Verbs & Nouns ReadMe). The same you can do with the verbs etc.
Internet Configuration.
If you use 'Internet Configuration' software then you can access URL links by double-clicking on them. This is particularly useful for Dictionary of Computing because it contains many URL references. To utilize this feature make sure that you check Use Internet Configuration? check-box in the Preferences window.
Text to Speech.
The 'Speak' menu is a standard implementation for the Apple 'Text to Speech' (it has nothing to do with the pre-recorded sound samples).
Drag & Drop.
You can drag the selected text from any application that supports Drag&Drop into the windows of V&N Lookup to initiate the required operation (i.e. search, spell-checking or translation).
