This is xwebster.man in view mode; [Download] [Up]
.TH XWEBSTER 1 "March 6, 1989" "X Version 11" .SH NAME xwebster \- X interface to look up words in the dictionary .SH SYNOPSIS .B xwebster [\fBX Toolkit option\fP] .SH DESCRIPTION .PP \fIXwebster\fP is used to look up words in the online copy of Webster's dictionary. It puts up an application window that contains subwindows to interact with the user and display the results. The top half has a browser window in which alternative words will be shown, below that is a row of windows consisting of an interaction window where the user may enter words to be looked up, and buttons which the user may click on to select a program function. The lower window is used to display the definitions that are found. .PP Just type the word you want defined in the interaction window and hit Return to see the definition (or click on the \fB[Define]\fP button). If the word is found, \fIxwebster\fP will then provide the complete dictionary entry for the word including definitions, pronunciation, and derivation. If the specified word was not found, \fIxwebster\fP will try to find close matches, as if you spelled the word wrong. The possibilities are displayed in buttons. To select one of them, you can just click on it. .PP Additionally, \fIxwebster\fP can match words using wildcards. The character `%' in a word means match exactly one character, so ``w%n'' matches ``win'', ``won'', ``wan'', etc. The character `*' matches zero or more characters, so ``a*d''matches ``ad'', ``and'', ``abound'', ``absentminded'', and so on. Any number of wildcards can be used, and in any arrangement. .PP Typing \fB'?'\fP or mousing \fB[Endings]\fP following part of a word will cause \fIxwebster\fP to list all words beginning with the partial word in the word browser panel. The program will beep and give an error message if nothing matches. .PP Typing \fB<tab>\fP or mousing \fB[Complete]\fP causes the program to attempt to complete the word. If the word can be completed, the new word is placed in the TextEdit widget; otherwise, the program beeps and displays a message indicating that the word is ambiguous. .PP \fB(NeXT Mode only):\fP .LP Mousing \fB[Thesaurus]\fP sets the wester server to "thesaurus mode", before doing a lookup. Subsequent lookups via <Return> in the word input window will be from the thesaurus data base. Mousing \fB[Define]\fP will set it back to "dictionary mode". .SH CUSTOMIZING All the resources for \fIxwebster\fP are specified in the application default file Xwebster.ad, which MUST be installed in APPDEFAULTSDIR/Xwebster. Fully qualified resource names are used in this app-defaults file so as to document the widget hierarchy in the application. Documentation on customizing \fIxwebster\fP also appears in this defaults file. (APPDEFAULTSDIR is set in the imake defaults, it is usually /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/) .PP Parameters for connecting to a webster server are contained in the resources \fB``hostAddrList''\fP, \fB``hostPort''\fP, and \fB``hostServiceName''\fP. See the aforementioned Xwebster.ad file for details and documentation. .SH HISTORY This program was inspired by the webster(1) tty-based client to a webster server written by Dave Curry <davy@riacs.edu>, although most of the code was written from scratch because I didn't find the webster(1) source code until after the application was prototyped. The original webster client/server was written in MIDAS and ran under Tops-20, it was probably done by someone at SRI-NIC. .PP \fIXwebster\fP was originally written and released by Niels Mayer <mayer@hplabs.hp.com> on the X11r3 contrib tape. Mark Moraes <moraes@csri.toronto.edu> took that version, updated it to work with the r3 HP Xwidgets and r3 Toolkit Intrinsics, and fixed a bunch of stupid bugs that were making \fIxwebster\fP dump core an a SUN. Russell Cattelan <cattelan@everest.ee.umn.edu> updated it again to use the Motif Widget set, and the R5 Toolkit. .PP If you have contributions to make to \fIxwebster\fP, please send them to cattelan@everest.ee.umn.edu or mayer@hplabs.hp.com. .SH SEE ALSO look(1), spell(1), webster(1), websterd(8) .SH FILES /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Xwebster $HOME/.Xdefaults .SH AUTHORS Niels Mayer (mayer@hplabs.hp.com or hplabs!mayer) .PP Mark Moraes (moraes@csri.toronto.edu) .PP Russell Cattelan (cattelan@everest.ee.umn.edu) .SH BUGS The first word takes a longer time to define, because there is a non-trivial setup time involved on initially starting the server. Likewise, if the server times out (you'll note error messages to this effect), the next word will take a longer time to define since \fIxwebster\fP must reconnect to a server. .PP It is possible to grab one of the "handles" on paned window and eliminate from view any of the sections, most notably the middle input section. I have tried setting the min height but without much luck, I'm sure it is something simple I am overlooking. .PP The translation between all the neat special characters in the dictionary such as upside-down e's, cedillas, accent marks, etc. and a simple ASCII terminal is marginal at best. Most of the characters are fairly well faked, but a few of them are impossible. In particular, the schwa (upside-down e) is represented by an asterisk. .PP There are fixed internal limits on the number of words that can be displayed in the browser (16384), and the number of characters of text in the lower window (16384). The defaults should be adequate given the number of words and the description sizes of the standard webster dictionary database. If you end up trying to get the dictionary to return all the words available by abusing the wildcarding feature, then expect \fIxwebster\fP to crash. .PP
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Netfuture.ch.