StarDict
Template:Short description Template:More citations needed Template:Infobox software
StarDict, developed by Hu Zheng (胡正), is a free GUI released under the GPL-3.0-or-later license for accessing StarDict dictionary files (a dictionary shell). It is the successor of StarDic, developed by Ma Su'an (馬蘇安), continuing its version numbers.
According to StarDict's earlier homepage on SourceForge, the project has been removed from SourceForge due to copyright infringement reports.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Failed verification It moved to Google Code<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and then back to SourceForge,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> while development is now seemingly continued on GitHub.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Supported platforms
StarDict runs under Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, Maemo and Solaris. Dictionaries of the user's choice are installed separately. Dictionary files can be created by converting dict files.<ref>The program to do this conversion is installed to /usr/lib/stardict-tools/dictd2dic by the stardict-tools package.</ref>
Several programs compatible with the StarDict dictionary format are available for different platforms. For the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, applications available in the App Store include GuruDic, TouchDict, weDict, Dictionary Universal, Alpus and others, as well as the free iStarDict, which is available for the Cydia Store.
Dictionaries available
One can find here the partial list of FreeDict dictionaries which can be converted to the StarDict format. These include, in particular, some older versions of Webster's dictionary and many dictionaries for various languages.
Features
While StarDict is in scan mode, results are displayed in a tooltip, allowing easy dictionary lookup. When combined with Freedict, StarDict will quickly provide rough translations of foreign language websites.
On September 25, 2006, an online version of Stardict began operation. This online version includes access to all the major dictionaries of StarDict, as well as Wikipedia in Chinese.
Previous versions of StarDict were very similar to the PowerWord dictionary program, which is developed by a Chinese company, KingSoft. Since version 2.4.2, however, StarDict has diverged from the design of PowerWord by increasing its search capabilities and adding lexicons in a variety of languages. This was assisted by the collaboration of many developers with the author.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
sdcv
Evgeniy A. Dushistov produced a command line version of StarDict called sdcv. It employed all the dictionary files that belong to StarDict. It is written in C++ and licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
sdcv runs under Linux,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> FreeBSD,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Solaris. As in StarDict, dictionaries of the user's choice have to be installed separately.
At the end of 2006, software developer Hu Zheng cited personal financial problems<ref>2006年12月08日 知名IT資訊網站 cnBeta.com Template:Webarchive報導 《Linux下的著名翻譯軟件StarDict字典開始收費》 Template:Webarchive</ref> as an excuse to charge users for downloading dictionary files from his website, which temporarily aroused strong doubts<ref>《Stardict字典什麽時候開始收費了！？》 Template:Webarchive</ref> and dissatisfaction in the Linux community.<ref>《胡教主大筆一揮》</ref> In the end, under the pressure of public opinion, the charging plan was forced to be canceled and ended hastily.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>