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Yazi

 osx
An Asian character dictionary program for OS X.
dw Download version 0.8 of Yazi
(Requires OS X 10.3 or above, 2.0MB)
Developer Note: Some users have pointed out the lack of better Japanese data in the application. I know very little about Japanese, but if anyone can help me learn a bit about how all the different Japanese character systems work, it should be easy to integrate more Japanese-specific data into the dictionaries.

Yazi is a dictionary program designed to assist users in their study and understanding of different Asian languages. It has both a browse-able dictionary, and a lookup window where characters can dynamically be looked up using OS X services.

Yazi is still undergoing a lot of development, hence the pre 1.0 version number. Comments and suggestions are welcome! Yazi will only support 10.3 and above of OS X, because the UI elements used for searching in the dictionary are only supported by 10.3 and above.

We are still in the process of adding help files for all of Yazi's features from within the application. For the time being, see the Quick Start guide for help on getting up and running with Yazi.

Features

  • Dictionary of most Chinese characters from Unicode with Chinese (Mandarin & Cantonese), Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese pronunciations
  • Dictionary of Chinese words from CEDict
  • Unicode/HTML conversion services
  • Easily lookup characters from any program that supports OS X services. (Yazi must be installed in your Applications folder and you must log-out and re-login for services to be available.)
  • Large, easy to read lookup window
  • Export characters you have looked up for later study
  • New characters can be added to dictionary, or dictionaries can be extended to other languages or meta-data
Future Features (Projected version.)
  • Support for multiple user dictionaries including JDict files (0.81)
  • Export character lists to Mandarin Tutor (0.82)
  • Saving column size and layout (0.83)
  • Faster dictionary loading
  • Faster dictionary lookup
  • In-application help
  • Let us know any suggestions (e-mail is below) for other features
Version History
0.8 4-5-05 Non-beta release. Added collapsing lookup window, ability to add characters, and ability to edit & save changes in entries.
0.8b1 12-15-04 First public release.