Fora Dictionary

Ismail Alper Yilmaz

In-app purchases

About this app

Fora Dictionary is a versatile dictionary viewer.

FEATURES

• Fast and fully offline operation
• Compatibility with StarDict, DSL, XDXF, Dictd, and TSV/Plain dictionaries
• Typing friendly search with case, diacritics, and punctuation tolerance
• Fuzzy search
• Full-text search
• In-page popup translator
• History and word list
• Customization options

COMPATIBILITY

The app is compatible with the following dictionary/file types:

• StarDict dictionaries (*.idx)
• DSL dictionaries (*.dsl)
• XDXF dictionaries (*.xdxf)
• Dictd dictionaries (*.index)
• TSV/Plain dictionaries (*.txt, *.dic)

The app can also view DICT protocol (online) dictionaries.

SETTING UP DICTIONARIES

• Connect your mobile device to your computer.
• Copy dictionary files to the app's documents/files folder on the device. For details, see: https://support.google.com/android/answer/9064445
• Select the dictionary index file as listed in the compatibility section above (or an archive of it) using the "Import" option of the dictionary manager menu.
• Attach resource ZIP files (if any) using the "Attach ZIP" option of the dictionary menu. (optional)
• Create a full-text search index of the dictionary using the "Upgrade" option of the dictionary menu. (optional)
• Create profiles to group and organize dictionaries. (optional)

RESOURCE FILES

Resource files of a dictionary can be put into multiple ZIP files with the following properties:

i) Classic (non-ZIP64) ZIP file type
ii) Flat (no sub-directories) file structure
iii) Maximum 65,535 files per ZIP file

Use "Attach ZIP" from the dictionary menu to copy and attach ZIP files to a dictionary.

FULL-TEXT SEARCH

The app supports searching full-text of all dictionaries for exact matches. The feature requires one-time upgrading of a dictionary which can take a very long time to complete, since every single word anywhere on the dictionary is made searchable during the process.

SYNCHRONIZING BETWEEN DEVICES

Copying/moving dictionaries between devices is done using one of the two available methods:

• "Export" dictionary to a *.zip file on the first device and then "Import" that *.zip file on the second
• Copy/move whole ".fora" folder or individual dictionary folders using a file manager

SEARCH TYPES

There are five kinds of searches you can perform on dictionaries.

• Regular search: Shows results exactly matching the query.
• Extended matching search: Shows results matching the query with case, diacritics, and punctuations ignored. Suggestions include in-phrase and phonetic matches.
• Full-text search: Shows list of articles containing exact matches of the query. The scope of search is not limited to headwords and includes all text in all articles (definitions, synonyms, examples, etc).
• Fuzzy search: Shows list of articles most similar to the query. The search works like a spell checker for words you're not sure how it's written/spelled.
• Wildcard search: Shows list of articles that match the criteria set with a wildcard query.

ANDROID 10+

Shared/external storage mechanism known as the SD-card has been retired starting with Android 10. The operating system now enforces all apps to use it's sandboxed folder for all it's app data. If you upgrade your device to Android 10+, you may need to copy/move and replace ".fora" folder from your device's shared storage to the app's sandboxed folder (typically Android/data/com.ngc.fora/files) using a file manager.

HELP AND SUPPORT

• https://fora-dictionary.com

Copyright © 2023 NG-Computing. All rights reserved.

Ratings and reviews

This is a great programme that you can use with a variety of dictionaries. It can be tricky to load the dictionaries because of Android permissions - I find it easier to use my computer to put the files in the right location in the SD card. But once you get that done it's a great way to have access to a range of dictionaries. One thing I'd like to see is a "random" button that takes you to a random entry in one of your dictionaries.

Good approach but trailling behind GoldenDict in some areas, which used to champion this approach. (Unfortunately, GoldenDict's dev is not very active these days.) There is room for improvement in Fora: * Please add support for Babylon .BGL files, ABBYY Lingvo .LSD, .DSL, .LSA and .DAT files, Dictd files Hunspell morphologies (like GoldenDict), maybe MDict too * The formatting of some StarDict libaries isn't great, for example Oxford Advanced Dictionary 8th. edition looks scattered * Add a hotkey to skip to the desired dictionary (like GoldenDict) * Put the name of the respective dictionary at the top of each section, this gives longer dictionary lists better surveyability (like GoldenDict) * The history could be shown below the search bar as long as the bar is empty * Allow to change the dictionary order in profiles (see GoldenDict) This is food for thought, I like the app and therfore give it 4 stars for now.

This might be a good dictionary app, but it's impossible to figure out how to use it. I should import the dictionaries I want, but it doesn't even suggest where to find dictionaries that can be imported. I googled it myself and found no relevant results. It's as if they don't want me to use the app. I hope I get to hear from you. I would like to import a Chinese dictionary to Fora.

What's new

v23.1.5
• Bug fixes and performance improvements