Update

This menu item allows you to update a dictionary.

Dictionaries will often have more words added to them over time, or be changed in other ways. When an updated dictionary is released (ie. by your teacher or some other dictionary source), the user information embedded within your old dictionary needs to be transferred to the new one. This can be done by selecting the Update function, which brings up the dialog shown in Figure 1 below.

The old and new dictionaries can each be designated by entering their dictionary names in the appropriate text boxes. Alternatively, place the cursor in a text box and click the Select dictionary button - the standard file selection dialog will then be displayed. Select a dictionary and it's name will be inserted in the text box containing the cursor.

Once both file names have been entered, press the Update button to begin the operation (the time taken will depend on the size of both dictionaries).

Figure 1. The Update dictionary dialog

Both dictionaries will then be scanned and when the Kana, Kanji, word type and English fields of a word all match exactly, the user information will be copied across from the old dictionary to the new dictionary . If any part of a word which existed in the old dictionary has been updated in the new file (even a minor change in the English definition), the words will not match and so the user information will not be copied across.

The Year, Lesson and Group numbers are not checked. This allows for the fact that words may be grouped into different sets in the new dictionary, which may occur as teachers change the structure of a Japanese language course. These fields are not copied across either - only the user information is copied. Thus, the Year, Lesson and Group numbers in the new dictionary will not be altered.

The new dictionary can contain up to 10,000 entries. It is suggested that you don't use dictionaries larger than this for exercising, since they can become difficult to properly maintain. You'll probably also find the update times for large dictionaries will be quite considerable.

This menu item will be ghosted if there is a dictionary or dictionary list open.