Unique Features in the Ultralingua Dictionary

• Both the Ultralingua English Dictionary and the Accio Dictionary contain American and British English terms
• Ability to changing the definition/synonym window font and its associated characteristics,
• Float the ULD window in the foreground — a nice feature
• Search for examples of word usage on the web,
• Further check for Definitions with DEVONagent, if installed – An Apple services function
• Use Google’s free translation feature from within the application
• Check an Ultralingua reference documents to, for example, obtain Information on English grammatical usage.
• Provides automatic recognition of inflected word forms
• Simplified navigation via arrow keys, but I prefer to mouse around.
• Useful and complete help accessed manual, which I did not need.
• Powerful verb conjugation, especially useful when dealing with the irregular verbs that English abound.
• Number-to-text converters appropriate to each language, and
• Extensive language references (such as full grammar manuals for several languages including English).

One other undocumented feature I liked in this product, was that it kept the list of the words I’d checked over several sessions. I don’t remember whether earlier versions contained the feature. Wouldn’t it be fine if that list could be automatically alphabetized? [Note: I have no idea how many entries such a list holds.]

Testing — Testing

Focus — It’s all about how an interface feels as well as the specificity, applicability and usefulness of the definitions or synonyms. Since I have access to or have already installed a number of dictionary-thesaurus tools, I decided to run a side-by-side subjective assessment of the two Ultralingua Inc. software packages against the Omni (online) Dictionary 2.0.4, Nisus Thesaurus 1.05, the new Visual Thesaurus 3 and Roget’s (online) Thesaurus.

In all of my installed applications, I checked definitions and synonyms for chagrin, claustrophobic, exorbitant, myopic, obstreperous, perambulate, perceptive, stubborn and the word systematic. I used scoring factors of 5 (excellent) to 1 (not found) to evaluate each search word-tool combination. I chose not to score the online Roget’s Thesaurus because the interface irritated me. Although detailed the ling sting of subtly different synonyms made me impatient.

One caveat, the scores do not reflect the extra, and at times useful to me, additional features of the ULD.

Discomforts

Hotkey Assignment — When I consider how many of the function keys are either assigned to the Finder or when using MS Word, to that application, I feel severely restricted by ULDs assignment capabilities. Although there was no conflict with my choice of command-F12, I would prefer to be able to assign something like Option-Control F12 as my ULD hotkey.

Ability to Use on PDF Files in Acrobat — In a perfect world I could click on a word in a downloaded PDF (not a graphic file) opened in Acrobat Pro and hit my Ultralingua hot key and grab either a definition or synonym of that word. Considering how badly I spell, such a feature would also be useful for checking finder document titles. Perhaps in the next major update - hint, hint.

Antonyms — Sometimes I want to Search for Opposite Meaning For a Word (e.g., an antonym) — If wishes were motorcycles, beggars and I would ride.

Conclusions

Overall both sets of software have smooth and user-friendly interfaces. Their mode of operation is intuitive. The choice of which to use depends on whether you want a reading dictionary or one to use when writing.

Accio is actually closer to the new Ultralingua version 6 than to the older ULD versions I have used. It is, in the words of its publisher, a kind of "Ultralingua 6 Light". It includes, as my testing demonstrates, lighter dictionary databases. In addition, the Accio English dictionary is not bundled with the synonyms module, and it includes no searching for proper nouns. This more limited feature set was amply demonstrated by my test results. Basically, Accio is a tool for use when reading (on-line), but one that is less helpful for helping on when writing and being at loss for an appropriate word. You know the one at the tip of your tongue, or when searching for a synonym to avoid using the same word 5 times in a paragraph or two.

The more full-featured Ultralingua dictionary, a writer’s tool, has extra tools that have proven useful to me. (e.g., a verb conjugator, grammar manual, number converter, ability to add new entries).

The new version of the Ultralingua dictionary appears faster than the previous versions that makes using it, via a hot key, more seamless. If memory serves, Version 6 also appears to contain both a richer set of definition and synonyms and more of them. The ULD add/delete feature has also been enhanced, according to the developer, but so far, I’ve not been brave enough to use it. After all, when tempted to use the add/delete function (new in this version of ULD), I think about all the misspelled words I’ve added to my MS Word custom dictionary.

Therefore, if you need a more robust dictionary than Accio provides, as well as the ability to conjugate verbs, convert numbers, and much more, consider Ultralingua. When comparing it to either free or shareware alternative, I prefer the use interface and extra features in the ULD products. It’s what I use and shall continue to use to augment MS Word’s more limited dictionary or thesaurus capabilities.

Accio rating: 4.0 macC’s; ULD rating: 4.5 macC’s.

Doc_Babad

For those readers and my colleagues on the macC staff who are bi- or trilingual, I’ve read that the Ultralingua Translation dictionaries are as robust and as easy to use as the English language dictionary. It would be nice to read about those modules, tools I’m not competent to review. Alas, I’ve forgotten most of my French, do badly but persist in German, and bombed my Russian courses.

PS:

Test Results and My Thoughts on Dictionary Thesaurus Alternatives:

Omni Dictionary 2.0.5 — It provides access to an enormous list of online resources. I used, by default, the English Monolingual Dictionaries for these tests. All other choices were not specific to my test needs. The only alternative to my choice of source dictionary was the 1913 public domain edition of Webster’s unabridged dictionary. The former provided both better definitions as well as well focused entries containing synonyms gleaned for the Moby Thesaurus II. I found the choices provided by the Moby Thesaurus, when searched separately, too broad and unfocused for my purposes — again a subjective judgment. Also note the Omni dictionary does not remember previously defined words between sessions.

Nisus Thesaurus 1.0.5 — Despite its name, the application does provide definitions for the search words. However, all too often the category of “similar” was grayed out — hmmm no synonyms. Also, although the program appears to have the built-in capability of displaying words of the opposite meaning, on testing I found no antonyms were provided, none – not even for the word antonym. I then randomly checked an additional dozen or so other words but still no antonyms.

Visual Thesaurus 3 — I found that if one was comfortable with its logic diagram (mapping) type interface, that this tool was indeed a powerful and flexible thesaurus. This is a thesaurus that goes far beyond the flat-file linier choices metaphor found in other synonym seeking tools. I’m glad I own it, but it’s not my first choice of tools. On the other hand, the interface features associated with word definitions were difficult to read, unless I expanded the screen to cover most of my 22” monitor’s territory. Definitions were terse, and appeared somewhat limited. [I’ve not done a lot of work with this product, beyond a bit of fooling around when I installed it and the reported tests. I did however not ding the program for its ability to define words in an easy to read manner. I only scored it as a thesaurus.

Dictionary and Thesaurus Test Results: