Download at: http://whee.dk/wordbuilder/gtkwordbuilder-3.0.0.zip

It’s a simple zip file with an exe and a dll. As with the previous GTK version, you’ll need GTK# installed. http://www.go-mono.com/mono-downloads/download.html

To my knowledge, it runs equally well on .NET and Mono.

The new things I’ve added are:

- Syntax highlighting
- Support for c-style brackets (so you can drop the { to a line of its own) and ; line enders
- Support for python-style blocks (use two spaces or one tab for each level of indentation)

In order to do this, I had to rewrite the parser, so it is now much more flexible and I think I’ll be able to add IntelliSense and contextual help and such to the UI in time.

Now I think it’s time to do some clean up of the old code, but first, a commit to the GIT repo.

http://whee.dk/wordbuilder/monowordbuilder.zip

Copy the contents of the zip into a directory of your choice and run it using:

Windows: doubleclick gtkwordbuilder.exe.

Mac/Linux: in a terminal, run the command ‘mono gtkwordbuilder.exe‘

You will need an install as well. On the mono web page, you can find instructions for your operating system: http://www.go-mono.com/mono-downloads/download.html

Windows users will be able to run this with GTK# for .NET, a pretty small download.

I’d love to hear about your experiences with trying this version out on non-windows systems.

Also, I’ve set up a phpBB for the forums. Old posts are not lost, just not publicly available. If you want them, let me know and I’ll see what I can do to move them across.

For this project of translating and reimplementing WordBuilder, I decided to try Test-Driven Development, so there’s also a bunch of unit tests. Not for everything, but still. There’s no unit tests for the commands, but all in good time. I feel I’ve made quite some progress here.

Here’s a screenshot of my latest build. Still not sure how to package, but the source is available at github.

What I have at the moment is a command line tool:

monowordbuilder <file_name>[ -v][ -r <starting_rule> <amount>]*

Which outputs a number of generated words, either just the root word or the larger output which contains marks and branches (using the -v argument).

If you don’t enter any rules at the command line, it’ll use the defaults you’ve set up in the .wordo file using the StartingRule directive. If there are none, it’ll default to generating the ‘root’ rule 100 times.

Oh, and I’ve no idea how to package it, so if anyone’s able to help out there, that’d be great. The source code is available at github.

http://whee.dk/wordbuilder/WordBuilder20.msi

In this version:

• Translator supports multiline texts.
• Translator has a “Translate Back” function which will give you meanings for words in your language.
• Generator supports referencing token sets.

tokens vowels a e i o u
tokens vowelsplus $vowels ë ï ö // a e i o u ë ï ö

• Generator supports token sets removing tokens:

tokens vowels a e i o u
tokens vowelsminus $vowels ![a e] // i o u

• Generator now has a check to make sure code doesn’t run amok – a maximum of 500 rules per word has been put in place.
• Generally, you can press ctrl+a to select all text in the active area.
• Cut/copy/paste works in all text boxes.
• Dictionary has functionality to ‘Add another meaning’ when you right click a word.
• Fixed apply, so it will not loop endlessly if you branch inside your apply.
• Fixed parser, so it allows multiple spaces between tokens.
• Added rules picker to the code editor. Generate words to update the list.
• Added search (ctrl+f) to the code editor.
• Improved syntax highlighting, though performance is still not good with scripts over 1700 lines – this seems to be a general problem with the control I’m using. Might have to switch it. *shudder*

Also, don’t miss the GREAT introduction written by CaesarVincens.

Finally, I have to mention that I’ve thrown the code up for public ridicule on GitHub.

Download the latest version here.

Requires Windows and .NET framework 3.5sp1. This may help you download just what you need.

Documentation for the rules language

The WordBuilder generator page

The WordBuilder dictionary page

The WordBuilder translator page

Update: I’ve found a way to avoid the extra download and install, so I’m now bundling the necessary files with WordBuilder. Yay.

I also found a bug in the translate command, so a multi-character token might be partially hit with a single character match ( r => x changed my /rt/ tokens to /x t/)

That’s pretty much it, as my focus is mostly on Esolanean and v2.0, where I hope to offer a pretty decent dictionary tool in stead of the current crappy one. Suggestions are most welcome.

Download WordBuilder v1.6 here

Two things go into this (at least): how each letter is pronounced, and which syllables to stress.

I already have some indications as to both, since I’ve been using the few words I have in my mind for several years.

/SINT/ is stressed.

In /SINTor/, the first syllable is still stressed, but in /toMAL/ the second syllable is. Hm. /KATor/ stresses the first syllable as well, so it looks like the /-or/ suffix doesn’t move the stress.

/sintAro/originally stressed the second syllable, but I rather like /SINTaro/ as well, which would work with a general rule that suffixes do not move the stress. /BENapak/ stresses the first syllable, so that’d work if /-apak/ is one or more suffixes. /Ben/ meaning <wander> is pretty cool too, since /ben/ mean leg (or legs) in Danish. I’m not aiming for a language like Danish, but I like cross-language puns.

So it looks like stress is on the last syllable of the stem word for one- and two-syllable stems. Looking over the longer words I’m generating, I have a feeling that the rule might be to stress the second syllable for any stem longer than one syllable.

For the other part, pronounciation, I’ve been trying to figure out at least some of that whole IPA thing.

Looks like most of the letters I’m using represent sounds that have the same characters in IPA, so that makes it quite a bit easier, but one thing popped up, at least: /r/ is pronounced [ɹ].

WordBuilder naturally supports unicode characters, so that shouldn’t be a problem… erm. Oops. Unicode support is broken in v1.5 because of the syntax coloring. New version with support for IPA characters is coming in a moment, as I have the fix implemented.

After that, I added a new rule to my script – I figured some extra rules, such as /ar/ is pronounced like a long [a], and /r/ is trilled after /p/ and /o/, unless at the end of the word, where /or/ is just a long [ɐ]:

rule pronounciation {
 translate {
  a r # => a ː
  o r # => ɐ ː
  o r => o !r // escape some r's
  p r => p !r
  r => ɹ
  !r => r // unescape after most r's are fixed.
  t => t̪ // t is dental.
 }
}

And added a branch at the end of my noun rule:

rule noun {
 rule base
 rule noun-ending
 rule cleaning
 branch Pronounciation pronounciation
}

And finally added a column to my presentation:

column Pron. Pronounciation

Now, I get IPA pronounciation next to my words when I generate, albeit incomplete, because I haven’t worked all the way through the alphabet. More mappings in the translate command, and I’ll be done.

Oh, and I realized a mistake I’d made earlier, when introducing the double consonant syllable rule – since it had the same weight as the other syllable rule, it got hit a lot of the time also for the first syllable, meaning that an overweight of the words started with a vowel. I’ve adjusted the weight so that it now generates a more tolerable amount of vowel-starting words, as well as fewer double consonants.

Words now look like this:

• merkamror [meɹkamɹɐː]
• roben [ɹoben]
• tepar [t̪epaː]
• kamottepmor [kamot̪tepmɐː]
• pisosbikar [pisosbikaː]
• selnersin [selneɹsin]
• ser [seɹ]
• eran [eɹan]
• lipikoen [lipikoen]
• kaknotser [kaknot̪seɹ]