The IDP Companion, 4th Edition

The 4th edition of the IDP Companion has been entirely rewritten in C++ (previous versions were written in Visual Basic). This means it's smaller and faster, but will only work in Windows 95, 98, or NT. Version 3.0 is still available for Windows 3.1 users, but it will not be updated.

Downloading instructions:

Windows 95, 98, Millennium Edition (ME), NT:

IDPC 4th Edition (32-bit, PKZipped) (1.2MB)

Windows 3.1:

IDPC v. 0.30 (16-bit, PKZipped) (1.8M)

Windows 3.1 users need to restart their computer after installing the IDPC. Once your computer has restarted, just double-click on the IDPC icon.

MacOS X users can try WordLookup by Lindesay Software which can use the IDP dictionary files.

How to use it

The Properties/Config menu option brings up a box which lets you set your default source and target languages, and whether you want the Results box to be updated as you type into the word box on the main screen. These options will be the default every time you run the IDPC (unless you change them again). The "update as you type" option will slow down the IDPC, but it might be useful to you. With this option on, when you enter a "d" into the translate word box, the Results box will display all words matching "d". If you then press "o", the IDPC will search for "do" in the dictionary. Play with it if you want a better understanding of what it does. You'll probably want the "Words containing this word" option selected to make the most use of the "update as you type" option.

There are not currently any help screens in the IDPC - that may come later.

What's new in the 4th Edition

• First, everything is new. The IDPC 4th Edition has been completely rewritten in C++. It's smaller and it's faster, but the dictionary files have grown so you might not notice any difference. Because of the rewrite, the 4th Edition will not work with Windows 3.1.
• The "Translate this word" box turns red and the "Translate!" button becomes disabled when there is nothing in the "Translate this word" box.
• You can now resize the IDP Compaion window as you would any other application window. Resizing the IDPC causes the Results window to change size, so you can see more or longer results.
• The IDPC remembers its position and size every time you run it. The next time you start the IDPC, it will be in the same position and be the same size it was when you quit using it the last time. (If you want to return it to the default size, click the Properties menu and select "Default Window Size".)
• You can open the Config window by pressing CONTROL+O.
• You can quickly insert accented characters into the "Translate this word" box by right-clicking in the box. This brings up the Insert pop-up menu. Select the letter of the alphabet you want, then select the proper accented character from the sub-menu. For example, to insert an é, right-click on the "Translate this word" box, then select "E", then select "é" - the é will be inserted at the cursor in the box.
• You can quickly re-insert the same accented character by right-clicking on the "Translate this word" box and selecting the first item in the Insert menu (which should say "Insert:" followed by the accented character you most recently added).
• As always, the 4th Edition includes the newest IDP dictionary files, including the new Romanian/English dictionary. These dictionaries are from the IDP on August 19, 1998.

• Version 0.31 is a minor change from 0.30 that adds the minimize button to the Windows95/NT (32-bit) IDPC screen. I had always assumed it was there, but was notified that the minimize button doesn't appear. I chose not to fix the 16-bit (Windows 3.1) version at this time, so IDPC16 is still at version 0.30.

• The results window (the place where English words and translations are displayed) now can scroll horizontally as well as vertically. (User suggestion.)
• Click and drag in the results window to select a word or words, then press CONTROL-C to copy the selection to the clipboard.
• "Update as you type" option now has a 3-second delay when you type into the "Translate this word" text box. So, instead of immediately trying to search for the first letter you enter, it will now give you enough time to enter a short word fragment before searching (this should speed up using this option). (User suggestion.)
• The accented characters in the IDP dictionaries are now automatically converted for you. So, "a/" is now displayed as "á" in the results window. If you find this option makes the program too slow, you can turn it off by unchecking the "Automatic accented character conversion" option in the Configure window.
• IMPORTANT: Both the 16-bit and 32-bit versions of the IDPC only use dictionary files which conform to the MS-DOS 8.3 file name format. So, the file formerly named "Portuguese.txt" is now called "Portugue.txt". If you ever download a new version of the IDP Portuguese dictionary, it will have to be renamed to "Portugue.txt" in order for the IDPC to use it. When new dictionaries are made available in a Zipped file, the Portuguese file will already be renamed.
• Of course, this new version includes the latest IDP language dictionaries, as of 1/7/98.

• When the program is searching for translations, a "Working..." message lets you know that the program is busy. When the translations have been found, "Working..." changes to "Results:".
• New copy & paste feature - click on the translation you're interested in in the Results window and press CONTROL-C or select "Copy" from the "Edit" menu to copy the line (word plus translation) to the Clipboard. Then you can paste it into any other application.
• Version 0.20 includes the latest dictionary files (April 1997), so you don't have to download them from the Files page.

If you have further questions

If you have a question about the IDP Compaion that isn't addressed here, or you've tried it out and want to let me know what you thought, please send me mail. I look forward to hearing from you.