WISH Superscriptorium 2009 is a simple computer-aided Latin-English translation program written entirely in the Tcl/Tk programming language, using plain-text grammar and vocabulary data files derived from William Whittaker's "Words" program by way of Mike Polis's "Glossator." It requires at least version 8.5 of Tcl and Tk to run. To run the program from the Linux/Unix command line, enter superscrip & . WISH Superscriptorium should work on Windows too, although I admit I haven't tried it because I don't have a Windows computer.

WISH Superscriptorium will not take a passage of Latin and translate it into English while the program user's brain remains inert. That isn't what it's for. What it is for is to help the user learn to read and translate Latin well. Here's the plan, with links to explanations of the different parts of the plan.

INTRODUCTION

Loading Grammar and Vocabulary Data
Original Text
Translation Options
Translation

FILE MENU

New
Open Latin/English--Any
Open Latin/English--Recent
Save English/Latin
Backup English/Latin
Move/Rename English/Latin
Exit

EDIT MENU

Cut
Copy
Paste
Delete
Undo
Redo
Special Characters
Select All

SEARCH MENU

Find
Replace

DISPLAY MENU

Colors

INTRODUCTION

Loading Grammar and Vocabulary Data: The first thing you'll see when you run the program is a little window with a "WISH Superscriptorium" logo and a progress bar. What's happening while the progress bar gets bigger is that the data files for vocabulary (DICTLINE.GEN) and grammar (INFLECTS) are being loaded into the computer's memory. As soon as they're loaded, the little window will disappear and a big one will appear instead. In the big window, you'll see three text boxes with scrollbars and titles: "ORIGINAL TEXT (click for translation options)," "TRANSLATION OPTIONS," and "TRANSLATION."

Original Text: Step one in using the program is to put one or more Latin words into the "ORIGINAL TEXT" box, either by typing them in, pasting them in, or opening a file that contains them. You can use any file in which the Latin words appear in plain text; if they're surrounded by text tags (as they might be in HTML, for example), you'll have to put spaces between the tags and the Latin words. If they contain any two-letter ligatures, you'll have to replace these with two separate letters.

Once the words are in the box, each one will be highlighted in green if you move the mouse over it. If you click on a word and it isn't a real Latin word, or it can't be identified by way of the vocabulary and grammar data, nothing will happen. (If you're pretty sure it's a real Latin word, please let me know by e-mail so I can see about adding it to the next version of the data--unless you prefer to try to figure out how to add it yourself, but don't blame me if anything goes wrong in that event!) If the word you click is a real Latin word that the program can identify, here's what will happen.

Translation Options: * The word will appear with a green background in the "TRANSLATION OPTIONS" window, with a dot between what appears to be the root, stem, or base of the word and the grammatically significant suffix (if any). Also in the green background will be what part of speech the word appears to be, together with abbreviations for things such as the gender of nouns and adjectives (M, F, N for masculine, feminine, neuter), declension of nouns and adjectives (e.g., D1 for first declension), conjugation of verbs (e.g., C2 for second conjugation), case taken by preposition (e.g., "w/Acc" means the preposition takes the accusative case, "w/Abl" means it takes the ablative). If the word has more than one definition or more than one possible grammatical analysis, it will be repeated for each.

* A brief definition of the word (not necessarily specific to the grammatical function of the word being analyzed) will appear with a yellow background.

* The infamous "duplicitates Latinae" (i.e., confusingly duplicitous or multiplicitous uses of the same suffix to serve more than one grammatical purpose in Latin) will be conquered, or at least set forth so you can conquer them, with human-readable abbreviations for the number and case of each grammatical possibility. For example:

femin.ae : noun (F) D1
woman; female
Nom plur : "[noun]s"
Gen sing : "of [noun]"
Dat sing : "to/for [noun]"
Voc plur : "O [noun]s"
Loc sing : "at [noun--place]"

Once you have a list of all the possibilities--which you'll remember for many more words than "feminae" when you're a Latin expert, but which you may not remember yet if you still have any use for this program--you can see which ones are compatible with the grammatical possibilities of other words in the sentence, and (if all goes well) figure out what the sentence means. (This does take some basic knowledge of Latin grammar, syntax, and all that; I may devise some computer assistance in future for people starting from absolute zero in Latin knowledge, but I haven't yet.)

The big difficulty with Latin nouns and adjectives (as shown in the example above, and many others too) is that the same ending can have several different grammatical functions. The big difficulty with Latin verbs is that there are so many different endings you can hardly remember them all (unless you're an expert). Never fear; WISH Superscriptorium remembers them all (I think), and will display the grammatical function of each one on command. For example:

laudav.erint : verb C1
recommend; praise, approve, extol; call upon, name; deliver eulogy on
3P plur active, future perfect indicative ("they will have [verb]ed")
3P plur active, perfect subjunctive ("they should/would/may/might have [verb]ed")

loqu.emini : verb (deponent/passive form?) C3
speak, tell; talk; mention; say, utter; phrase
2P plur active, future indicative ("you (pl.) will [verb]")

And even:

aus.us : verb (semi-deponent/passive form in perfect tenses) C2 (participle?)
intend, be prepared; dare/have courage (to go/do), act boldly, venture, risk
ausus sum: 1P sing M active, perfect indicative: "I have [verb]ed"

aus.us : noun (M) D4
daring, initiative; ventures (pl.)
Nom plur : "[noun]s"
Nom sing : "a/the [noun]"
Gen sing : "of [noun]"
Acc plur : "[noun]s"
Voc plur : "O [noun]s"
Voc sing : "O [noun]"

Here you'll notice that WISH Superscriptorium will identify multiple grammatical possibilities for verb forms too (if they exist); it will identify deponent and semi-deponent verbs, and correctly translate them as active even though they look passive, or even consist of a passive participle plus a verb of being; and it will identify different possible parts of speech a word could be. It will also identify enclitics at the ends of words, for example, "populusque":

popul.us : noun (M) D2
people, nation
Nom sing : "a/the [noun]"
que : enclitic
and ...

Translation: With these examples for guidance, you should be able to use WISH Superscriptorium to display a grammatical analysis and translation options for a large number of common and not-so-common Latin words. Then, if you want to produce a written translation, you can use the "TRANSLATION" text box for anything from a rough scratch pad filled with bad guesses about the meaning of sentences, to a real "super-scriptorium" displaying an elegant, polished translation (if you know how to produce one). The Cut, Paste, Undo, and Redo buttons may be useful when trying to coax your translation out of the former state and into the latter; click "Save" when you think you've got something worth saving. If you want to clear out old translation options and start fresh with new ones, click the "Clear Options" button; to copy the text of translation options so you can paste it somewhere else, click "Copy."

Aside from what's described above, all there is to WISH Superscriptorium (at least so far) is some menus that can do the following things, and buttons that can do some of them too.

FILE MENU

New: Blanks out all three text boxes, so you can enter something completely different. If there was unsaved text for a named file in the Latin window, it should be automatically saved first (but you might feel more secure if you just saved it manually). If there was unsaved text and no named file, you'll be asked whether you want to give the text a name before blanking out the window. The "Clear All" button above the Translation Options box does the same thing.

Open Latin/English--Any: Opens a file selection dialog box so you can slog through directories and find a Latin or English file you want. This is the hard way; use it only for files you've never before opened with WISH Superscriptorium. Here's the easy way:

Open Latin/English--Recent: Opens a listbox showing names of recently viewed files--up to 9999 of them, if you wish. You probably don't want to scan the names of 9999 files visually--or even 100 or 1000 files--to see if the one you want is on the list. So, in the entry box next to the "Search" button below the listbox, enter some text that you're sure the file name contains, and then click Search or hit Enter. All the file names on the "recently viewed" list that contain the text you entered will be selected (use the scrollbar to see the ones that don't appear at first). To open one, either right-click, double left-click, or single left-click and then click Open. (If you try to open more than one file at once, you'll get a friendly error message asking you to select exactly one.) The "Open" buttons above the Original and Translation text boxes will do the same thing.

Save English/Latin (Control+s): Does what it says, except it will automatically change to "Save As" if your text doesn't have a name yet; then you'll be asked to give it one. If you have unsaved text, the word "(Save?)" should appear on the title bar. After you save the text, the word "Saved" will appear in front of the file name for one second; then it will go and the file name will stay. The text box where the cursor is active (either Original or Translation) will be the one from which the text is saved. The "Save" buttons above the Original and Translation text boxes will do the same thing.

Backup English/Latin: Like "Save/Save As," only you keep working on the file with the original name, while the one with the new name becomes the backup file. Once your backup file has a name, this button will back up your working file under that name; it won't prompt you for yet another name. If you want to keep a handy series of backups from different times under different names, while keeping the newest version of the file in view, use the "Backup As" menu items.

Move/Rename English/Latin: Like "Save As," only there's no backup file. The file you were working on gets a new name, location, or both, but the contents stay the same. Unsaved changes will be saved at once under the new name.

Exit: Does what it says. If you have unsaved text for a named file in the Latin or English text box (or both), it will automatically be saved. If you have text that you haven't yet saved with a name, you'll be asked if you want to.

EDIT MENU

You can cut, copy, paste, or delete selected text with the keyboard or the mouse. To select text, in addition to the obvious method of holding down the mouse button while moving the pointer from one end to the other end of the text you want to select, here are some things you can do.

To add more text to an existing selection (such as when you want to select a lot more than will fit on the screen), hold down Shift and single-click the left mouse button at the end of the text to be added. If you want to select even more, keep holding down both Shift and the mouse button, and drag to extend the selection further. The text will scroll to extend the selection if the mouse pointer reaches the bottom of the text area.

To select a single word, double-click the word with the left mouse button. To add more words, hold down both Control and Shift while using the left or right arrow key. (The fastest way to select a bunch of words, I think, is to double-click on the first word and then shift-click at the end of the last word.)

To select an entire line, triple-click the line with the left mouse button. (If word wrap is turned on, several lines may appear to be selected, but they will appear as only one line if word wrap is turned off--see below.) To add more lines, hold down both "Control" and "Shift" while using the left or right arrow key.

To keep the selection the same but put the cursor somewhere else, hold down "Control" and single-click the left mouse button where the cursor is to go.

Cut (Control+x): Cuts out the selected text and puts it on the clipboard, ready to be pasted in. Easy.

Copy (Control+c): Copies the selected text and puts it on the clipboard, ready to be pasted in. Equally easy.

Paste (Control+g) (it was supposed to be "Control+v," but that didn't work quite right for some reason unknown to me): Pastes in text from the clipboard at the cursor location. The cursor goes to the end of the pasted-in text, and the text scrolls to the new cursor position if necessary. You can paste in the same text more than once, so long as you haven't cut or copied any other text more recently. If you have, the newly cut or copied text replaces whatever was on the clipboard before.

Delete (Del): Cuts out selected text and doesn't put it on the clipboard; it's gone (although you may still be able to get it back with "Undo."

Undo (Control+z): Undoes the last significant action performed (e.g., typing a word, deleting some text, etc.). You can undo an unlimited number of actions, but the stacks of actions to undo and redo are emptied when you save a file, so make sure the file is OK before you save it. If one "undo" gives you a blank window, try another "undo" to get back the previous contents; some actions work by first blanking out the window and then inserting new text, so there are two separate steps to undo.

Redo (Control+r): If you're inclined toward unlimited vacillation, you can redo an unlimited number of actions after undoing them; then you can undo them again, redo them again, and so on ad infinitum. (Ugh!)

Special Characters: Opens up a box of buttons that you can click to insert special characters into your text. Unlike special-character boxes in many other programs, this one doesn't go away when you've inserted a character, so you can click quick to insert as many as you want. If you really want it to go away, just click the Close button at the bottom.

Select All (Control+/): Obviously, selects every bit of text in the text area, whether you can see it or not. What's not quite so obvious is that you can select almost all the text by (1) selecting all and (2) then shift-clicking inside the selected portion to deselect some text at the beginning or the end. (You can do this more than once, and you can do it with any selection, not only one created with "Select All.") To add text back onto the selection, shift-click outside the selected portion; the part between the selected portion and the place where you shift-click will be added.

SEARCH MENU

Find (F2): Opens a dialog bar containing a "Find" entry box, into which you can type text to search for. Click Match case to find only text with the same capitalization or lack of capitalization (e.g., searching for "OK" won't find "ok" if "Match case" is selected). Click Up to search backward toward the beginning of the text. To find the first instance, you can either press F2 or click the Find (F2) button. If you've found all the instances of matching text, or there aren't any, the dialog bar will change to say so. To change what you're searching for, click New Search. To find the next instance, do either of these things again. To quit searching, click Close.

As the label at the top of the box says, you can use a period (.) to substitute for any one character; a plus sign (+) for one or more; and an asterisk (*) for zero or more characters. This means text characters, numbers, or underscores; these "wildcards" (".", "+", and "*") won't match spaces, punctuation marks, etc. For example, a search for "comp.ti+" will find "computing," "compatible," "competition," and many more words, but it won't find "comp time." A search for "Scarlet Pimp+" or "Scarlet Pimp." will find "Scarlet Pimpernel" (even if the two words are separated by a single line break), but it won't find "Scarlet Pimp"; a search for "Scarlet Pimp*" will find both.

You can also click buttons to insert "OR" (|) or "AND" ( & ) connectors (or you can just type them in; put spaces around the & for "AND," but no spaces around the | for OR). An "OR" search will find any text that matches any of the expressions joined by "OR." An "AND" search will find only those paragraphs or sentences (click a radiobutton to select which) that have all of the expressions joined by "AND."

If you have both "OR" and "AND" in the search terms, your search criteria will first be split at each "AND"; an "OR" search will be done on each part; and paragraphs or sentences will be found if they have at least one of the items specified in each part. For example, "P.ppy|Mandriva & Linu+|*nix" without case matching will find "Puppy Linux," "Mandriva Linux," "Pappy Unix," and more, but not "Poppy Mandriva" or "Linus Nixon." (Don't ask me how to say any of those things in Latin!)

Replace (Control+F2): Opens up a "Replace" dialog bar, like the "Find" bar but with entry boxes for (1) text to search for ("Replace") and (2) text to replace it with ("with"). Press Enter or click Find First to find the first instance of matching text. If there is one, "Find First" will change to Replace This, which you can then click to replace the first instance and go on to the next. Click Skip if you don't want to replace an instance, or Replace All to replace all of them at once. The New Search button will change "Replace This" back to "Find First," and set you up to do another search. Close will close the dialog bar, even if you weren't done with the search. "Replace" has the same new enhancements as "Find," except you can't use the "AND" connector and you have to type in the "|" for "OR" yourself.

***WARNING:*** While the "Replace" dialog bar is open, do not press Enter to do anything other than replace an item, and don't move the cursor manually; if you do, any selected text could be deleted!

DISPLAY MENU

Colors: This menu item will open up a "WISH Color Picker Plus" box to let you determine what colors will appear in the program's windows. In the box, you'll see sliders to change the proportions of red, green, and blue, and a button to display the color. The sliders go from 0 (none) to 255 (maximum). There's also a listbox containing color names; you can right-click or double left-click to select a color, and then modify it with the sliders if you wish. The "PICK" button displays the selected color, with its name or hexadecimal (base 16) code in black letters if the color is light, or white ones if the color is dark. For example, if you select a color with 255 parts red, 204 parts green, and 153 parts blue, the hexadecimal code (displayed in black letters) will be "FFCC99" because "FF" in hexadecimal numeration means 255, "CC" means 204, and "99" means 153.

To the right of the color names, there's a label that says "CHOOSE COLOR TO CHANGE," followed by a bunch of things you can change the color of (e.g., window background, buttons, boxes, labels, and more). On each line here, there's a radiobutton, then the name of something to change the color of, and finally a little button displaying the current color and name or code of that thing. Click a radiobutton to select a line; then click the big "PICK" button, or a little color button on another line. The color from the button you click will be copied to the color button on the selected line. The change won't show up elsewhere until you click the "Apply Picked Colors" button below the color-name listbox.

Near the bottom left corner of the box, there's a color-scheme listbox with an entry line for adding or changing color-scheme names. Some names of sample color schemes should be in the listbox. (They come from a subdirectory of your home directory, "/home/[you]/.wishes/colorschemes"; the code for each color scheme is kept in a separate, human-readable file.) To apply a color scheme, select it and then click "Apply Color Scheme" (you can also just right-click or double-click the color name). To create a new color scheme, pick the colors for the scheme and click "Apply Picked Colors"; then put a name for the scheme on the entry line and click "Name This Color Scheme" or hit Enter. To revise an existing color scheme, change some colors and enter the scheme name on the entry line (if it isn't already there); then hit Enter or click "Yes" in the box that will ask whether to revise the color scheme. Obviously, click the color-scheme name and "Delete Color Scheme" to delete a color scheme. Finally, click OK to save the currently applied colors as your preferred colors, or Close to close the color-selection box without saving.

To send me inquisitive or helpful messages with no flames in them, e-mail me at <mcclamrock@locl.net>. Especially, please let me know if you find any bugs or omissions, so I can correct them in the next version of the program. I hope you like this program, or find it useful, or both!

David McClamrock
November 2008

HOME