Adventures in Conlanging - Electronic Cataloguing
So, I like building conlangs. I like it quite a bit, actually. But, having just written lists of words can be...inconvenient, shall we say? Hard to find if a new word is similar to an old one, or to find a given word or anything like that. So, I like to use digital catalogues. What follows in this thread are some of my thoughts on systems I've used.
Adventures in Conlanging - Electronic Cataloguing
SIL Lexique Pro:
I actually started with Lexique. Yes, no faffing about with spreadsheets and txt files for me. Straight to linguistic tools. And, I kinda like Lexique. It's simple enough to use and gives you a really good catalogue. The only problem is that the format isn't exactly easy to move to other software. But, the .db file is written as plain text, so it wouldn't be too difficult for someone to write a converter. It's just no one has yet
Adventures in Conlanging - Electronic Cataloguing
ABBYY Lingvo .dsl files:
So, I played with the next while on Linux. I wanted something Linux-native, and I started playing with what Goldendict supported. .dsl files aren't too difficult, which is nice, but Goldendict's support for formatting codes can be iffy at best. Not everything works. You'll still have the formatting, but it won't render it. But, not *terrible*. Basically, it's a fancy txt file.
Adventures in Conlanging - Electronic Cataloguing
XDXF:
Oh, gods, this nightmare. Upside: It's powerful *as fuck* and Goldendict supports it fully. Downside: it's all fucking XML. If you're comfortable writing XML or HTML files, it's, as I said, really fucking powerful. If you're not, stay as far away as possible. Don't even think of touching it.
Adventures in Conlanging - Electronic Cataloguing
And now, a short tangent on Goldendict:
It's a nice piece of software, but I wish I could expand the languages it knows of. It doesn't like when I try to use VSK as an XDXF "from" language, and barely tries to do anything. I wish I could tell it "Oh, VSK is Valirisikakol" without having to compile from source. I also wish it had runic support, given my failure at making a runic dictionary that'd work with it
Adventures in Conlanging - Electronic Cataloguing
So, my personal recommendations? If you're on Windows, Lexique is *really good*, but SIL doesn't support it, so, take that as you will. If you want a portable dictionary, XDXF if you can handle XML and/or need the power, .dsl files otherwise. dsl files are nice and simple, and a lot of software support them. As for FLEx, unless you're *really* into your conlang, don't bother. It's way too complex for cataloguing alone.
Adventures in Conlanging - Electronic Cataloguing
And, finally, none of this is to say you *shouldn't* use spreadsheets or whatever plain text setup you find best. After all, when it comes to tools like these, what matters is whether you'll use it, not how fancy or official it is. If you like your txt files, good! It's all about what you're comfortable using.
Adventures in Conlanging - Electronic Cataloguing
This also, mind you, isn't a comprehensive list of dictionary tools. These are just the ones I've used. So, feel free to look around for others, including other dictionary formats like .dsl and XDXF, and see if any of them suit your fancy if nothing I've talked about here does
Adventures in Conlanging - Electronic Cataloguing
Oh! One final note: Everything I've talked about here is free. IIRC, Abbyy Lingvo is paid software, but the dictionary format itself is out there for anyone to use. XDXF's standard is up on Github. And, SIL releases both Lexique and FLEx for free. So, if you want to give any of these a try, you can!
Adventures in Conlanging - Electronic Cataloguing
Finally, SIL FLEx:
Uh...It's big.
Very big.
It's very complicated.
It has a lot of features.
It can log grammars.
It has built in analysis stuff.
I don't really know how to use it.
I'll probably stick to Lexique + PAWS, thanks. Maybe I'll learn how to use FLEx, but, gods, that's gonna take some time.