Getting started with WOLF

Before entering words into your dictionary, there is only one required step. You will need to add at least one language (or as many as you plan to incorporate into the dictionary). To add a language, click on the globe icon language.png. This icon appears on the left of the application frame. Once clicked a dialog will appear that includes drop-down menus and a text field as shown below.

The first two drop-downs on the left are for selecting a font and size to be used for a language that you will add. The next one is for selecting the standard three character ISO language code that corresponds to the language. Since there are approximately seven thousand living languages, the language code drop-down is quite long. However, you can type the ISO code (if you know it), and the drop down will jump to that section. You can also use the scrollbar to view the one you want and click on it to select. When you click on a language code, the text field will fill in with a default name for the language.

You can change the default language name as you wish. This is especially useful if you are using MAC based .keylayout files. In this case, make sure the name matches the name (without the extension) of the .keylayout file dropped into the wolfFiles/keylayougFiles folder (you will need to create this folder if it does not already exist). WOLF will then automatically change the keyboard layout to accommodate text input fields using this language. It will also automatically embed these keylayouts into Web and mobile-based dictionaries as well. Key layout files are widely available, but you can create them using the ACORNS ELK software. APPLE has utilities to create these files as well.

The variant field to the right is optional. It is useful if you have multiple writing systems (fonts) for your language. The variant code must be no more than two characters in length.

After the dialog information is correct, click the add button and you will see the language added to the list in the middle of the panel. You can repeat this procedure to add as many languages as you wish. If you make a mistake, just click on the erroneous information in the list and then alter the information displayed. To record the changes, click modify. Tou can also click on the remove button to delete a language. Be careful when removing; if the language contains words, you will lose them, and if the dictionary data was not saved, you will not be able to get the lost words back.

To exit the language dialog, click confirm for WOLF to record all your changes. If you click, cancel or the close frame X at the top, the dictionary will revert back to the state it was in before you ran the language dialog.

Optional Steps

There are three buttons below the globe icon at the left of the application frame. These are to respectively enter information regarding copyrights, contributing authors, and manage ontology data.

Copyright>copyright.png Clicking this icon causes a text area dialog to appear. Simply type the copyright notice and then click confirm.
Authorauthor.png The author icon enables you to enter contacts for authors that contribute information to the dictionary. Each time you finish entering information about a new author, click add. This will cause the author to display among a list of those already entered. Clicking on one of these authors will cause their contact information to display in the text fields. You can then modify the information and click modify or you can click the remove button to delete an author. Clicking confirm will cause WOLF to incorporate your changes into the dictionary.
Ontologygold.png WOLF uses the standard ontological terms defined in the GOLD ontology. This list was created through the E-meld project. If you are happy with this list, you need not use this dialog. However, by clicking on this dialog, you can customize the ontology for your needs. For example, you can enter abbreviations for ontological terms, should those provided be too wordy.
Keyboard mappings WOLF supports keyboard mappings that use .keylayout files, popular on MAC systems. The ELK ([E]xtended [L]inguistic [F]ramework) project http://cs.sou.edu/~harveyd/elk enables users to create these files on any computer platform. WOLF uses these files to provide keyboard mappings when they are dropped into the wolfFiles/keyLayoutFiles directory. Of course, you can also utilize keyboard layouts created by products like Tavultesoft. Please refer to the installation instructions for more details.