Simple use
For this article the Microsoft Euro-Languages Terminology Collection (free MultiTerm termbase available through the SDL OpenExchange) is used:
- Install your SDL MultiTerm Widget and open it.
- Click on the Configure button in the right upper corner
- Click on the Open Termbases button, find the termbase file
*.sdltb on your machine (or server) and click OK - Configure your preferences.
- Click on the Help button to open the online help pages for Setting up the SDL MultiTerm Widget.
- When finished, click OK. You can use as many termbases as you like.
- Once you have configured your settings, you are ready to use it. There are various options, depending on your personal preferences:
- Select your word, for example download, and use your mouse shortcut (by default
[Alt]+left button) or keyboard shortcut (by default [Ctrl+Alt+F8]): - You can also simply type in your search by calling up the Widget when needed
Advanced use
By modifying the settings file on your machine, you can also add online dictionary websites and online search providers, for example:
If you are interested in setting this up on your machine:
-
First localte the settings file WidgetSearchProviders.xml on your machine. This file is stored with the other MultiTerm settings in your user’s application settings:
- Windows 7/8.1/10: C:\Users\[USER_NAME]\AppData\Roaming\SDL\SDL MultiTerm\MultiTerm12\WidgetSearchProviders.xml
-
You can open the file in any text/xml editor (for example Notepad++). The file consists of a list of search providers in the following type of format:
<SearchProvider Name="Pons german/english"> <Url>http://en.pons.eu/dict/search/results/?q={2}&in=en-gb&l=deen</Url> <Icon>Pons.png</Icon> <LanguageMapping Type="Iso" /> </SearchProvider>
-
This is what the four elements mean:
| Tag | Attributes |
<SearchProvider> |
Name Will be displayed on the search button and the context menu for web search.
|
<URL> |
This is sent to the web browser. It allows to you specify three parameters that will be replaced before sending the URL. None of them are mandatory.
{0} Source language as selected in the configuration dialog. See language mapping type below.{1} Target language.{2} Search term.
WARNING: Make sure to use XML entities in the URL string (this is required because the WidgetSearchProviders file is an XML file). So for an ampersand that adds another parameter like in above sample, make sure to use the full entity & and not only plain &.
|
<Icon> |
An image in one of the following formats: ico, png, bmp, gif, jpg. It needs to be in the same folder as the WidgetSearchProviders.xml file, or you can use a relative path.
|
<LanguageMapping> |
Type: different websites use different ways to represent languages. This parameter allows you to choose between three types:
Iso The language is represented as a two letter code, according to the ISO standard. For example en for English. This will always be the ‘neutral language’, without a country specification. For example, if you choose English (United States) in the Configuration dialog, it will be mapped to en, not to en-us.
English_Name The English name for the language is used. It will be the neutral language, so English (United States) will translate to English.
Table Can be used to handle web pages that use different language representations. The user provides a table mapping between ISO codes (used internally in MultiTerm) and the web search name for languages, like this:
<SearchProvider Name=”*LEO”>
<Url>http://dict.leo.org/{0}{1}?lp={0}{1}&search={2}</Url>
<Icon>LEO.png</Icon>
<LanguageMapping Type=”Table”>
<Language iso=”de” web=”de”/>
<Language iso=”en” web=”en”/>
<Language iso=”fr” web=”fr”/>
<Language iso=”es” web=”es”/>
<Language iso=”it” web=”it”/>
<Language iso=”ch” web=”ch”/>
<Language iso=”ru” web=”ru”/>
</LanguageMapping>
</SearchProvider>
|
Super-advanced use
To really get you going, here are three examples using the European Union’s multilingual termbase project, IATE. In this online terminology repository, you will find terms that have been fed into the database by EU terminologists and translators on the basis of information from translators, administrators, lawyer-linguists, experts and other reliable sources.
(1) Finding results from any language:
<SearchProvider Name="IATE (All options)">
<Url>http://iate.europa.eu/iatediff/SearchByQuery.do?method=search&query={2}&sourceLanguage=s&domain=0&matching=&start=0&next=1&targetLanguages=s&typeOfSearch=s</Url>
<Icon>IATE.png</Icon>
</SearchProvider>
(2) Finding results from an English/German language pair only:
<SearchProvider Name="IATE (english > german / options: any)">
<Url>http://iate.europa.eu/iatediff/SearchByQuery.do?method=search&query={2}&sourceLanguage=en&domain=0&matching=&start=0&next=1&targetLanguages=de&typeOfSearch=s</Url>
<Icon>IATE.png</Icon>
</SearchProvider>
(3) Finding results from a language pair defined by the Widget termbase settings:
<SearchProvider Name="IATE (Language mapping)">
<Url>http://iate.europa.eu/iatediff/SearchByQuery.do?method=search&query={2}&sourceLanguage={0}&domain=0&matching=&start=0&next=1&targetLanguages={1}&typeOfSearch=s</Url>
<Icon>IATE.png</Icon>
<LanguageMapping Type="Table">
<Language iso="de" web="de"/>
<Language iso="en" web="en"/>
<Language iso="fr" web="fr"/>
<Language iso="es" web="es"/>
<Language iso="it" web="it"/>
<Language iso="bg" web="bg"/>
<Language iso="cs" web="cs"/>
<Language iso="da" web="da"/>
<Language iso="el" web="el"/>
<Language iso="et" web="et"/>
<Language iso="fi" web="fi"/>
<Language iso="ga" web="ga"/>
<Language iso="hu" web="hu"/>
<Language iso="la" web="la"/>
<Language iso="lt" web="lt"/>
<Language iso="lv" web="lv"/>
<Language iso="mt" web="mt"/>
<Language iso="nl" web="nl"/>
<Language iso="pl" web="pl"/>
<Language iso="pt" web="pt"/>
<Language iso="ro" web="ro"/>
<Language iso="sk" web="sk"/>
<Language iso="sl" web="sl"/>
<Language iso="sv" web="sv"/>
</LanguageMapping>
</SearchProvider>
To give you an idea of what this looks like using the first option (all languages):
