HDICT Dictionary reader

[dhaval patel]

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to introduce HDICT, a free and libre dictionary reader app, designed for scholars who work deeply with dictionaries. It works on iOS, macOS, Android and Linux as of now. It allows reading Slob, StarDict, Dictd and Mdict format of dictionaries.

Apple App Store: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/hdict/id6759493062

Google Play Store : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.sanskritworld.hdict 

Snap Store (Linux) : https://snapcraft.io/hdict 

If you have a bug to report or a feature request, please feel free to open an issue at  https://github.com/drdhaval2785/hdict/issues/new or send an email to drdhav...@gmail.com. 

If you find the app useful, please spread the word.

The app has been primarily tested for StarDict dictionaries. I would request all the members of this august group to give their valuable suggestions regarding Slob dictionary reading experience. 

Detailed description:

Why HDICT?

Research often requires consulting multiple dictionaries across languages and traditions—sometimes in environments where stable internet access is not guaranteed. HDICT is built precisely for this use case.

 Offline, Open & Flexible

• Completely free and libre

• Offline storage of your dictionaries - No limits as to the number of dictionaries you can add.

• Supports Slob, StarDict, Mdict and dictd file formats

• No subscription model, no lock-in

Bring your preferred dictionaries and work entirely offline.

 Research-Oriented SearchMulti-Dictionary Search

• View results from multiple dictionaries simultaneously

• Clean tabbed interface for parallel comparison

• Close individual tabs to maintain a focused workspace

Search Inside Definitions

• Not just headwords — search inside full definitions

• Particularly useful for tracing citations, gloss traditions, and semantic fields

Fast Lookups

• Optimized queries for near-instant results, even with large lexica

 Deep Text ExplorationTap-on-Meaning

Every word inside a definition is interactive.
Tap any word to instantly look it up.

Nested Lookups

New lookups open in a full-width bottom popup, allowing you to explore semantic chains without losing your place in the original entry.

Unicode Native

Full Unicode support ensures smooth handling of:

• Devanāgarī

• IAST

• English

• and any other script

 Flashcards & Pedagogy

For those teaching or revising:

• Truly random quizzes (10 random words from selected dictionaries)

• Mark answers as correct/incorrect even during review

• Dedicated score history to track long-term progress

 Customizable Scholarly Environment

• Premium modern design with subtle micro-animations

• Full RGB theme control (background, headings, body text)

• Adjustable global font sizing

  
  

HDICT is designed to be a practical tool for scholars who value openness, portability, and serious lexical work.

If you maintain or curate dictionaries in StarDict or dictd formats, HDICT offers a powerful, research-focused way to access them on mobile devices—fully offline.

I would be grateful for your valuable feedback and suggestions.

With best regards,

Dr. Dhaval Patel, I.A.S.

[Michael Bechtold]

Hi Patel,

just installed and added an existing folder.

Import takes very long, which implies that many data are processed - and written.

How much ovehead does your app generate for each SLOB file?

TXs and cheers

Michael

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[Michael Bechtold]

PS: after some time it shows 3 dictionaries, all 0 words.

I.e. SLOB import did not work.

Cheers

Michael

dhaval patel <drdhav...@gmail.com> schrieb am Sa., 4. Apr. 2026, 10:32:

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[Dhaval Patel]

Hi Michael,

Thank you for your feedback.

The overhead is - Generating a "headword, dict_id, offset, length" sqlite table for headwords.

Will work on the Slob import not working error. 

I tried with Wordnet 3.1 from https://github.com/itkach/slob/wiki/Word-dictionaries-(Wordnet-and-Freedict)#princeton and English-Japanese slob file from https://freedict.org/downloads/. It seemed to work. 

If you can guide me to slob files which do not work, I will try to debug and see what went wrong.

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Dr. Dhaval Patel, I.A.S.

[Michael Bechtold]

These are the SLOBs that did not work.

Cheers

Michael 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/aarddict/CADSGPzV0D5bwZL_uq%2BeYSA_9D6pLmPeRyJ9Yxr1dfskTHV2H3g%40mail.gmail.com.

[Dhaval Patel]

Thanks.

I got the issue. It turns out that uncompressed / zlib compressed slob files were getting processed well. 

lzma2 file was not getting processed well. I have fixed the error in the decoder. Should be working well in the next version of the app. 

bz2 - I am not sure. 

May I request the group to provide links to small test slob files with (1) no compression (2) zlib compression (3) lzma2 compresion and (4) bz2 compression, so that I can test the stability with all the file compression methods and ensure that there is no regression with any code change.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/aarddict/CAL-vQJfqYYpR8s6wNGQdCW%2B-kr48%2BuX0DJbjxoC643ptqJrmYg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Ophicleide]

Hi,

Thanks for sharing HDICT, it looks like a promising app. For now I have two issues: 

1. Looking up a word, diacritical marks have to be correct. This is a disadvantage. Other apps like Aarddict are insensitive to diacritical marks, so it doesn't matter if you search for e, é or è, which is much easier when looking up a word. 

2. Imported dictionaries get a weird and very long have in the app, so in the Manage Dictionaries screen you don't know which dictionary you're looking at because their name all starts the same.

Op zaterdag 4 april 2026 om 15:55:54 UTC+2 schreef drdhav...@gmail.com: