Tantei (Detective)

Tantei is a small Windows 95 program that allows our Kotonoha Dictionaries and tools to be available for use with many Japanese enabled applications. Simply clicking and dragging in those applications allows you to get Kanji information, Word Translations and lists of words and Kanji used in a selection of text. Tantei and Kotonoha will turn Japanese enabled applications into document readers.

Tantei is a connector program. It connects the Kotonoha Dictionaries to the Japanese Enabled application of your choice. To be able to connect Tantei to an application, the application must be capable of copying text to the clipboard by being able to use the CTRL+C or Ctrl+Insert accelerator key sequence.

For a list of definitions of terms used in this document, please refer to the Glossary at the end. For more information about Kotonoha, please refer to the documentation that comes with it or the demo.

Features

  • Capable of connecting to many Japanese enabled Software applications
  • Runs on both English and Japanese Windows
  • Once connected, simply selecting some Japanese text with your mouse gives you word translations and Kanji definitions, pronunciations and more
  • Build word or Kanji lists from the text selected.

Applications that work with Tantei

What follows is not a complete listing of applications that work with Tantei as we expect that many applications that we have not tested will work fine with Tabibito.

Applications

  • Microsoft Internet Explorer
  • Netscape Navigator
  • JWP version 1.31
  • Microsoft Word, Wordpad and notepad running on Japanese windows (and non-Japanese windows when using a Double-byte Manager).

Double-byte Managers

  • Super-Software’s Mview V1.2
  • Unionway’s Asian Suite
  • Twinbridge Japanese Partner

NJWin users should note that NJWin interferes with Tantei and therefore is currently incompatible with Tantei.

Hint: When using Tantei with word processors such as Microsoft Word and Wordpad, it is best to turn the automatic word selection off. Since Japanese text is often a continuous stream of characters, when automatic word selection is on, you may have difficulty in controlling the selection of the specific character or characters you are interested in. In Microsoft Word, automatic word selection can be turned off by selecting ‘Options’ from the ‘Tools’ menu. Click on the ‘Edit’ tab. Click the ‘Automatic Word Selection’ checkbox to remove the check mark. For Wordpad, select ‘Options’ from the ‘View’ menu. Click on the ‘Options’ tab. Click the ‘Automatic Word Selection’ checkbox to remove the check mark.

Prerequisites

  • Must have the Kotonoha Application or its Demonstration version
  • Windows 95 or NT 4
  • An Application capable of displaying Japanese text

Task bar/Icon Tray

When Tantei is first started, it is immediately added to your Icon tray (normally on the right-hand or bottom of the Windows Task bar). It is represented by a small Japanese flag. Under normal operation, Tantei will work behind the scenes as the small tray Icon. Any time you want to make setting changes, close Tantei or build lists, right-mouse-click the small Japanese flag and a quick menu of Tantei options will be displayed.

Tantei Version 1.0 Users: Accessing the Tantei form through the small Tantei Icon on the task bar has been changed.

Double-clicking the Tantei Icon is a quick way enables or disables the Tantei connections.

Right-clicking the Tantei Icon brings up a quick menu of Tantei actions and settings. The menu allows you to enable/disable Tantei or Kotonoha dictionaries. Three menu buttons allow you to interact with the Kotonoha dictionaries.

To bring up and display the Tantei form, you must now right-click the Tantei Icon to bring up the quick menu and click “Show Tantei”. The only reason it should become necessary to open the Tantei form is if you need to make new connections or change connection settings.

Quick Menu Options

By right-clicking the Tantei Icon, you are presented with a menu. The menu selections, from bottom to top, function as follows:

1.Close Tantei - Closes Tantei and removes from the Icon tray.

2.About Tantei - Tantei version and Copyright information.

3.Help Contents - Displays the Help file.

4.Show Tantei - Opens the full Tantei window to allow the additional and editing of Tantei connections.

5.Tantei Enabled/Disabled - When Enabled Tantei is ready to assist you. When disabled, Tantei will ignore all application connections. Tantei can be quickly enabled or disabled by double-clicking the Tantei icon in the Icon tray.

6.Paste Dictionary - When clicked, Tantei will copy the most recent selected text in the application you are viewing and paste it into the “Add vocabulary” area of Kotonoha. This allows you to add words to Kotonoha’s dictionary if you find one that Kotonoha does not have.

7.Build Word List - When clicked, Tantei will send the selected text to Kotonoha to build a list of all the words it can recognize from the selection.

8.Build Kanji List - When clicked, Tantei will send the selected text to Kotonoha to build a list of all the Kanji it can recognize from the selection.

9.JE Dictionary Enabled/Disabled - When enabled, the Japanese to English dictionary will be active.

10.KanjiDictionary Enabled/Disabled - When enabled, the Japanese to English dictionary will be active.

Removing Tantei from the Start Menu:

When Tantei is installed, a short-cut is placed on the ‘Start’ menu in “Programs-Startup”. This makes Tantei start-up automatically when you start windows. If you wish to remove Tantei from the ‘Start Up’ menu:

  • Click the ‘Start’ button, choose ‘Settings’ then ‘Taskbar’
  • On the window that opens, click on the ‘Start Menu Programs’ tab at the top.
  • Click the ‘Remove’ button
  • On the Window that opens, under ‘Programs’ find ‘StartUp’ and click the ‘+’ sign to the left of it.
  • Click ‘Tantei’
  • Click the ‘Remove’ button
  • Click ‘Close’
  • Click ‘OK’
  • The Removal is complete

Main Window

Tantei’s Japanese Application to Kotonoha connection is based on the settings of the main window

Enabled Checkbox

When checked, Tantei is enabled and ready to work upon your selection of text in any of your connected applications.

Kotonoha Interaction

This section sets how Kotonoha, Tantei and the application displaying Japanese Text will interact.

Kanji Dictionary

When checked, Tantei will request Kotonoha to display the Kanji selected from the Japanese text.

JE Dictionary

When checked, Tantei will request Kotonoha to display the Japanese to English word translation of the selected Japanese text.

Build Kanji List

Request Kotonoha to build a list of Kanji from the selected Japanese text.

Build Word List

Request Kotonoha to build a list of vocabulary from the selected Japanese text.

Paste Dictionary

Copies the application’s selected text to Kotonoha Dictionary add word area so that the new word can be added to the Dictionary. See the Kotonoha manual for more information on adding vocabulary.

Application Connection

This section sets which applications Tantei can connect to.

Application Connection List

This lists the applications that are connected to Tantei. Whether or not the connected is active depends on Enabled checkbox of the ‘Add’ or ‘Edit’ dialogs.

Add...

Clicking ‘add...’ will allow you to set up a new application connection. See Configure Application Connection below for more information.

Edit...

Clicking ‘Edit...’ will allow you to making changes to the settings of the application currently shown in the Application connection list. See Configure Application Connection below for more information.

Remove

‘Remove’ will delete the application connection from the list. When removed it is no longer shown in the application connection list. If you click ‘Remove’, Tantei will confirm if you would really like to remove the application connection.

Hide

Clicking ‘Hide’ will shrink Tantei back to the Icon Tray to continue working in the background.

Close

Clicking ‘Close’ will close Tantei.

Help...

Get help on Tantei’s controls..

About Tantei...

Copyright Information about Tantei.

Configure Application Connection

When you click ‘Add...’ or ‘Edit...’ from Tantei’s main window a dialog titled as ‘Add Application’ or ‘Configure Application’ is shown. Both dialogs are identical in all respects. If editing an existing application connection, you must to select it from the Connection list before clicking the Edit button.

To configure an application click add or edit:

1.Make sure the application you are connected to or wish to connect to is running. For convenience, set it to a size that allows you to see both the application and Tantei.

2.Type in a descriptive name of the application you wish to connect to.

3.Click the Train button.

4.You will be asked to click the text area of the application you are connecting. It is important that you immediately click the OK button (without clicking anything else) after clicking the application’s text area. If not, a proper connection will not be made.

5.Test the application connection. Test it with the two variations of copy styles. To select a copy style, click one and then select some text from the application by clicking the mouse over some text, dragging it across the text and releasing the mouse button. If the text shown on the dialog box changes, then copy style setting should be good for your application connection. If not, click OK to close the ‘Test’ dialog and repeat this step with the other copy.

6.Choose the clipboard encoding of the Japanese text. If you happen to know it just select it. If you do not know the encoding, click the ‘Check...’ button. A dialog will open asking you to select some Japanese text from your application. If it can figure out the encoding method, click ‘Accept’ to use it. If it cannot figure it out, try selecting some different text. Generally, Japanese enabled applications use ‘Shift-JIS’ encoding so this is the most probable selection that will work. Some applications (such as JWP) may allow you to select the clipboard encoding from the applications options settings. For these applications, just make sure Tantei’s settings are the same.

7.The connection should now be functional so just click ‘Done’ and Tantei is ready to help you with the Japanese Text in the application.

It is important to note that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 4 uses Unicode as its clipboard encoding and that Tantei is unable to determine this with the “Check” button.

Important Note: It is possible that if you upgrade an application that Tantei is connected to, the connection may no longer work. If this is the case, just follow the steps above to reconnect it.

That’s all there is to it. Once the application connection is made, Tantei and Kotonoha are ready to help you search out details in Japanese documents.

Glossary

Application - This is the program that you will like to have Tantei connect the Kotonoha dictionaries to.

Application Connection - The connection between the Application and Kotonoha.

Double-Byte Managers - Small applications that interperet the underlying text and display Japanese fonts as required. Double byte managers are used to display Japanese text in non-Japanese Windows applications. Double byte managers include Twinbridge’s Japanese Partner, Unionway’s Asian Suite and Super-Software’s Mview.

Enabled - When enabled, the application connection is live.

EUC, Shift-JIS, JIS - The three main Japanese text encoding systems used. EUC is generally from the Unix world, Shift-JIS is the encoding system used on Windows and Macintosh systems. JIS is the standard for transferring information (e.g. E-mails) through the Internet.

Icon Tray - The part of the Task bar (normally at the right end) where the clock time is displayed. This is where Tantei resides when ‘Hidden’.

Kotonoha - Our Kanji dictionary, Japanese to English dictionary and Kanji/Vocabulary learning software application.

Selecting Text - Selecting text means, clicking on some text with the mouse, dragging the mouse across the text and releasing the mouse button. Generally, selected text is shown in applications as white letters on a black background.

Tantei - The connector program between your application and Kotonoha

Task Bar - The area usually at the bottom of the screen where the Windows ‘Start’ button resides.

Unicode - A new encoding system being adopted by Microsoft and others which is capable of carrying all characters for all languages. WindowsNT supports Unicode directly, Windows95 has some Unicode support.