Yomichan/Yomitan Dictionary Builder

This is a library for building dictionaries for Yomitan from scratch. Note that Yomichan is no longer being maintained, and thus is not compatible with some new dictionaries that are developed using new features exclusive to Yomitan.

Installation

npm install yomichan-dict-builder

Contributing

Please let me know if you find any bugs or have any feature requests. I'd love to see this library be used to create more Yomitan dictionaries, so if you do end up using it, please let me know!

Examples

• example.js - A simple example of how to use the library.
• CC-CEDICT for Yomitan
• Wikipedia for Yomitan
• VNDB To Yomitan - A tool for creating Yomitan dictionaries of visual novel character names from vndb.org.
• words.hk for Yomitan

Usage

• The Dictionary class represents a Yomitan dictionary. You can add entries, kanji, and other things to it before exporting it with export().
• The DictionaryIndex, TermEntry, and KanjiEntry classes represent some of the more complicated parts of a Yomitan dictionary. You can create them and add them to a dictionary using the setIndex(), addTerm(), and addKanji() methods of the Dictionary class.
• You might want to set "js/ts.implicitProjectConfig.checkJs": true in your VSCode settings to get type checking for JavaScript files and not have to deal with your dictionaries failing to validate against the Yomitan schemas.
• In particular, it might be a good idea to check out the Yomitan Schemas as well as the type definitions within the package so that you know what's available for use when creating detailed definitions.
• You can then type your objects in JS by using JSDoc comments to provide editor intellisense and type checking. You can see this in action in example.js.

Dictionary Class

The Dictionary class represents a Yomitan dictionary and is used to manage entries, kanji, and various metadata before exporting.

Initializing a Dictionary

To create a new dictionary:

const { Dictionary } = require('yomichan-dict-builder');

const dictionary = new Dictionary({
  fileName: 'test.zip',
});

Setting Index Information

You can create an index for the dictionary using the DictionaryIndex class and add it to the dictionary using setIndex():

const { DictionaryIndex } = require('yomichan-dict-builder');

const index = new DictionaryIndex()
  .setTitle('Test Dictionary')
  .setRevision('1.0')
  .setAuthor('Marv')
  .setDescription('Test dictionary for yomichan-dict-builder')
  // ...additional index details
  .build();

await dictionary.setIndex(index);

Adding Term Entries

Term entries can be added using the addTerm() method of the Dictionary class:

const { TermEntry } = require('yomichan-dict-builder');

const entry = new TermEntry('test').setReading('test').build();
await dictionary.addTerm(entry);

Additionally, detailed definitions can be added to a term entry:

// Creating a detailed definition
const detailedDefinition = {
  type: 'structured-content',
  // ...detailed definition content
};

const entry2 = new TermEntry('test2')
  .setReading('reading')
  .addDetailedDefinition(detailedDefinition)
  .addDetailedDefinition('test2')
  .build();

await dictionary.addTerm(entry2);

Adding Kanji Entries

Kanji entries can be added using the addKanji() method:

const { KanjiEntry } = require('yomichan-dict-builder');
const kanjiEntry = new KanjiEntry('亜')
  .setKunyomi('あ')
  .setOnyomi('ア')
  .addMeaning('Asia')
  .setStats({ strokes: '7', grade: '8' });

dictionary.addKanji(kanjiEntry.build());

Note that the statistics added here must be added as tags as well.

Adding Frequency

Frequency information can be added to terms and kanji using the addTermMeta() and addKanjiMeta() methods:

dictionary.addTermMeta(['term', 'freq', 1]);
dictionary.addTermMeta(['term', 'freq', 'N1']);
// ...additional term metadata

dictionary.addKanjiMeta(['亜', 'freq', 1]);
dictionary.addKanjiMeta(['亜', 'freq', 'one']);
// ...additional kanji metadata

Adding Pitch Accent

Pitch accent information can be added to terms using the addTermMeta() method:

dictionary.addTermMeta([
  '亜',
  'pitch',
  {
    reading: 'あ',
    pitches: [
      {
        position: 1,
        devoice: [], // optional
        nasal: [], // optional
      },
    ],
  },
]);

Adding Tags

Tags can be added to the dictionary. These are necessary when you add a tag/statistic to a term or kanji entry.

dictionary.addTag({
  name: 'jouyou',
  category: 'frequent',
  sortingOrder: -5,
  notes: 'included in list of regular-use characters',
  popularityScore: 0,
});

Adding Local Files

You can add local files like images to the dictionary using the addFile() method:

await dictionary.addFile('./examples/icon64.png', 'img/icon64.png');

This copies the file at ./examples/icon64.png and saves it into the dictionary zip file at img/icon64.png.

The file can then be referenced in structured content definitions:

const imageScNode = {
  tag: 'img',
  path: 'img/icon64.png',
  data: {
    'dict-data': 'testImage',
  },
  title: 'test image',
};

So addFile() allows you to bundle any needed images, audio clips, etc. into the dictionary itself.

Exporting the Dictionary

To export the constructed dictionary:

const stats = await dictionary.export('./test');
console.log('Done exporting!');
console.table(stats);
// ┌────────────────┬────────┐
// │    (index)     │ Values │
// ├────────────────┼────────┤
// │   termCount    │ 20002  │
// │ termMetaCount  │   5    │
// │   kanjiCount   │   1    │
// │ kanjiMetaCount │   3    │
// └────────────────┴────────┘