New versioning

• Using date as the version was a mistake I made 7 years ago
• From now on, versions are in X.Y.Z format (major.minor.patch)
• While X, Y and Z are digits(0-9) for simplicity (version strings can be compared alphabetically)
• Starting from 3.0.0
  • Take it for migrating to Python 3.x, or Gtk 3.x, or being alphabetically larger than previous versions (date string)

Since I believe this is the first standard version, I'm not sure which code revision should I compare it with. So I just write the most important recent changes, in both application-view and library-view.

Breaking Compatibility

• Config migration
  • Config file becomes a config directory containing config file
  • Config file format changes from Python (loaded by exec) to JSON
  • Remove some obsolete / unused config parameters, and rename some
  • Remove permanent sort boolean flag
    • Must give --sort in command line to enable sorting for most of output formats
  • Load user-defined plugins from a directory named plugins inside config directory
• Glossary class
  • Remove some obsolete / unused method
    • copy, attach, merge, deepMerge, takeWords, getInputList, getOutputList
  • Rename some methods:
    • reverseDic -> reverse
  • Make some public attributes private:
    • data -> _data
    • info -> _info
    • filename -> _filename
  • Clear (reset) the Glossary instance (data, info, etc) after write operation
    • Glossary class is for converting from file(s) to file, not keeping data in memory
  • New methods:
    • convert:
      • convert method is added to be used instead of read and then write
      • Not just for convenience, but it's also recommended,
        • and let's Glossary class to have a better default behavior
        • for example it enables direct mode by default (stay tuned) if sorting is not enabled (by user or plugin)
      • all UI modules (Command line, Gtk3, Tkinter) use Glossary.convert method now
  • Sorting policy
    • sort boolean flag is now an argument to write method
      • sort=True if user gives --sort in command line
      • sort=False if user gives --no-sort in command line
      • sort=None if user does not give either, so write method itself decides what to do
    • Now we allow plugins to specify sorting policy based on output format
      • By sortOnWrite variable in plugin, with allowed values:
        • ALWAYS: force sorting even if sort=False (user gives --no-sort), used only for writing StarDict
        • DEFAULT_YES: enable sorting unless sort=False (user gives --no-sort)
        • DEFAULT_NO: disable sorting unless sort=True (user gives --sort)
        • NEVER: disable sorting even if sort=True (user gives --sort)
      • The default and common value is: sortOnWrite = DEFAULT_NO
      • Plugin can also have a global sortKey function to be used for sorting
      • (like the key argument to list.sort method, See pydoc list.sort)
  • New way of interacting with Glossary instance in plugins:
    • glos.data.append((word, defi)) -> glos.addEntry(word, defi)
    • for item in glos.data: -> for entry in glos:
    • for key, value in glos.info.items(): -> for key, value in glos.iterInfo():

Gtk2 to Gtk3

• Replace obsolete PyGTK-based interface with a simpler PyGI-based (Gtk3) interface

Migrating to Python 3

• Even though master branch was based on Python 3 since 2016 Apr 29, there was some problem that are fixed in this release
• If you are still forced need to use Python 2.7, you can use branch python2.7

Introducing Direct mode

• --direct command line option
• reads and writes at the same time, without loading the whole data into memory
• Partial sorting is supported
  • --sort in command line
  • --sort-cache-size=1000 is optional
• If plugin defines sortOnWrite=ALWAYS, it means output format requires full sorting, so direct mode will be disabled
• As mentioned above (using Glossary.convert method), direct mode is enabled by default if sorting is not enabled (by user or plugin)
• Of course user can manually disable direct mode by giving --indirect option in command line

Progress Bar

Automatic command line Progress Bar for all input / output formats is now supported

• Implemented based on plugins Reader classes
• Works both for direct mode and indirect mode
  • Only one progress bar for direct mode
  • Two progress bars for indirect mode (one while reading, one while writing)
• Plugins must not update the progress bar anymore
• Still no progress bar when both --direct and --sort flags are given, will be fixed later
• User can disable progress bar by giving --no-progress-bar option (recommended for Windows users)

BGL Plugin

• BGL plugin works better now (comparing to latest Python 2.7 code), and it's much cleaner too
• I totally refactored the code, made it fully Python3-compatible, and much more easier to understand
• This fixes bytes/str bugs (like Bug #54), and CRC check problem for some glossaries (Bug #55)
• I'm a fan of micro-commits and I usually hate single-commit refactoring, but this time I had no choice!

Other Changes

Feature: Add encoding option to read and write drivers of some plain-text formats

Feature: SQL and SQLite: read/write extra information from/to a new table dbinfo_extra, backward compatible

New format invented and implemented for later implementation of a Glossary Editor

• edlin.py (Editable Linked List of Entries) is optimized for adding/modifying/removing one entry at a time
• while we can save the changes instantly after each modification
• Using the ideas of Doubly Linked List, and Git's hash-based object database

Rewrite non-working Reverse functionality

• The old code was messy, not working by default, slow, and language-dependent
• It's much faster and cleaner now

Improve and complete command line help (-h or --help)