Tanto Ripost

Tanto Ripost is a fast and flexible tool for lookups in bi-lingual dictionaries. The application is freely availble, and may be downloaded from this page. Perform a search by selecting the term you want to lookup in your authoring environment, copy the text to Clipboard using Ctrl+C and start the search with the shortcut Ctrl+Space. Tanto Ripost is only available for Microsoft Windows.

Ripost is very flexible and supports a large number of dictionary formats, ranging from simple tab separated text files in two columns, to advanced formats as TBX and TMX exports, or Microsoft SQL databases on a remote server. The application is expandable using add-ins, or enginges, meaning that Ripost can be used with any format. To read about supported formats, please refer to the sections File formats. Tanto Ripost supports concurrent lookups in any number of simultaneous dictionaries.

The screen shot above shows the user interface after a lookup for the term 'large' in the Microsoft Windows 7 dictionaries. The hits are displayed under Look for, with more detailed information to the right in the Details and Formatted windows. Long matches can be expanded using the expansion button to the left of the matching string. The dictionaries in the open aggregate are displayed in the Dictionares window to the far left.

The results list

The results of the main window displays the matches resulting from a lookup. The first and second column in the list shows the source and target string, and the next two column shows the name of the dictionary where the match was found, and the «distance» between the source and target strings. The distance between two strings is a measurement of how similar they are, something like the percentage fuzzy matching in CAT tools as SDL Trados. A distance of zero (0) means that the strings are identical. The «+» button to the left of the match is used to expand long matches.

Dictionaries

The Dictionaries pane in the main window displays the dictionaries avaible in the current aggregate. The order of the dictionaries in this pane is significant, and dictionaries higher up have higher priority than dictionaries further down. You can add, remove or move dictionaries using the toolbar at the top of the pane.

Using the Deactivate button (to the right in the toolbar), you can turn a dictionary off temporarily, if you want to exclude a certain dictionary. The dictionary isn't removed from the aggregate, but is deactivated as long as the button Deactivate is down. If the Dictionaries pane isn't visible, you can show it with the Dictionaries command on the View menu.

Details

The Details pane in the main interface shows additional information of the selected match in the match list. The dictionaries typically contain many additional columns than just the source and target columns, and the information from these additional fields is displayed in this pane. If the dictionary doesn't have field names as the first row, generic column names such as «C1, C2, C3» are used. To specify that the first row contain field names, use the Properties dialog of the selected dictionary.

If you cannot see the Details pane, the pane is probably hidden. Show the pane by clicking the View menu and then click the Details command.

Formatted

This pane displays the source and target fields of the selected match with text formatting, for example HTML or RTF formatting. Select a format in the listbox to the top of the pane. The option Auto will work in most cases, but sometimes you may need to experiment a little with the settings.

If the pane is hidden, you can show it by clicking the View menu and then the Formatted command.

Pricing

The price for Tanto Ripost is as user-friendly as it is competetive: 0 EUR. That is, it's free.

Download and install

Tanto Ripost is freely available and may be downloaded from this web site. Install the application by downloading the .ZIP file using the link below, unzip the archive in any folder, and run the installer setup.exe. Uninstall the application by using the usual command on the Control Panel.

History

1.0.001	2001-07-15	First version
1.5.039	2009-04-24	First public release, SVN commit no 43. Access violation when indexing an open dictionary fixed.
1.5.042	2009-12-03	Several Import guide issues fixed.
1.5.045	2010-01-26	Added automatic updates.
1.6.153	2010-08-02	Replaced the Details dialog with a tool pane.
1.6.171	2012-05-14	Modified idle time processing, base class is now called each round.
1.6.176	2013-06-26	Bug fixes, simpler syntax for filters.
1.6.177	2014-04-01	Add-in engine for direct lookups on Microsoft Language Portal.