Desktop Wikipedia with JaLingo

There are situations when having Wikipedia right on your computer can come in quite handy. One way to install Wikipedia on your machine is to download the MediaWiki software, then fetch a humongous database file and make everything work together. There is an easier way, though. You can use the JaLingo dictionary tool as a front-end to the Wikipedia database in the SDictionary format. To make your own desktop version of Wikipedia, download and install the JaLingo dictionary tool. Next, point your browser to the Wikipedia page of the SDictionary Community website and download the Wikipedia you need. The website carries Wikipedia in many different languages, so you are not limited to the English one. If you want to download the English version of Wikipedia keep in mind three things: a) the Wikipedia database is divided into three files called volumes, b) each volume is between 500 and 900MB in size, and c) the website is not particularly fast, so prepare to spend a couple of evenings pulling the files down.

Once you have all the files, launch JaLingo and press on the Settings button. Under the Dictionaries tab, press the Add button and select the first Wikipedia volume. Press Continue, wait till JaLingo processes the file (which can take some time as well), then repeat these steps for other two volumes. Close the Settings window, and you're done.

Figure: JaLingo with Wikipedia in Danish

The JaLingo-based Wikipedia does have two drawbacks, though: it contains no pictures, and there are no active links to the related topics. While you can't do anything about the former, there is a workaround for the latter. Simply select a related topic (all related topics articles are in italics), right-click on it, and select Translate.