Comparison of DEX software

This article provides a comparison of DEX software of different types that offer access to the Explanatory Dictionary of the Romanian Language DEX (Dicţionarul explicativ al limbii române).^[1]

Online sync, periodically connect to the DEX online server and update the definitions

Blind support, user friendly interface for the visually impaired

Wild cards, can search by regular expressions and/or wildcards like "echi*" for echilibru, echinocţiu, etc.

Suggestions, offers related results when the search word is not matched exactly

W/O diacritics, can search words using diacritics or no diacritics

Full text search, can search not only by indexed words but also by contents of definitions

Inflection search, can search by inflection, e.g. "meargă" instead of "merge"

Word context, clicking on a word in the results pane will automatically start the search on that word

History, remembers last searches

Name	Online sync	Blind support	Wild cards	Suggestions	W/O diacritics	Full text search	Inflection search	Word context	History	Microsoft Windows	Linux	Mac OS	Android	Windows Phone	Software needs	Storage needs MB	Author	License
Maestro DEX	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Perl, wxWidgets, only on Linux	490	Octavian Râşniţă	GPL
PyDEX	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	wxPython	250	Cristian Năvălici	GPLv3
Dixit	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	QT, g++, only on Linux	48	Octavian Procopiuc	GPL
DEX for Android	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	No		3	Adrian Vintu	Freeware
DEX for Windows Phone	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes		1	Adrian Vintu	Freeware

References

1. "original list" (2010). Dexonline Dictionary. The data is gathered from the forum [e-mail] in collaboration with the DEX software developers. Accessed January 29, 2015.