Wordsmyth Educational Dictionary and Thesaurus (WEDT)

"Clean, on time, on budget." Thanks to Envion Software, a popular web dictionary was transformed into a popular desktop accessory. In just two weeks, we helped Wordsmyth fold its feature-rich web dictionary into a word processing application. We converted it to XML, wrote a parser, indexed and compressed the data, put a C++ wrapper around it, and made it available as a nicely compact DLL to the external app. All the original functionality was replicated, such as proximate searches and spelling suggestions. We went on to design and develop a CD version of the dictionary, too, including the interface (embedding Internet Explorer), its search algorithms, and features such as auto-update, an annotation capability, and a glossary builder (of favorite words, word history, and so on). We reduced download time and storage requirements with an ingenious compression scheme (no performance compromise), and added a copy-protection feature based on serial number.