What is it?
The megabyte_data Multilingual European Bird Dictionary
is a collection of
about 47,000 bird names stored in 68 separate language data tables that are
interconnected on demand by the user to generate language-specific listings, bilingual dictionaries and
species-specific multilingual data displays.
In theory, 68 language tables enable the generation of 4556
(= 68 x 67) different 2-way dictionaries. This would be an absolute publisher's nightmare,
and no-one would ever dream of printing such a product on paper (?)...
You must have Javascript enabled in your browser in order
to navigate/sort/search the list-display tables.
Data-load performance issues
The server will download the requested dataset into your browser, where you can then manipulate it (browse /sort / search).
Typical data download times are about 600 data-lines per second (the particular page's load-screen will tell you how much data is coming).
Exercise patience!
Display font issues
To enable correct bird name viewing in any available native language, data display pages are hard-coded to force the Unicode UTF-8 character set,
and to use the Windows Verdana font.
Data-sorting issues
The server loads language-specific data to the Javascript-manipulable tables in the 'correct' sort-order for a particular language.
However, the script itself appears to not be able to deal with locale-specific data sorts. Ah, well, a small problem, but be aware that
sorting data within an interactive table will send most of the items that start with diacritics to the 'end of the sort' (i.e
in Unicode-order). This applies to most of the European languages written in 'Latin' script; non-Latin scripted (e.g. Cyrillic) language listings
are not affected.
To quickly re-sort a particular language listing in its native order, just Refresh the page.
Enjoy: dig it while it still exists !
Generated by
 megabyte_data
Send all technical queries to website administration at megabyte_data@compuserve.com
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