Frequently Asked Questions

Where can I get the PHI/TLG databases?

Sorry, you’ll have to look elsewhere for them; these are not distributed with Diogenes.

Why does Diogenes crash/not work?

There was an issue with version 4.6 crashing when it was not able to find all of the files it expected in the database. This was fixed in version 4.7.

Otherwise, this is usually because there is a problem with Diogenes accessing the databases on your computer. Remember that:

If you are stuck, you can usually get an informative error message by running Diogenes from the terminal. To do this, close down Diogenes, and open up a terminal (Terminal.app on Macs; cmd on Windows). Then run Diogenes from the terminal:

Mac:
/Applications/Diogenes.app/Contents/MacOS/Diogenes
Windows:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Diogenes\diogenes.exe
Linux:
/usr/local/diogenes/diogenes

Try to use Diogenes as you did before, and when it fails, see what error message is printed on the terminal. If you can't figure it out, send the error message to me, telling me what kind of computer you have.

Where did the Diogenes window disappear to?

Diogenes tries remember the position and size to which you have adjusted its window so that you do not have to fiddle with it every time it starts up. This is generally a good thing, except when you no longer can access that previous position on screen, such as after removing an external monitor from a laptop. If the Diogenes window has disappeared to a part of the desktop you can no longer access, use the File Menu (which on a Mac you will still be able to see) and select New Win (reset position), which will open a new window at the top left of the current screen. If you can't see the menu (as on Windows), use the keyboard shortcut: Control-!

Why does my anti-virus software report that Diogenes is malware?

When you run the Diogenes desktop application, the file that is being executed comes from the Electron application framework, which is used by a multitude of other software projects, including some very well known ones (e.g. Skype, WhatsApp, WebTorrent). Sometimes projects using this framework are wrongly identified as malware by anti-virus software (which may be because there are malware projects that use this same framework). But this is a false positive and may safely be ignored.

On older versions of Windows, why can't Diogenes access the databases?

On older versions of Windows, before Windows 10, you may have to put the databases in folders without any accented or non-Latin characters in the name of the folder or in the name of any of its parent folders. If your Windows username has accented or non-Latin characters, you may have to put the databases elsewhere on your computer, such as C:\databases.

How do I type Greek?

Use your computer's Unicode Greek keyboard.

There are two Greek input modes for searching: loose and strict. In loose mode, just enter Greek lowercase letters and (optionally) breathings. You can do this in the Greek alphabet or Latin (using Beta code transliteration). This will search for both upper and lowercase letters and will permit accents to appear anywhere in the search term.

If, on the other hand, your search term is entered in Greek letters with accents or uppercase, it will be interpreted in strict mode and Diogenes will only match words with your exact accentuation and capitalization. In other words, if you specify one accent or capital letter in your search pattern, you must specify them all.

Are there instructions in languages other than English?

Paolo Monella has put together a webpage and a video in Italian (the video is also available in English).

How can I search for a pattern at the beginning (or end) of a word?

You do not need to use an explicit wildcard to indicate that Diogenes should match any word beginning with a given pattern: that is what it does by default.

To indicate that a pattern should only match at the beginning of a word, put a space at the start of the pattern. To match only at the end of a word, put a space after a pattern. To search for a phrase with the words in consecutive order, enter the words separated by spaces. If you want to search for multiple words in an arbitrary order, use the “Multiple Terms” search option.

Does Diogenes support wildcards or regular expressions?

Yes, to a limited extent. When it runs a search, Diogenes transforms your search expression into a very long and complicated Perl regular expression that permits it to match everywhere it needs to. That transformation sometimes leaves regular expressions in the original input intact and functioning as intended, but sometimes not. The only sure way to know if your regular expression will is to try it.

Regular expressions generally will not work when entering text in the Greek alphabet (because that requires a double transformation of the input); use Beta code transliteration into Latin letters when entering regular expressions for Greek searches instead.

The dot “.” to indicate any character (including punctuation and spaces) generally works, as do character classes (such as [a-zA-Z] to indicate any letter). The asterisk “*” modifier to indicate zero or more, the plus “+” for one or more, and the question mark “?” for zero or one usually work. Parentheses and the bar “|” for grouping alternatives sometimes work, sometimes not.

For example, in Latin you could search for all of the inflected forms of rex like so “ re(x|g(is?(bus)?|e[ms]?|um)) ” (note the spaces before and after to indicate word boundaries). Of course, you could use the “Inflected Forms” search function to do this much more easily instead.

How do I stop a running search?

On Mac and Linux, you can just start a new search and the old one will stop. On Windows, you have to explicitly kill the old search before starting a new one. Go to the menu Navigate -> Stop/Kill.

I don't like the default font. Can I change it?

Diogenes 4 includes a high-quality free font, Gentium, which has excellent coverage of the required characters. If you prefer to change it, a convenient mechanism to do so has been provided since Version 4.4: go to the File menu and choose Change Font.

Can I change the appearance of the application?

If you put a file called user.css in the Diogenes user preferences folder, it will override the default settings, which are mainly found in the file diogenes.css.

How can I select a particular author among several similar names?

When you enter the name of an author, you often end up selecting multiple authors with the same or related names. For example, there are 11 writers named Apollonius in the TLG. What you can do in such cases is make a note of the author's number and use that instead. Apollonius of Rhodes is author 0001, so you can just enter the number 1 to specify him in any of the places that require an author's name. Similarly, if you want to indicate Homer and exclude the scholia and other Homeric material, just use his number, 12. You can find this number at the top of the screen when reading a text. For example, the Odyssey is (0012: 002), which is author number 12, work number 2.

In Morphological Search, why aren't all inflected forms of a Greek or Latin lemma shown?

When you ask to do a morphological search, only those inflected forms that are actually found in the TLG or PHI database are shown. Theoretically possible forms or forms only attested outside those databases are not shown.

How can I report errors in the Lexica?

The Herculean effort of digitizing the LSJ and L-S lexica was undertaken by the Perseus project, and there were inevitably some errors made in the transcription. Helma Dik maintains corrected versions of these lexica for Logeion, which Diogenes uses. Please report errors in the lexica to Helma via her Github page.