Welcome to ookii.org, Sven Groot's website. I am a Dutch former-student, graduated Master of Science in Computer Science in 2006. I am currently living in Japan and am a research student at Tokyo University.
Some of you may be wondering what "ookii" is. "Ookii" (in Japanese: 大きい), which is roughly pronounced as the English sounds "oh-key", is Japanese for "big". My last name (Groot), is Dutch for "big". Because I am an afficionado of Japanese culture (next to my major in computer science I also followed Japanese language courses at Leiden University for almost two years) - and because the domain name was available :) - I thought this would be a nice name for the site.
There are currently five major sections to the site. First is this, the blog. Here you can find interesting and not so interesting stuff I have to say. I've tried blogging before, it wasn't such a big success, so don't expect very frequent updates. But at the very least major new additions to the site will get a mention here in a blog post, and no doubt I'll occasionally post other stuff as well.
Then there's the University section. Here you can find various projects, papers and presentations I've done as a student at Leiden University's Computer Science department.
Under the Software section, you can find various applications I've written, all including source code. This includes the popular Find As You Type add-on for Internet Explorer.
The Channel9 section is the home of everything I've done related to Channel9. Here you can find the C9 International Avatar Creator and C9Music.
And lastly, the El Goonish Shive section contains stuff related to the webcomic El Goonish Shive. Located here are the English/Uryuomoco Translator and the EGS Character Statistics.
If you wish to contact me, the best method is to post a comment right here on the blog.
Updated 2007-03-18: updated text so it's a more general introduction to the site.
2007-01-10 05:30 UTC
Hey, I just noticed that you have the EGS:NP comics appearances on your character list. Good job. A couple of comments:
1) The character in Grace's dream that you have listed as "Time-lapse villager" is actually Liz. Dan reveled this in a recent thread http://forums.keenspot.com/viewtopic.php?p=2772537#2772537
2) Still no Shy Girl? She is going to be seen more often once we start seeing Moperville South. Her first appearance was http://www.elgoonishshive.com/d/20060628.html, she was in a filler right after that and can be glimpsed a couple of places in the latest EGS:NP.
2007-01-10 08:05 UTC
Done and done. :) Thanks for the feedback.
I don't usually include background characters unless I have a clear reason to do so (e.g. they appeared more clearly in a different comic) but I guess "at the request of other bunnies" is as good a reason as any. :P
I wasn't able to find her in any other comics though. If you have any pointers that would be great.
2007-01-17 21:38 UTC
Sven-- Thanks for the great FindAsYouType plugin. I've made a few minor tweaks to the source that I like and I was wondering if you were interested in contributions for version 1.2?
Thanks,
Eric Lawrence
Program Manager
Internet Explorer
ericlaw at microsoft
2007-01-27 06:35 UTC
Another EGS character sheet comment. I notice you have Liz listed as appearing in this comic:
http://www.egscomics.com/d/20040719.html
but she doesn't. That's Alice in the first panel on the left.
2007-01-27 12:02 UTC
Fixed. Thanks!
2007-04-19 13:38 UTC
I'd like to report a bug in FindAsYouType. I love this utility because I have to use IE7 for my work and miss this feature in Firefox. I'm using FindAsYouType12. Because I have debugging turned on in my browser (for my web development work), I get annoying notifications every time there is an error. This one seems to crop up a lot:
"An exception 'Runtime Error' has occurred in Script."
line 701: collSelectors.item(i).SetQuirksMode(true);
I downloaded the src for this add-on but couldn't find this line anywhere. Any ideas? This error pops up almost every time I load a new page (but not anywhere on ookii.org).
Thanks,
Sarah
2007-04-19 15:39 UTC
Ah, sorry ... I found out the bug is in a different add-on. Silly me. (No wonder that line wasn't found in the src code!) Sorry to have bothered you!
2007-05-02 21:59 UTC
Correction to EGS section:
http://www.egscomics.com/Filler/d/20031116.html <- This cat is actually kitty-fied Melissa. Compare to http://www.egscomics.com/Filler/d/20030321.html
2007-06-08 04:00 UTC
I just downloaded and installed the Japanese Input and Pocket Dictionary. I have been looking for a Japanese Input for my Cingular 8525 and this is exactly what I was looking for! Perfect for the Japanese student! Both are great programs thank you for the work you put in them.
2007-07-19 19:04 UTC
I was wondering if you had any tips on how to view Japanese text in webpages via WM6? If you could email me, I'd really appreciate it as I also have some questions regarding Japanese Input and Pocket Dictionary and don't want to eat up posting space here :D
2007-07-20 11:45 UTC
Heey daar.. vet geinig, ik was gister aan het browsen naar sites over de monbukagakushou beurs omdat ik gister heb gehoord dat ik door de eerste ronde ben, en ik kwam op jouw site terecht over precies die dag een jaar geleden. :) Maareh, ik had wat concrete vragen die ik dacht dat jij misschien zou kunnen beantwoorden als Nederlander in Japan en daarbij ook nog informaticus. Ik wil namelijk (aangenomen dat ik inderdaag in april naar Japan ga) een laptop kopen rond die tijd, maar ik weet niet of ik dat beter in NL of in JP kan doen. Ten eerste qua stroomtoevoer en ten tweede qua prijs (scheelt het veel?). Hoe lastig is het om een NL laptop in JP aan te sluiten en vice versa? Jarenlang rondlopen met een transformator/converter is natuurlijk niet fijn, maar ik weet niet in hoeverre het mogelijk is om dat te voorkomen door extra adapters te kopen oid.
Het laatste punt gaat ook een beetje op voor m'n synthesizer (Yamaha S90); daar zit gewoon zo'n PC-style power cable bij zonder adapter. Heb je daar ook een transformator voor nodig dan?
Als je me even zou kunnen mailen zou dat heel fijn zijn!
Groetjes,
Youri (A'dam)
2007-07-23 21:12 UTC
Hi Sven
Great product this, wonder if its possible to do a multiple key word search
I do a lot of work in the finance industry, and work with live rss feeds if I type in the word transaction in the search all the words reading transaction come up, (thats great and it REALLY helps) but it would be really great if you could include multiple words something like share transaction or trading statement in a string so all these words come up and are high lighted as well
Hope that explains whats I need, do you have such a system
Many thanks from Chris in England
2007-08-04 14:42 UTC
I don't see a support forum for Japanese Input... after I installed it, I tried to run it by selecting "Japanese input" as the input method, but nothing happened. The input method remained as the normal English keyboard. I have installed several Japanese fonts.
2007-09-17 13:30 UTC
Hi Sven,
I just came across your blog from and was looking to download your code for the Vista-enhanced .NET 2 dialogs... alas, the download like is not working (http://www.ookii.org/download.ashx?id=VistaDialogs)
Looks like a great site and some very interesting content so I've added you to my RSS pile ;-)
Chris
2007-09-17 13:31 UTC
(PS forgot to mention that you were reference from http://blogs.msdn.com/pigscanfly/archive/2007/01/30/beyond-hello-world-update-4-file-loading-27-times-faster.aspx where the MS guy was berating the .NET 2 classes for not being as cool as yours ;-)
2007-09-17 14:03 UTC
Chris, the download link works fine for me. What problem are you seeing exactly?
2007-09-24 19:08 UTC
I was wondering where you are in Japan. Also, how did you manage to get into Japan? I took Japanese through high school and minor in college and was still turned down when I requested a working visa as a teacher in Japan. If you could reply via e-mail that would be great.
Many thanks.
2007-09-27 12:56 UTC
Grats on getting to Japan! I applied for the MEXT scholarship: research student a few months ago. I see that you got the same thing so I had a question. I already took the application exams and had my interview. I passed the first screening and just recently got accepted to Gunma University as a research student, but I've been told that my acceptance for the scholarship isn't official until I pass a second screening in Tokyo in December. Did you have to do this? Did you have to do anything after you got accepted to a university? I live in the USA and the Japanese Consulate here is worthless for information. Any help or advice would be appreciated! Please e-mail me!
2007-10-30 15:54 UTC
Hi Sven,
Find As You Type for Internet Explorer 1.3 is a great add-on! Thanks! Unfortunately I am unable to compose Hotmail messages while the "Auto-start searching" setting is set to "When I start typing on a web page". Although the cursor is in the editing area, keystrokes invoke the search function, so typing a message is not possible. I can of course compose the message externally and then paste the text into Hotmail's editing control, but that's obviously a hassle. It would be great if this could be fixed. Thanks!
Dmitri
2007-11-14 13:18 UTC
Hi Sven,
hello from PC Professionale magazine,
we would like to include Find As You Type 1.3 in our cover mount Dvd. (The Dvd is distributed for free with the magazine)
We would appreciate your authorization to do so.
If this is OK for you, please let us know (by mail) if we can use the downloadable version available on your Web site.
Best Regards,
Luca Marra
Contributing editor
PC Professionale
CD Milano Oltre
Via Cassanese 224
20090 Segrate (MI) - Italy
www.pcprofessionale.it
2007-12-13 17:44 UTC
Hello Sven,
I was online looking for a neat DataSpider and came across your DataSpider Project PDF. Very cool stuff despite the limitations you list. I actually thought you might have posted the code in your site's software section but didn't see it there. Any chance you might be willing to share this with an up and coming software student?:)
If it's okay with you, please kindly email me at the provided address...
Regards,
Clifton
2007-12-15 00:32 UTC
Your Japanese Input does not work with Windows Mobile 6. It works fine with Windows Mobile 5 on the same device, but for some reason I cannot get this or any other (asukal's) IME that does tegaki to work at all on WM6. I suspect that it has something to do with wince.nls or similar.
2008-01-03 15:23 UTC
Hi, I just wanted to mention that on http://www.ookii.org/software/japaneseinput/font.aspx you state that you must copy the font to the windows/fonts folder on your pocket pc. You can get round the huge font file size problem by copying the font to a storage card and creating a shortcut file in the windows/fonts folder, you might want to adjust the page accordingly. Thanks for the great software!
2008-01-06 18:48 UTC
Hi, first of all I wanted to comment that Find as You Type is a very impressive. I looked at the source too, and everything is written very nicely.
A small issue, I don't know if it's on purpose or not. When I unlock the toolbars and move the toolbar around, and then lock the toolbars again, the find as you type toolbar jumps right back to its original place.
2008-01-16 18:53 UTC
Hello. I was very impressed by your Japanese input program for WM5/WM6. I was wondering if I could include it in my project to create a free alternative to software such as Mobisoft's CE Star. I am currently working on allowing Japanese characters to be displayed in every program in English WM6.
2008-01-27 01:14 UTC
I have succeeded in enabling Japanese fonts in WM6. Contrary to what seems to be popular belief (after much searching), wince.nls has no effect on Japanese character encoding. All that needs to be done is add a registry entry to enable font linking. I have created two installation cabs to enable Japanese. One installs the font and related registry entries, and the other includes the font, registry entries, and the SIP the owner of this site created.
If you would like a copy of either of these files, please contact me by email by clicking on my name at the end of this post. I currently do not have a web server of my own to host these files on.
To the owner of this site:
Even though you didn't respond to my request, I decided based on the GPL v2 that it would be fine for me to include your SIP in this project. The readme I included in the archive references the page on this site dedicated to your input program. That said, if you have any objections, I will cease distrobution of the version that includes your SIP.
2008-01-28 14:26 UTC
Hello Sven,
Since I couldn't find a support email-address anywhere, I'm posting a suggestion regarding Find As You Type here;
I'm using Find As You Type V1.3 with IE7. I love the program, but would like to see one small detail changed to make it perfect. It would be great if FAYT remembered it's last position in the IE-window. I always have the links toolbar open at the top of the screen and would to see FAYT opening next to it, instead of beneath it (this makes the actual webpage smaller). When I position FAYT next to my links toolbar, it stays there untill I close IE7 (of FAYT itself). On restart FAYT is back to it's default position.
Also I read in the changelog that FAYT always closes on closing the browser. Could you make that optional, because personally I prefer FAYT to be open all the time (next to my links toolbar... ;)).
Thanks in advance for your reply.
Regards from The Netherlands, Groetjes uit Nederland,
René
2008-02-27 22:30 UTC
Hi.
I tried the "Miniature screen brightness controller" programm of both of my Nvidia graphic card pc and got the same warning on both.
This is it : Your video card or driver does not support brightness control.
I am using official nvidia driver on both pc. What driver do I need to get the programm to work?
2008-03-07 17:58 UTC
Hi Sven,
I'm contributing to the open source Windows Vista Controls for .NET 2.0 project (http://www.codeplex.com/vistacontrols), which aims at providing access to all of Vista's advanced GUI features to .NET developers. One of the steps we'd like to take in one of the next releases, would be including a couple of easy to use "common dialog" classes which use the Vista style if available.
Therefore I'd like to ask you if I may include the source of your "Vista Dialogs" library into our project (leaving all references and the original license) or perhaps if you'd like to be added to the project.
Thanks. :)
2008-03-13 17:05 UTC
Hi,
I am contacting you about FindAsYouType and precisely about the Ctrl+F hotkey handling.
I found a problem using SetWindowsHookEx explained here as a comment :
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms644990(VS.85).aspx
I paste the comment here :
"For a local hook, if you install the hook from a thread to another thread in the process, the hook will stop to be called when the thread which installed the hook exits (even if the thread on which you installed the hook is still running)."
I found a simple but not beautiful workaround : Install the hook on each BHO instance. There will be 10 hooks when there are 10 tabs, but you can then use a global var with InterlockedIncrement/Decrement to handle the code only in the first caleed hook and just CallNextHookEx in the other hooks.
Feel free to contact me to discuss about improving the Ctrl+F.
Thanks.
2008-03-17 14:05 UTC
The Japanese input doesn't work so well on my Windows Mobile 6 Professional device.
When I installed it, it worked fine, but sometime after that, it stopped loading when selected, and I've not been able to get it to work again, even after a reinstall.
It's quite a nice piece of software, when it worked, but currently it doesn't, and by the sounds of it, I'm not the only one.
2008-04-10 22:30 UTC
I'm not sure how often you look at this anymore, though the latest entry on your home page seems to be dated about a week ago. I've noticed you stopped maintaining the EGS section, and was curious as to why. If you're not interested or just don't have the time, would you be opposed to letting someone else continue it for you?
2008-05-22 18:50 UTC
Was just looking over your EGS Character list, and noticed that you have two entries for Mr/Gav Bleuel. Thought you might want to know.
2008-05-23 04:46 UTC
It seems that the EGS statistics is missing two story comics (20020816 and 20070205), and one filler comic (20051013).
2008-05-27 13:23 UTC
Hi Sven,
Thank you for sharing your work on the Dictionary and Japanese Input. I spent about 200us to get similar functionality on a Nintendo DS system, and much prefer to have it in my PPC phone (WM 6.0 4GB SD!).
All the best to you, and thanks again for your elegant work.
b
PS - to the folks that did not get Japanese Input to work - look for an option in the soft keyboard, it becomes an available selection with transcriber, keyboard, block recgnizer, symbol pad and others. Very cool!
2008-07-27 01:42 UTC
Hi!
Thankyou heaps for this dictionary it is perfect in every way and form!
2008-10-16 15:51 UTC
Hi,
I have problems installing "NET3.5 compact" on my PocketPC. Your link on your homepage is linking to developer edition of Microsofts NET3.5. This is for the PC and not for the PocketPC.
Can you tell me where I can find the NET3.5 for the PocketPC
2008-10-16 16:15 UTC
The package I linked to is the redistributable for the PocketPC. It must be installed on your deskop PC, after which it will use ActiveSync (or Windows Mobile Device Center on Vista) to install the framework on your device.
2008-10-23 05:39 UTC
Hi there!
I would like "Find as you type" to show up all of the time and not only if I use certain shortcuts. Is this possible?
Yours truly
Kennin
BTW: living in Japan? Lucky you!
Ganbatte kudasai!!!
(En groetjes vanuit Vlaanderen!)
2008-12-24 07:56 UTC
Hi Sven.
I was looking at your source for the Vista-style common file dialogs, and I noticed that the project contains an "ooki.snk" key file. It looks big... it doesn't contain your private key, I hope?
(btw, nice site--thanks!)
2008-12-24 08:12 UTC
Hi Dan,
That snk file does contain a private key, but not one that I'm attempting to keep secret. If you look closely, you'll notice that all the binaries I provide are signed with a different key. I use a different snk file when I distribute the source, which it what you have. In addition, most of my own binaries are authenticode signed.
2009-01-09 11:30 UTC
Hi, thanks for your pocket dictionary, it's amazing.
However it don't work with accentuated letters like this :
http://dico.fj.free.fr/dico.php
It would be perfect.
2009-03-01 19:26 UTC
Hi, Sorry if I'm missing something simple, but I dragged the gothic font into my device then installed the Japanese input. Everything began well but the typing appeared as square boxes. Any advice?
2009-03-15 14:12 UTC
Testing - this mechanism has not been working.
2009-04-28 17:32 UTC
Hi Sven,
I tried to install your Japanese input with my Samsung i780 but it does not seems to able to work. Do note that I have a manual keypad with touchscreen for my phone. Whenever I try to change the font input to Japanese input, nothing seems to appear. I have a simliar problem with CE-star software. I wonder do you have any idea how to overcome this problem?
Regards,
Steve Xie
Singapore
2009-05-18 08:03 UTC
Thank you so much for the Japanese dictionary and input. It's beautiful! How can I thank you?
2009-11-04 11:31 UTC
Hey Sven!
Van harte bedankt voor de ongelofelijk handige add-on! Maar ik ga nu in het Engelands verder, zodat iedereen het verstaat.
Wouldn't it be possible to get some kind of option to have Find As You Type enabled all the time, instead of having to open it? It would come quite in handy, as I use it VERY frequently!
2010-01-18 22:18 UTC
Hello, I want to be able to use your pocket dictionary, however my blackberry storm is not supported. I am thinking of buying a HTC Touch HD, and I was wondering if it would work on there. Has anyone tried it? It says "Smartphones are not supported!" but that isn't very clear...
2010-03-22 20:58 UTC
Hi!
Can we discuss Ookii.Dialogs for WPF?
Thank you for your time.
Alex.
2011-01-31 09:06 UTC
how to include Ookii.Dialogs class in application
i am new to ookii
2011-02-12 10:28 UTC
hey man how r u ?
i got into ur site www.mynamein.jp
and i bought ur offer to make a name to japaness
but till now and its almost 2 days i didnt get any Email from u (PDF)
and i didnt know how to reach or contact with u
coz u didnt leave any contacts inf on ur web
so im wondering whats going on?
do u still do this server in ur web?
did i pay for nothing?
plz answer me asap
best regards
2011-02-12 10:32 UTC
I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm not affiliated with that site, and I don't offer any Japanese name translation services.
2011-02-12 11:31 UTC
ah then its ma bad man.
im sorry bro for the missundersatndin
but i saw somthin here in ur blog bout this site i was tellin u about so i thought its urs xD
anyways thnx have nice day ^^
2011-02-18 11:55 UTC
i didn't get any response from you?
I am anand a developer in windows application,
How to use ookii dialogs in my windows application
I didn’t altered any source just want to use ookii dialogs dll given by you.
Could you be kindly give me step by step instruction to use ookii dialogs dll in windows application?
2011-06-11 07:40 UTC
Hey, I saw your Japanese Input and Dictionary applications for WinMo, and there are a few issues running them on the latest WinMo builds. I'm fixing them in your provided source (thanks for GPLing it!) but perhaps I could contribute back to the community by publishing the changes?
2011-09-19 15:37 UTC
Hi,
there appears to be a buffer overflow in Ookii.Dialogs.Wpf.CredentialDialog for Windows Vista. It has been observed on two Windows Vista 32 bit PCs, but not on some Windows 7 64 bit PCs. (The non-Wpf version may be affected too.)
For some reason, the username and password StringBuilder are not null-terminated after CredUnPackAuthenticationBuffer. Initializing the string builders with null values beforehand seems to help:
StringBuilder userName = new StringBuilder(NativeMethods.CREDUI_MAX_USERNAME_LENGTH);
StringBuilder password = new StringBuilder(NativeMethods.CREDUI_MAX_PASSWORD_LENGTH);
+ userName.Append('\0', userName.Capacity);
+ password.Append('\0', password.Capacity);
uint userNameSize = (uint)userName.Capacity;
uint passwordSize = (uint)password.Capacity;
Hope this helps.
2011-11-16 11:05 UTC
Just a bit of a correction: in the entry for the "Failed Perversions" comic you have Elliot's forms listed as (besides normal) Sarah, Grace, Nanase, Carol, Susan and Supermodel. However he never actually TURNS into any of them; they're just fantasies where he's trying to picture them being sexy so he can turn into them.
2012-02-01 09:33 UTC
Hi,
Can Ookii.Dialogs target the .NET 4.0 Client Profile? It appears to rely on System.Design.dll only for two minor design time conveniences (TaskDialogDesigner and MultilineStringEditor attributes).
2012-03-07 03:18 UTC
I'm having a problem with Ookii.Dialogs using both Progress Dialog and Task Dialog at the same time. I described my problem in full detail here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9595269/c-sharp-wpf-ookii-dialogs-making-sure-another-dialog-appears-above-progress-di
I hope to hear from you with a solution!
2012-05-18 20:16 UTC
Hey,
I have some comments on Ookii.Dialogs. Will you put this code on github? I have some changes I'd like to commit. Please contact me
2013-07-21 19:35 UTC
Hi. I'm a 4th year student doing my BTech Degree in South Africa at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. I have an applied project for my degree designing a system for the university itself. Where can I ask for permission using your source code?
2013-07-21 20:04 UTC
Hi Jakes. Most of my open source projects are available under BSD license, which means that you are free to use them as long as you include the original license in anything you release.
What do you intend to use it for, if I may ask?
2014-08-19 21:45 UTC
If WPF is 90%, then it gets to 100% with Ookii dialogs.
I just replaced two packages in my project that took care of TaskDialogs and OpenFolder dialogs, with the Ookii dialog dll, for WPF. This is much better then the other packages out there.
But, I would like to ask if the Input Box will be available in the WPF dll. Then it will get to 110% :)
Thanks.
Comments are closed for this post. Sorry.
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