Bozzy is a steno dictionary builder written by Mirabai Knight, a 200 WPM student at the New York Career Institute in New York City. It's named after James Boswell, friend and amanuensis to Samuel Johnson, the great lexicographer of the English language. 
Bozzy allows any stenotypist to add entries to a realtime dictionary quickly and efficiently. Currently it's only compatible with Stenovations's DigitalCAT, but future versions will work with any CAT program that can simulate keyboard input. 
It was written in Python and will always be free and open source. Updates can be found at: http://home.earthlink.net/~askeladden/Bozzy.htm

Getting started:  

First create a folder in your c:\program files\ directory named Bozzy, and unzip Bozzy.zip to it. Within that folder, create a folder called BozzyCompare and unzip Bozzycp.zip to it. Put bozzypy.dct into your c:\program files\DigitalCAT\dictionaries\ folder and make sure that any files you intend to use with Bozzy and BozzyCompare (e.g., wordlist.txt, edic.txt, pdic.rtf) are in their respective directories.

Setting up bozzypy.dct:

I've included a sample DigitalCAT dictionary to use with Bozzy which you can modify to suit your preferences.  Essentially, you need to define five words and a command stroke-- and nothing else.  bozzypy.dct must be the only active dictionary while using Bozzy.  The five words are:

next
again
delete
skip
quit

and the command is:

{@KEYPRESS(RETURN)}

Map these entries to steno outlines that are:

* easy to stroke
* won't conflict with strokes you might use to define entries within Bozzy 
(e.g., don't use KWIT for "quit" if you might use A/KWIT for "acquit")
* not strokes you want to use to define again, next, etc., if you're going to use Bozzy to define those words for you.  (You probably won't; because they're such common words, they're most likely in your dictionary already.)

I use R-R for {@KEYPRESS(RETURN)}, but I know that's the Phoenix Theory conflict resolution stroke, so Phoenix users will have to choose something else.

Once bozzypy.dct is set up, prepare DigitalCAT.  You'll have to set DigitalCAT to this configuration every time you want to use Bozzy.  Start a new session, and in the first screen (the Steno Source screen),  make sure "one translation at a time" is selected and the translation timer is set to 1.  Then press ok.  In the next screen (the Dictionary Setup screen), confirm that bozzypy is the only active dictionary, uncheck any AI settings such as number resolution or Theory, and set both the question and answer fields of the "Banks" option at the bottom of the window to 10.  Then press ok and start a CATnip session.  You're ready to go.

Using wordlist.txt:

Bozzy gets the words it displays to you from a file called wordlist.txt, located in the c:\program files\bozzy\ directory.  If you have a list of words you want to use already, make sure it's a plain text file with one word or phrase per line and no additional text (such as line numbers or bullets) and save it as wordlist.txt.  Each time you use a new word list you have to overwrite the old one, so save copies under a different name 
if you want to keep your old versions.  

If you don't already have a wordlist to use, go to the BozzyCompare section of this file and learn how to make one.  Then come back here and learn how to use Bozzy.

Using Bozzy:

Using Bozzy is simple.  Start the program, click in its window with your mouse, and enter your strokes for each word it displays.  After you enter each stroke or command, stroke your {@KEYPRESS(RETURN)} outline, whatever it is.  This is equivalent to pressing "enter" on the qwerty keyboard.  You can exit at any time by using your stroke for "quit", and you can skip a word and go on to the next one by stroking "skip".  
Otherwise, just enter your definitions and at the "next, again, delete" prompt, choose what you'd like to happen to them.  If you choose "next" (or enter or anything that's not "again", "delete", "skip", or "quit"; "next" is the default) your definition will be saved to rtf/cre format and the next word on the list will be displayed.  If you choose "again", your definition will be saved and the same word will come up again so you can define it in another way.  If you select "delete", the previous definition will not be saved, and you'll get another chance to define it.  

Important: of course if for whatever reason you want to use your computer keyboard instead of your steno keyboard to make these selections, you can do so, but be sure to type a space before each word; DigitalCAT does this automatically and Bozzy is designed to accommodate it.

When you want to quit, stroke "quit" and your place in the list will be saved until the next time you use Bozzy.  The file containing your entries will be an rtf file in the Bozzy directory named with a long string of numbers that correspond to the date and time of the session.  Go into DigitalCAT, create a new dictionary, select "import rtf", select the file you just made, and there are your entries!  Check over them to make sure they're what you want, and then either merge them with your personal dictionary or keep them as a job dictionary to use as needed.  

Important: If you get to the end of a list or swap a new wordlist.txt for your old one, be sure to delete bozzy.ini or you'll get an error.  This just resets your place to the beginning of the new list.

BozzyCompare:

BozzyCompare allows you to build a customized list of words to define using your personal dictionary and any of a large number of free word lists distributed over the internet-- or any other text file you like, as long as the list is formatted one word or phrase per line, with no additional formatting like line numbers or bullets.  Save this file as edic.txt in the c:\program files\bozzy\bozzycompare directory and save your personal dictionary (exported to an rtf) as pdic.rtf in the same directory.  Run BozzyCompare and soon you'll see a text file in the BozzyCompare directory named "bc" plus a string of numbers representing the date and time.  It contains all the words in the external word list 
that don't appear in your personal dictionary, so you don't have to waste time defining entries you already have.  

Note: if you find that BozzyCompare seems to be inserting blank lines into the list it outputs, make sure your edic.txt doesn't have any whitespace or blank lines after the last word in the file.

That's all there is to Bozzy!

If you have any questions, comments, or bug reports, please email me: askeladden@gmail.com or stop by my blog, http://m14m.net/haberdash, to tell me what you think.  Happy dictionary building!