I've been using all 3 for a few days, here are some comments from a pali
beginner perspective:

on searching for key phrases through the entire canon
CST4: you can cut and paste unicode roman pali script from unicode
compliant websites, and the text from CST4 application reader itself to
enter into the prompt request box as the key phrase.
DPR: you need to convert to velthius for the search keywords. This is
hard for beginners. I found that if you can click on a single word form
the DPR sutta text that it recognizes (most of them are recogzied), you
can then drag and drop that word into either the dictionary or canon
search box, it will show up as "javascipt( pali search phrase converted
into velthius for you, a number), or something very close to that. Just
delete out all the extra text besides the velthius.
PTR: I can't seem to cut and paste romanized pali script from PTR itself
to use as a search phrase, probably because of the tool tips.

DPRs canon search is really nice, aside from having to doing the
velthius transform. The search results list all hyperlink to the
specific sutta. And it gives a nice tally of the totals. CST4 shows
subtallies only within a book, not a total tally, and because it loads
entire books at a time, it's really tough and cumbersome for a beginner
to get to a specific sutta. The thing about DPR is it seemed to produce
search results that didn't quite seem completely correct. I don't know
if it is because of case sensitivity in the searching, ellipsed out
repetitions, but on lennart's advice pointing me to CST4 (see thread
below), I was able to find some more sutta references for key phrases
that did not turn up in DPR.

knowing which sutta you're in:
This is important for beginners. DPR is the best in this respect,
because only the sutta in question is loaded into teh reader window.
CST4 loads an entire book, so for example [M. 22] simile of the snake
that I've been reading, in both CST and PTR would load all 50 suttas in
book 1, making it hard to get to the sutta I'm looking for. CST4 has
each "suttam" with a bold heading so scrolling around you can
eventually figure out which sutta you're in. In PTR I didn't see any
"suttam" keywords, so I couldn't tell where I am in the canon most of
the time.

dictionary lookups:
In this category, CST4 is the toughest on the beginner because you have
to hit the toolbar to call up the window to do dictionary searches,
which is more work, and with un-tabbed windows, it becomes hard to track
where your dictionary window is and where the reader windows are... But
what is really nice about the CST4 dictionary is if you have a partial
word string, it lists many possible completion possibilites, a long list
of potential words, and just scrolling through the words you can sese
different conjugations, completely different words quickly.

PTR's tooltips (the translated pali shows up in a bubble next to teh
word when the cursor is on top of a pali word without you even having to
click .

DPR: keeps a separate window for dictionary , dictinoary look up
prompter, is basically set up for beginners who will be looking up words
frequently.

For the beginners, DPR is a little more friendly even than the tooltips
because the definition persists and stays printed in the dictinoary
window, whereas in PTR the definition goes away once the cursor has
moved out of the word it was on top of.

Ideally for the beginner, if both tool tips and a persistent dictionary
window (fed with left mouse clicks) were available, it basically means
you can be looking at the definitions of two words at one time instead
of just one.

For ease of reading:
My order of preference is PTR, CST4, DPR in terms of how easy it is to
read the text. Both PTR and CST have large black fonts on white
background, with large reader windows. DPR has a small reader window
with some sometimes funky.

As a beginner, I spend the most time with DPR, since knowing what sutta
I'm in is of prime importance with such a low pali vocabulary. I suspect
for someone like James or other proficient Pali reader, CST4 will be a
better choice. CST4 potentially going open source to allow Lennart to
integrate his tabbed windows, bookmarks, tooltips would be even better.
CST4 is hard to manage once you have several windows open.

All three are fantastic products. They all put in their own time, love,
energy into making these incredibly useful tools. It's still
mindboggling to me that where once you needed shelves and shelves of
books, now fits into the size of your thumbnail. The entire tipitaka,
Visudhimagga, commentaries can all fit into an iphone or pocket pc.

I didn't explore any of the international features of CST4, if the pali
canon can be read in many languages, that is quite something.

-Frank

On 1/25/2010 5:33 PM, Lennart Lopin wrote:
>
> Hi Frank,
>
> CST4 does the job. I don't know about the DPR, but CST4 uses the same
> search
> engine (Lucene.NET) as PTR but implemented it in such a fashion that it
> works for the Unicode text files.
>
> It is even more reliable than ksana tipitaka search engine (which you can
> download or access via tipitaka.org). Ksana is faster, but sometimes has
> difficulties in finding all matches. The CST4 also supports regular
> expressions and thus makes it very convenient to search. Frank Snow is
> working on this project - unfortunately VRI who commissioned the work, has
> not yet decided whether to release it as open source, but if you download
> the CST4 you can see that the search result box offers options to
> export the
> results (how many matches found per book etc.) - so I guess they will add
> more features to their search function over time.
>
> Regarding the Pali Text Reader (PTR): We stopped developing the PTR in
> 2007
> when the CST4 was released. I still hope that at one point this important
> project becomes open source one day so that all the additional features
> which you can find in the Pali Text Reader (like bookmarking, paragraph
> navigation, mouse-over dictionary lookup etc.) can be added to CST4 (after
> all, both are written in C# which would make it real simple)...we will see
> :-)
>
> mettāya,
>
> Lennart
>
> On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 12:44 AM, frank <fcckuan@...
> <mailto:fcckuan%40gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> > I used PTR (pali text reader) and DPR (digital pali reader) in an
> > attempt to find more suttas like [M. 148]. the key search word
> > pariyosaanakalyaa.na.m: , " beautiful in the end", usually produces that
> > stock phrase, shown here in two versions:
> >
> >
> > Version 1: [ M. 27, 38, ...
> > Here, monks, a Tathagata appears in the world, accomplished, fully
> > enlightened, perfect in true knowledge and conduct, sublime, knower of
> > worlds, incomparable leader of persons to be tamed, teacher of gods and
> > humans, enlightened, blessed. He declares this world with its gods, its
> > Maras, and its Brahmas, this generation with its recluses and brahmins,
> > its princes and its people, which he has himself realised with direct
> > knowledge. He teaches the dhamma good in the beginning, good in the
> > middle, and good in the end, with the right meaning and phrasing, and he
> > reveals a holy life that is utterly perfect and pure.
> >
> > version 2: [ M. 148 Chachakka p.1129 ]
> > “Bhikkhus, I shall teach you the Dhamma that is good in the beginning,
> > good in the middle, and good in the end, with the right meaning and
> > phrasing; I shall reveal a holy life that is utterly perfect and pure,
> > that is , the six sets of six. Listen and attend closely to what I shall
> > say.”
> >
> >
> > I'm particularly interested in version 2. version is kind of a generic
> > version of the sutta where a typical situation would be something like,
> > "Hey buddhist dudes, I heard your teacher is a tathagata... teaching a
> > dhamma good in the beginnning, middle, end."
> >
> > Version 2, the Buddha says, "Now look here monks, I'm going to speak
> > right now, live in present tense, and reveal a holy life and dhamma that
> > is good in the beginning, middle, end, utterly perfect, etc.".
> >
> > So I did a search for pakaasessaami , which is a different tense than
> > the "pakeseti" of the version 1. PTR and DPR produce different results,
> > both very sparse. PTR turned up a sutta in Digha Nik., but that one was
> > not of interest. DPR produced a couple of finds in Khuddaka, I could
> > find no English versions online for those 2 references.
> >
> >
> > I did look through all 16 references in MN for less stringent search
> > which produced both versions.
> >
> > On a similar vein:
> > Anyone have any ideas on a search keyword that might yield all the
> > suttas in which right after listening to the sutta, monks became
> > arahants? Off the top of my head, 60 monks in [M.148] became arahants,
> > Another sutta between M.120 and M152 with a similar theme as M148 also
> > produced 60 arahants, and there was a sutta where a large number (60?)
> > of nuns became arahants in Majjhima.
> >
> > In the notes below, you can see which suttas in Majjhima Sariputta and
> > Rahula attained arahantship.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > DPR Search Results for pariyosaanakalyaa.na.m:
> > DN: 14, MN: 16, SN: 6, AN: 14, KN: 13, Vin: 4, Abhi: 4
> >
> >
> >
> > Majjhima:
> > M. 27: C??ahatthipadopama: Shorter Discourse on Simile of Elephant's
> > Footprint 27 , p. 272
> > “He teaches the dhamma good in the beginning, good in the middle, and
> > good in the end”
> > listener becomes lay follower at end.
> >
> > M. 38: Mah?ta?h?sankhaya: Greater Discourse on Destruction of Craving 38
> > , p. 359 same usage as [ M. 27]
> > ending: monks satisfied and delighted in buddha's words.
> >
> > S?leyyaka: Brahmins of S?l? 41 p.379 same usage as [ M. 27 ] brahmins
> > become lay followers for life.
> > Verañjaka: Brahmins of Verañja 42 , same as [M. 41]
> > Kandaraka: To Kandaraka 51 p.448 same usage as [ M. 27 ] ending: monks
> > were satisfied and delighted … in the words
> > Apa??aka: Incontrovertible Teaching 60 p.506 same usage as [ M. 27 ]
> > brahmin householders become lay followers for life.
> > Ra??hap?la: On Ra??hap?la 82 p.677 same usage as [ M. 27 ] Ven.
> > Ratthapala speaks verse at end.
> > Brahm?yu: Brahm?yu 91 p.743 same usage as [ M. 27 ] at end, brahmin
> > Brahmayu attained non-returner status (a week after sermon)
> > 9th reference still in M. 91.
> > 10th ref: Sela: To Sela 92 p.757 same usage as [ M. 27 ] Sela and
> > followers become arahants 7 days after sermon.
> > 11th ref: Gho?amukha: To Gho?amukha 94 p. 774. could not find reference,
> > but it does have repetition links to [M.51] which does reference it.
> > 12th ref: M.95: repetitious ref to M.91 covers it. Canki becomes lay
> > follower at end.
> > 13th ref: Devadaha: At Devadaha 101 : p.835 ref. M.51 for repetition.
> > Monks were satisfied and delighted at buddha's words.
> > 14th ref: Dantabh?mi: Grade of Tamed 125 p.993 ref m.51 for repetition.
> > Novice was satisfied and delighted with talk.
> > 15th ref: [ M. 148 Chachakka p.1129 ]
> > 16th ref: Nagaravindeyya: To Nagaravindans 150 p. 1140 references M.41
> > for repetition.
> >
> >
> > Search for : pakaasessaami in DPR to try to get more references like [M.
> > 148]
> > Search Results for pakaasessaami: DN: 0, MN: 1, SN: 0, AN: 0, KN: 4,
> > Vin: 4, Abhi: 0
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
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