FOKS stands for Forgiving Online Kanji Search.

FOKS is an intelligent dictionary interface that allows users more freedom in searching for dictionary entries than is the case with conventional dictionary interfaces. Besides the usual methods of searching by entering the reading or pasting the kanji string you can specify further options that make it easier to find the word you are looking for.

Most notable difference from the conventional dictionaries is the intelligent search which allows for lookup of dictionary entries even with the (predictably) incorrect reading. See explanation below for more details

All the dictionaries used in this interface are freely available from the home of the EDICT dictionary projectat the Monash University.

SEARCH OPTIONS

Reading

The search will return an error if nothing is entered. Either a kana string (the reading of the string you are looking for) or the kanji string (pasted from a different file or entered using an IME) can be entered かな and 仮名 are both acceptable as entries. If the first is entered than the specified dictionaries are searched for the string that contains this string in the reading specified in the dictionary. If the second is entered then the specified dictionaries are searched for strings that contain the string in the entry part of the dictionary specification.

We support two types of wild characters (characters that will match any character during search):* and ?

* matches any number of characters. For example かな*わ will match any words that start with かな and end with わ

? matches exactly one two-byte character. For example か な?わ will match all strings which have one character between か な and わ

Char Count

The search will return all the matching strings that have the character count ＜,＞ or ＝ to the number entered. The Sign for character count specifies which relational operator will be used. If "ANY" is the value specified then both of the fields are ignored. This is the default behavior

For example if you enter:
Reading: かな; Char count: 2; ＞ ; the search will match all the entries that have more than 2 characters in their entry.
So, results like

Line No	Entry	Reading	Translation	Char No	Dictionary
22350	家内工業	かないこうぎょう	household or cottage industry	4	edict
70458	鼎の軽重を問う	かなえのけいちょうを	(exp) to call one`s ability into question/to weigh one`s ability	7	edict
25510	叶える	かなえる	(v1) to grant (request, wish)/(P)	3	edict
21721	仮名漢字変換	かなかんじへんかん	kana-kanji conversion	6	edict

would be returned but no entries with character count of ＜＝2 would be returned

Dictionaries to search

The FOKS is interface to several dictionaries and by specifying this option you can concentrate the search on one of the dictionaries or all. All dictionaries are part of the EDICT dictionary project and are results from a long-running project to produce a freely available Japanese/English Dictionary/ies in machine-readable form. See the full documentation for details. Currently included dictionaries are:

edict	General Japanese-English dictionary. Currently around 90000 entries
enamdict	Japanese name dictionary. Currently around 210000 entries
compdic	Japanese-English computer term dictionary. Currently around 10000 entries
compverbdic	Japanese English computer related verb dictionary. Currently around 1200 entries
4jwords	Dictionary of four character Japanese sayings. Currently around 400 entries

Search Type

Simple search basically decides whether to search the reading or entry part of the dictionary entry. This is done based on whether there are any kanji characters in the Reading field. If there are, then the entry part of the dictionary is searched. Otherwise reading part of the dictionary entry is searched.
The remaining parameters specified(Char Count, Sign for Char Count, Dictionaries to search and Search string location) are used to create a database query that retrieves the entries that match these parameters.

Intelligent search facility is what makes this dictionary interface special. It allows you to lookup words as you expect them to be read. When you input a search string we perform a number of calculations to figure what search string are you were likely looking for. We are presuming that you have entered correct or almost correct readings that kanji characters in the string that you are looking for take in certain context.
For example you are trying to lookup 母音 but you do not know the correct reading ぼいん. Most other dictionaries would be of little help in this situation, but with our intelligent search this is not case.
You can search on strings ははおと, ぼおん, ははおん or similar since 母takes on はは、ぼ readings in certain contexts and 音takesおと、おん、いん readings in certain context.
In other words we try to figure out what parts of the reading are representing what characters and try to figure the most likely candidates to your query.
For example intelligent search on string ぼおん will result like this:

The intelligentsearch is a two step process in which you first get a list of candidates that can be plausibly considered to take on the reading which you have searched on. If the list contains the string for which you were looking, you have to click on the its link to get the correct translation.
The calculations we perform are only applicable to readings of the string so if you try using intelligent search on kanji characters you will be defaulted into simple search. Also wild card character search or specific location search are also not applicable so you will be defaulted to simple search in cases you try to use them.