dict.cc Dictionary Plugin
Mar 2008
18
This package enhances Mac OS X Leopard’s (10.5) Dictionary.App by providing the complete german-english vocabulary from the fabulous dict.cc dictionary for offline use.
It works great in Dictionary.App and other core OS X services like Spotlight or Dictionary-Widget.
(Spring zur deutschen Beschreibung)
Please diggit if you like it!
save to del.icio.usYou can download the installation package — including the dictionary — from the servers of dict.cc:
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Note: Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” is required.
After the installation you need to activate your new dictionary in the preferences of Dictionary.App (Command+",").
Please contact me if you have any feature requests or bug reports. I will update my script and the complete installation package from time to time.
Uninstall:
Currently I do not provide an uninstall tool for this plugin. However, you can remove it on your own:
The dictionary is stored in /Library/Dictionaries/dict.cc\ Deutsch-Englisch\ Dictionary.dictionary/. Deleting this folder will uninstall the dictionary.
To do so, just open a new Finder window and select your primary harddrive. Go to the “Library” folder and then into the “Dictionaries” folder. Here you should find a folder called “dict.cc Deutsch-Englisch Dictionary.dictionary”. Move it into the Trash and your done.
Acknowledgments:
I want to thanks Paul Hemetsberger and all users of dict.cc for this fabulous online dictionary. I hope that this offline version will not lessen the participation in his project.
Additionally I would like to thank Wolfgang Reszel who wrote a similar tool to import the BeoLingus vocabulary into Dictionary.App. I heavily borrowed from him for the renewed version of my tool, namely the installation package and the XHTML/CSS rendering.
License:
My import tool is licensed under the GPL and you may download, modify and share it. You can download it below (Python-Script, Mac OS X Developer Tools required, no dictionary data included).
This does not apply for the actual dictionary data itself, which is licensed separately.
Updates:
No updates yet. Works fine :)
Links:
- My first blog post about the dict.cc plugin
- dict.cc’s Website
- Wolfgang Reszels Dictionary Plugin für BeoLingus
- Documentation of the Apple Dictionary Development Kit
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Magnoliacom| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| dictcc-dictionary-sourcecode-distrib.zip | 27.14 KB |
This is an excellent tool, thank you for making this publicly available.
Just right-click the unknown word in any Cocoa App and select “Dictionary”. Alternatively you can hit and hold Ctrl+Command+D and move the mouse cursor over a sentence. Assign a more accessible shortcut like Command+F1 in the System Prefs.
Georg
Great buddy,
This is awesome. I am gonna check it out soon =D
Thanks!
-Wai
I was looking for something like this a few weeks ago befor i took of too the us.
Thank you!
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Finally!
…now all you need to do is make one for the iPhone/iPod Touch… I would use it dozens of times a day since I’m studying in Berlin :D
I would love to. But I don’t have an iPhone and there’s currently no Dictionary.App for it. But I realy hope that Apple will create one and maybe my dict.cc-dictionary can be imported without any troubles…
Think there’s any way to get it to work on Tiger? I’ll do it myself if I have to. Just thinking it’ll help me get through the last few weeks of German class a little easier without worrying about my sketchy internet connection.
Thanks.
this is great, thanks a lot (gave it a digg)
As someone now living in Germany and slowly learning the language, I have to say thanks for this. It will be very helpful.
COOL! THANKS!!!
Would it not be possible to have a version for OS 10.4? Given all the trouble with 10.5, I am not in any hurry to move to Leopard, but another German dictionary would be wonderful to have—an alternative to the Ultralinqua product.
I would love to provide a Tiger version of this dictionary, but Tiger’s Dictionary.App is not extendable via plugins.
just one problem i put in the same word as you did but i got different results? any ideas
JayJay golook@gmail.com
strange indeed. is this a serious difference or just slightly different rendering or sth. like that? and are you referring to a difference between my screenshot of the widget and a query in the action Dictionary.App?
i noticed that the widget is a bit picky when searching for a word. Dictionary.App merges “download”, “Download” and “to download” together, whereas the widget will treat these as different entries.
really nice, some time ago i was looking for something like this, thanks for making it public
Finally!
Great work!
Nice work! Is it possible / are you planning to extend this functionality to other languages? I’m moving to Spain in a few months and would LOVE to have my Mac able to translate spanish! Thanks for your good work on this!
Just wanted to say how grateful I am to have such a piece of software now! However, I am also working with the beolingus plugin and think the visuals are slightly better there (indents, separator lines). If you could easily implement that too, your software will at least rule on my macbook for some good time to come. Further, do I have to check for updates or does it do that automatically?
Kind regard and many thanks!
Yeah. Wolfgang did a fairly decent job. I’m working on the text rendering.
Well. I’m not sure about the update frequency yet. Currently you have to manually check for updates, but I’ll set up a newsletter for that. Check back tomorrow. :) Regrettably I can’t provide an automatic updating system, as this would dig deep into OS X.
Anyway. How often should I update the dictionary? I mean the core vocabulary will not change the next 50 years or so and very few people need the latest cutting-edge translation just added to dict.cc. Any ideas? Once a month? Every six month?
Nice to hear that! Personally, I think an update every half a year is perfectly fine considering there is some amount of work on your side.
BTW, does anyone know which of the two data sets does have the better dictionary included, the dict.cc or the beolingus? AFAIK, dict.cc is considered more reliable than leo.org at least, though leo certainly does a fine job, too.
Kind regards!
Maybe this is of interest: http://code.google.com/p/mac-dictionary-kit/ Haven’t checked it out, though.
Can you make a script to convert XDXF dictionaries and import them. They are free and they have a ton like French, German, Russian, Hungarian. I am in desperate need of converting a portuguese dictionary. If you haven’t seen their website it is here:
http://xdxf.revdanica.com/down/
I can but I won’t.
Just providing a script for creating a Dictionary.App plugin is pretty useless, as most users won’t be able to install Apple’s Developer Tools and probably don’t want to deal with the command line.
Providing pre-build packages is a bad idea as the licensing is a bit chaotic. Some dicts are GNU and others don’T have a specific license at all.
Last but not least: I can’t check and I can’t support packages for languages I don’t speak.
Hey, Great findings!! Thanks so much for sharing.
I have a question. I was unable to execute the following:
In some applications, such as Mail and Safari, you can use a shortcut. Select the word, Control-click it, and then choose Look up in Dictionary. You might also be able to look up the word by placing the mouse over it and pressing Command-Control-D.
What is actually the problem?
Mfg, Terence aus Düsseldorf.
hmm… works fine for me. what exactly do you mean?
it usually shows me entries from the wrong dictionary, but you can select the dictionary to use in the lower left corner of that nifty info-popup.
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