February 16, 2011 at 01:37Internet + Firefox => offline dictionaries are no longer needed
Today there is such a variety of online dictionaries that limiting yourself offline is simply impractical (unless, of course, you have the Internet). However, one question remains unresolved - how to make using online dictionaries convenient? The thought creeps in that there is somewhere a magical “Fantastic Online Dictionary Client”, yes, maybe there is, but today I’ll tell you about another way to “prepare them”, which I did not come to right away, but I have been using it for a long time and it’s really convenient.
A small clarification : when talking about offline dictionaries, I mean not paper, but software dictionaries that are not connected to the Internet.
The first thing that comes to the rescue is the Firefox bookmarks. The parameters have bookmarks keyword field that allows you to use a bookmark in an unusual way, such as:
- add to the bookmark link www.google.com/dictionary?langpair=en|ru&q=%s
- assigning of ger keyword ( the G oogle E nglish the R ussian)
Now , if you type “ger magic” in the address bar, a page with the translation of the word “magic” will open. % s in our link is where the word we are translating is substituted.
Tip for watching a video: press the "quality" button at the top of the player.
Translation in the address bar is good, but how would this process be accelerated? And if there is a story with quick access, then generally good!
Pentadactyl comes to the rescue here (probably, few people know that Pentadactyl is a fast-growing fork of Vimperator, and Vimperator is a plugin that changes the look and behavior of Firefox in such a way that it looks like a Vim text editor)
With Pentadactyl, we we get:
- quick access to the command line using the 't' key
- translation history that you can quickly navigate (using the up and down keys) and edit to: 1) translate other words in the same dictionary; 2) to translate the same word in another dictionary; 3) to re-translate a word that has already been translated, but did not remember the meaning
As you probably noticed, there is another little nuisance - extra elements, for example, advertising on thefreedictionary. We solve this problem with the AdBlock addon - Element Hiding Helper
And as a bonus, I offer one more pleasantness. Because keyword is a property of the bookmarks themselves, then all dictionary settings can be synchronized / transferred simply by synchronizing your favorites with any plug-in intended for this. I am using Firefox Sync now, and before that it was Xmarks.
Update1: In
this way, I use dictionaries mainly for translating paper literature.
Update2:
A list of the main services which is enough for me for any translation from English:
- google.com/dictionary
- lingvo.yandex.ru
- thefreedictionary.com
- urbandictionary.com
- dictionary.cambridge.org
A small clarification : when talking about offline dictionaries, I mean not paper, but software dictionaries that are not connected to the Internet.
Magic keywords
The first thing that comes to the rescue is the Firefox bookmarks. The parameters have bookmarks keyword field that allows you to use a bookmark in an unusual way, such as:
- add to the bookmark link www.google.com/dictionary?langpair=en|ru&q=%s
- assigning of ger keyword ( the G oogle E nglish the R ussian)
Now , if you type “ger magic” in the address bar, a page with the translation of the word “magic” will open. % s in our link is where the word we are translating is substituted.
Tip for watching a video: press the "quality" button at the top of the player.
Pentadactyl practicality
Translation in the address bar is good, but how would this process be accelerated? And if there is a story with quick access, then generally good!
Pentadactyl comes to the rescue here (probably, few people know that Pentadactyl is a fast-growing fork of Vimperator, and Vimperator is a plugin that changes the look and behavior of Firefox in such a way that it looks like a Vim text editor)
With Pentadactyl, we we get:
- quick access to the command line using the 't' key
- translation history that you can quickly navigate (using the up and down keys) and edit to: 1) translate other words in the same dictionary; 2) to translate the same word in another dictionary; 3) to re-translate a word that has already been translated, but did not remember the meaning
We remove excess: Element Hiding Helper
As you probably noticed, there is another little nuisance - extra elements, for example, advertising on thefreedictionary. We solve this problem with the AdBlock addon - Element Hiding Helper
Sync: Firefox Sync, Xmarks, etc.
And as a bonus, I offer one more pleasantness. Because keyword is a property of the bookmarks themselves, then all dictionary settings can be synchronized / transferred simply by synchronizing your favorites with any plug-in intended for this. I am using Firefox Sync now, and before that it was Xmarks.
Update1: In
this way, I use dictionaries mainly for translating paper literature.
Update2:
A list of the main services which is enough for me for any translation from English:
- google.com/dictionary
- lingvo.yandex.ru
- thefreedictionary.com
- urbandictionary.com
- dictionary.cambridge.org