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183 Comments
- chrisgeleven, on 10/10/2007, -8/+230Never figured out why Windows doesn't have something like Dictionary.app that all Windows apps can use.
Just another one of those "duh!" moments that Microsoft has failed to grasp. - Netrilix, on 10/10/2007, -3/+120Can you imagine the *****-eating grin on some guy's face when he was typing this into the dictionary?
- mikes1, on 10/10/2007, -13/+98Hey, hookshotzz. The middle school you attend probably has an American Heritage dictionary. You can look up all kinds of swear words in that to impress your friends.
- Swift2, on 10/10/2007, -2/+52Seriously, is there an application-independent, system-wide dictionary in Windows? I mean, say you open Notepad. Does it have a spell-checker in there? A dictionary and thesaurus? As far as I remember, that's only in Word. If you have other applications that need the service, you're SOL. Unless I'm doing it wrong.
For instance, here. I'm typing in Firefox for the Mac. But let me see. If I spell something wrongg -- yes, it's underlined in red, but I only have Firefox's spell checker. If I'm using Camino, or Safari, or Opera, I get the red underlining, but I can right-click -- or option-click -- and get Dictionary and Thesaurus -- which is much more useful than a spell-checker. Many times, if you just type the wrong word, it's spelled correctly, but the end result is gibberish.
No, really, I'm not being sarcastic. I run Windows XP at work and XP in Bootcamp/Parallels at home. I may be seeing spell-checkers within Office, and within individual apps, but is there a dictionary in the OS? I don't want to miss anything, now. Maybe I've missed it. - DoTheFandango, on 10/10/2007, -2/+49Well actually, I just thought it meant eating *****.
- chrisgeleven, on 10/10/2007, -0/+44There is no dictionary in Windows. Any program running in Windows that has a dictionary has done it on their own.
Which is an incredible waste of effort. Not only do programmers have to write this into their apps manually, the users have to manually add words to the dictionary. Of course, some apps have different UI for the dictionary too.
It is one of those things that drive me insane about Windows. So common sense, yet Microsoft hasn't added yet.
I read somewhere that OS X is getting a grammer checker built-in with Leopard too. - 10goto10, on 10/10/2007, -5/+49It's good that it's in Dictionary.app, otherwise you never would have known what it meant...
- AndreMA, on 10/10/2007, -0/+30If you Cmd-Ctrl-D over text (without clicking and without needing to select the word) the definition will pop up as well. Keep holding Cmd and Ctrl and move the mouse, and the pop up will follow, changing to reflect the word under the mouse.
- philippbock, on 10/10/2007, -0/+29The funny thing is that it still works when you’re not on the internet. It actually says it uses the Oxford American Dictionaries.
- EvilJelloMan, on 10/10/2007, -1/+30It has? Are you sure? Where, exactly?
- mentor972, on 10/10/2007, -2/+26Because Microsoft would like to charge you 49.95 for it.
- DarkMeld, on 10/10/2007, -1/+22Yea its pretty awsome, just that firefox is too dumb to use any of the OS's services
- manitoba98xp, on 10/10/2007, -0/+20We Mac users don't do that for distinctive applications like Safari or iPhoto, but for those that are generically-named, we add ".app" to make it clear that it's the Mac application, not the real thing (such as Dictionary.app, Calculator.app, and Mail.app).
- geminitojanus, on 10/10/2007, -2/+21The only time they were ever slapped with an anti-trust suit, the same one they were convicted in, was because they integrated a Web Browser so tightly that it couldn't be removed, and obstructing Netscape's business model by actively denying them specs to APIs they needed to make their browser work well on Windows.
OTOH, Dictionary.app can be removed simply by deleting Dictionary.app. But hey, feel free to keep telling yourself whatever you want. - Breepee, on 10/10/2007, -3/+21I never figured out why my Dutch MacBook came with an English dic.app. Sure, it's nice to be able to lookup English words, but what about the language the user of a Dutch MacBook will be using most? There's no Dutch dictionary on it, also no info on this on apple.com (I thought maybe I could add languages somewhere).
- richardhenry, on 10/10/2007, -0/+16I think you're missing the point, *****-eater.
- Swift2, on 10/10/2007, -1/+16You mean 'cue.'
- Satanael, on 10/10/2007, -0/+15Elementary school just punched me right in the face.
- soexcited82, on 10/10/2007, -3/+16Pray tell kajoob, have you started Middle School yet? Or is it still summer vacation for you?
- LeonardNimrod, on 10/10/2007, -0/+13• Dictionary.app is a great resource. For all Carbon or Cocoa based apps you can use a keyboard shortcuts to easily and quickyl get the definition or synonyms of words of any any text anywhere. I have moved this to the F12 toggle key so I can move the mouse around free and still access the content without having having to use the difficult 3-key default setup.
* When it comes to Apple programs like Mail and Dictionary people tend to use the '.app' extension because on their their own they are quite bland and can be confusing if taking out of context. You don't have this issues with Outlook Express.
• The "Tiger" version of Dictionary.app allows for US Diacritical (something I wish Wikipedia would add since most English readers don't understand the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), much less heard of it) as well as British and US IPA standards of pronunciation.
* ON THE DOWN LOW ==> The "Leopard" version of Dictionary.app offers a very nice WIkipedia layout. It also offers multiple languages. The "Leopard" version also offers several different Japanese dictionaries (Japanese, Japenese-English, Japanese Synonyms) and an Apple dictionary whish comes in handy for looking up Apple history.
• It's clear that the XML based Dictionary.app DB has plans for expanding for all Apple supported languages. With EVERY word clickable, even within WIkipedia, I find this and indispensable resource that I use every day.
• There are free dictionaries online that MS could access and incorporate for free. The problem we repeatedly see is that MS has no interest in going the extra mile. - darkfate, on 10/10/2007, -0/+13I wonder how his thought process went on that one: "Hmm, I think I'm going to look up *****-eating in the dictionary today!"
- 5xSTUN, on 10/10/2007, -3/+15What I like is that you can highlight a work, right-click or Control-click it, and look it up in Dictionary.app from the menu that pops up. Handy.
- matude, on 10/10/2007, -1/+12Newsworthy?
- codeninja42, on 10/10/2007, -2/+12glorious
- meatmcguffin, on 10/10/2007, -1/+11No Mac OS X apps can work with the iPhone seeing as it would have to be recompiled for a different architecture. Where did you get that idea?
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+11Firefox 3.0 will use Cocoa. It's already in the latest Firefox 3.0 alpha.
- chedabob, on 10/10/2007, -4/+14Or they know Windows has enough bloat as it is, without adding in anymore useless applications.
- AndreMA, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9Control-click on a word (no need to select it first). "Look up in Dictionary" is the third item in the contextual menu that pops up.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11Thus a perfect vista home basic user.
- wellyuk, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9Uhhh. It doesn't.
- pinchies, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8FTW!!!! I have been checking out all the nifty os x short cuts for the the last week, but that one... Man thats cool!
Deeep breeath. It's only a dictionary... - sovok, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Or put your cursor over a word, press Command+Control+D and a little tool-tip-like window pops up with the description: http://tinyurl.com/2fw5lb
But it only works in cocoa applications (not in firefox, thunderbird, openoffice) - sg7791, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9I think it's installed with the Office suite. Unless I'm wrong, I'd say that doesn't count.
- greatcaffeine, on 10/10/2007, -4/+11Great work, you've just proven to the whole world that you're an unintelligent, *****-eating tool.
- Kelmon, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8No where near as bad as your situation but it does annoy me that I can't set the Dictionary to British English rather than this American nonsense. You are quite correct that being able to add alternative languages would be appropriate and expected by international users.
- chrisc262, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7wow - very mature - i am so proud of digg right now...
- Palaceguard, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8There is no jesus, so your theory is bunk
- ch3t, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8haha awesome. also in Dictionary are common phrases like "***** something up" ( and yes, i'm serious :D )
- Kelmon, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8No it didn't and still doesn't in Windows XP. I have no idea if Vista has sorted this out or not but Windows before it does not have a system-wide dictionary. MS Office provides one that is shared between the Office application but this does not extend any further. One imagines this is why Firefox, for example, provides its own spell checker - not much point of doing that if the OS provides one that you already trained.
- Cahill, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8Also features the classic word *****-faced.
- auxide, on 10/10/2007, -5/+11*sigh*
- MeneerR, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6It should take op LESS space. Since, programs like Word or Firefox can actually re-use the same thing. Then again that's what it does on linux as well .. cuz its just windows users that are f*cked. Well, if they prefer it like that .. what's the problem?
- t1m1, on 10/10/2007, -3/+9Unfortunately, Dictionary.app has one flaw: The only language supported is English. If you don't speak English, a lot of features in OS X are completely useless. The same goes for speech recognition, VoiceOver and text to speech...
- Swift2, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6You can look things up in Dictionary.com, or in Merriam-Webster's website or CD. What's different about Dictionary.app is that any application that requests it can have it as a Service. It's dead simple to write an app that way. You just put in a few lines of code, and your spell-checker is also the Oxford American Dictionary and Thesaurus.
If only Webster's weren't such Internet-phobic numbnuts, they could have had the deal, and you would have automatically had the defining dictionary on American usage. Oxford is good, but they're not definitive.
My real props will go to the OS that gives you access to the 14-volume Oxford English Dictionary. Won't happen. They want you to buy a sub to their web site for hundreds of dollars a year. - supermanred, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Age, approximately 12. Laid: Never. Will Be Laid: Never.
Hobbies: Calling people who's OS works fags. - neutrino15, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4dictionary.app uses the Oxford American Dictionaries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Oxford_American_Dictionary - piwy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Nah, it's just that firefox is not written in cocoa (AFAIK). The Cmd + Ctr +D thingy only works in cocoa apps.
- chedabob, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Doesn't everyone do that?
- titlesaysitall, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4I find your lack of faith disturbing...
- fxspec06, on 10/10/2007, -3/+7Would you rather have the title say 'Dictionary has everything... (pic)' ? Think before you post ...
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