Comments on: Comments on 16465

Post number 16465

gwint — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 08:33:33 -0800

Highlight Word Bookmarklet allows you to highlight any word in your browser window and get a dictionary definition. Neat. (via Zeldman)

By: Gamecat

Gamecat — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 09:02:18 -0800

If you are running windows you might like to have a look at one of my favourite 'helper' programs Atomica. It does a similar thing to the bookmarklet you linked, but for all text, in any kind of window or document. Just alt-click it and a window pops up with the clicked word defined from a large variety of sources - the standard dictionary and thesaurus are supplemented by cultural, technical, medical and encyclopaedic resources, as appropriate to the word you selected. It even does a quick Google search on your chosen word. I think it's brilliant for a freeware application. I still can't get it to make me coffee though. [I have nothing to do with this software, other than being a delighted user.]

By: aaron

aaron — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 09:09:33 -0800

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs created and posted a bookmarklet to do this back in January (just go punch "bookmarklet" into the search field on his page). He's also just added a Google News bookmarklet, which you can find by running the same search. It's all who you know, I guess.

By: mrbarrett.com

mrbarrett.com — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 09:09:52 -0800

This has been possible in OmniWeb in OS X for awhile now. Cocoa applications in OS X have the ability to use "Services". Someone wrote a Service to do this very thing. There are other "Services" like the ability to do a Google search on a selected word or series of words. Mathematical calculations on a set of numbers. If you run across a Termincal command on a webpage, you can select that command and from the Services menu of any Cocoa app (like OmniWeb), you can execute that command in the Terminal. I know this kind of interoperability isn't unique to OS X, but it's nicely executed and a nice bonus for using Cocoa apps. Services are available for Carbon apps if the programmer has implemented them, but my experience is that many have not.

By: bondcliff

bondcliff — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 09:14:03 -0800

I've been using Atomica since it was GuruNet version .0000001 or something like that. It is by far the most usefull program I have ever used. This is what the internet was designed for.

By: arielmeadow

arielmeadow — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 09:37:15 -0800

Dictionary.com has had a version of this for a year or two as well: Cleverkeys. My personal fave, however, remains Dave's Quick Search Bar (discussed over here). I LOVE that thing. Do Google searches, IMDB searches, CNN searches, dictionary searches, etc etc etc, all from your toolbar. Love that.

By: mkn

mkn — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 09:56:29 -0800

The good ole' bookmarklets.com had something like this for ages. It either searches a selected word, or gives you a javascript prompt (the Dictionary.com one that I use). Useful.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 09:59:58 -0800

I wrote the same bookmarklet over two years ago, about a month before Dictionary.com released an official one, but it's a useful thing.

By: moz

moz — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 10:31:21 -0800

see a word, click it, get information!

By: aaron

aaron — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 10:35:15 -0800

see a word, click it, get information! AUUGUGUUGH! *beats moz senseless*

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 10:43:16 -0800

Opera does this, and more. Highlight and search with thirteen search engines, dictionary, encyclopedia, or translation.

By: gwint

gwint — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 10:52:35 -0800

sorry if this isn't as new to folks as i thought. i was impressed with the fact that it (a) doesn't require additional software/plugins, (b) is a clever use of javascript, and (c) works almost univerally across browsers and platforms (none of the other options folks mentioned work with IE/Mac, my prefered browser, other than CleverKeys which works as a system extension.)

By: iconomy

iconomy — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 13:19:04 -0800

Well I plan on using it. Thanks, gwint.

By: Danf

Danf — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 13:23:52 -0800

Well I wrote something like this back in 1965. The bitch of course was getting it to work in MIE.

By: bryanboyer

bryanboyer — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 15:46:12 -0800

*cough*

By: justlooking

justlooking — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 15:52:07 -0800

The Atomica stuff is cool. Thanks.

By: nedrichards

nedrichards — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 17:46:10 -0800

xrefer also does this. Bookmarklets are cool and there's loads of them to do loads of fun things.

By: lucien

lucien — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 21:53:05 -0800

I'm just now trying out a bookmarklet that allows you to store, retrieve, and categorise links. I know there are a lot of apps that do this but this one looks pretty cool. You can read about it at tools.komlenic.com