Highlight Word Bookmarklet

April 18, 2002 8:33 AM

Highlight Word Bookmarklet allows you to highlight any word in your browser window and get a dictionary definition. Neat. (via Zeldman)
posted by gwint (17 comments total)

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.]
posted by Gamecat at 9:02 AM on April 18, 2002

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.
posted by aaron at 9:09 AM on April 18, 2002

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.
posted by mrbarrett.com at 9:09 AM on April 18, 2002

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.
posted by bondcliff at 9:14 AM on April 18, 2002

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.
posted by arielmeadow at 9:37 AM on April 18, 2002

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.
posted by mkn at 9:56 AM on April 18, 2002

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.
posted by mathowie at 9:59 AM on April 18, 2002

see a word, click it, get information!
posted by moz at 10:31 AM on April 18, 2002

see a word, click it, get information!

AUUGUGUUGH!

*beats moz senseless*
posted by aaron at 10:35 AM on April 18, 2002

Opera does this, and more. Highlight and search with thirteen search engines, dictionary, encyclopedia, or translation.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:43 AM on April 18, 2002

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.)
posted by gwint at 10:52 AM on April 18, 2002

Well I plan on using it. Thanks, gwint.
posted by iconomy at 1:19 PM on April 18, 2002

Well I wrote something like this back in 1965. The bitch of course was getting it to work in MIE.
posted by Danf at 1:23 PM on April 18, 2002

*cough*
posted by bryanboyer at 3:46 PM on April 18, 2002

The Atomica stuff is cool. Thanks.
posted by justlooking at 3:52 PM on April 18, 2002

xrefer also does this. Bookmarklets are cool and there's loads of them to do loads of fun things.
posted by nedrichards at 5:46 PM on April 18, 2002

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
posted by lucien at 9:53 PM on April 18, 2002