[Sugar-devel] Dictionary everywhere ?

[Benjamin M. Schwartz]

Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote:
> I was wondering about having a global "dictionary" key in sugar, just
> like the view source key. When you select a word (or words), and press
> that key, a window should pop up, showing the meaning of that word (or
> those words).

I think it's a great idea, very much in the spirit of the the Sugar UI design.

I see a strong parallel to the proposed Text to Speech function, which
would allow a user to highlight any text and then ask Sugar to pronounce
it, or type text into a field provided by a frame device.  In fact, I
think that the Dictionary should also be a frame device, and the popup
window should be a "notification" palette connected to that device.

The question of key bindings is very interesting.  In both cases, the
functionality is useful to many users, but not all, so assigning a
permanent binding seems excessive.  However, clicking through the frame
greatly increases the effort needed to use the feature.  As a compromise,
perhaps we can assign keyboard shortcuts of the form <Frame key>+<letter>
to frame devices.  This formula seems clarifying to the user, while also
avoiding the hotly contested Ctrl- and Alt- shortcut spaces.

--Ben

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