Add a Desktop Dictionary to Ubuntu for Quick Word Lookups

IF YOU WRITE a lot, a desktop dictionary can be a powerful asset. With it, you can highlight a word inside any program and then click the dictionary icon in your menu bar to open a Web browser window containing the word’s definition. To add a desktop dictionary to your Ubuntu installation, use the Googlizer applet, which you can install via Synaptic Package Manager. If you don’t find it in Synaptic’s graphical interface, open a terminal window and type sudo apt-get install googlizer to automatically locate it and install it. This applet was made to perform instant Google searches, but you can make it do dictionary searches instead. Once you’ve installed Googlizer in Synaptic, drag its icon from THE PPLICATIONS¨ NTERNET MENU TO A SPARE SPOT ON THE PANEL BAR_ Then right-click it and select Properties. In the Command field, change the line to read googlizer --url http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ (make sure that you put two hyphens before url). How does this trick work? The search term you highlight enters the selection buffer automatically, and then it simply joins the end of the URL you quote when you click on the Googlizer button. In the case of the Merriam-Webster Web site, this trick works perfectly, since the site uses that URL format for each word. For example, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/orange leads you to a definition of the word orange. You might also want to change the icon for Googlizer, as I have, to that of a dictionary. The icon that I use lives at /usr/share/icons/gnome/scalable/apps/accessoriesdictionary.svg.

Source of Information : PC World November 2009