- Created by mr-pennyworth
- 🗓 Last Updated: 04/08/24 20:55:16
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From their README
Better Dictionaries Better search and live previews for built-in macOS dictionaries.
Features
-
IPA (phonetic) pronunciations: Press
⌘↩
to hear the pronunciation. -
In-Alfred live previews with colors that automatically adapt to Alfred's theme:
-
Reverse search:
-
More relevant search results:
left: macOS/Alfred built-in search, right: BetterDict -
If one word has multiple, unrelated meanings with different origin, they are showed as diffrent entries (in the above example, see "arm" has two entries at the top)
-
Import any compatible dictionary
Importing a Dictionary
After importing the workflow, type .dict-import
into Alfred.
Select the dictionary you want to import.
Dictionary-specific Keywords and Hotkeys
After a dictionary is imported, a script filter and a hotkey trigger is automatically created into the workflow editor.
-
Freshly-installed workflow without any imported dictionaries:
-
Two hotkeys and keyword triggers each automatically added after importing two dictionaries. They come pre-labeled with dictionary names:
-
This allows you to assign hotkeys and keywords for specific dictionaries. For example, below you can see how I have manually assigned keywords
thesaurus
anddefn
to the thesaurus and dictionary respectively. In addition, I can trigger the dictionary search using⌃⌥⌘D
.
Word Lookup
You can use the hotkeys/keywords created above for directly searhcing specific dictionaries. That's the recommended way for dictionaries that you use frequently.
For the infrequently used dictionaries for which you haven't assigned any hotkeys/keywords, follow this:
- Type
lookup
into Alfred. You'll see a list of all dictionaries imported into BetterDict. - Select the dictionary to search, and type the search query.
Notes and Warnings
-
Importing a dictionary could take as much as 30 minutes on old machines or if there's significant CPU activity from other apps.
-
After each mac restart, for the first time when you run the workflow, expect a comparatively slower search. Subsequent searches should be instant.
-
This workflow takes a LOT of space on disk. Take a look at the comparison:
# Built-in dictionaries Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus: 7 MB New Oxford American Dictionary: 36 MB # After importing into BetterDict Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus: 101 MB (html files) New Oxford American Dictionary: 442 MB (html files) Combined search index of these two: 730 MB (apart from html)