2009-05-19
English is not my first language so I use online dictionaries frequently as a part of my daily routine to clarify and learn unfamiliar words as I read through articles in the Internet.
I have been using www.ditionary.com for a long time and I had the plan to make this work easy by creating a small application to retrieve the definition with support of a web service. This morning suddenly a new idea hit me to use JavaScript to get the word in the first place and load the appropriate URL.
How Does This Work?
When a user enters a word in the www.dictionary.com interface it redirects the user to the following dynamic URL.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Target-Word
Target-Word is The word we are seeking the definition for
What this JavaScript does is it retrieves the desired word from the user via a prompt, generate the appropriate URL according to the above format and open the new URL in a new window or tab so the time taken (under normal circumstance) to, load the web site, type-in the word, wait till the site redirects you, is saved. Now time is only taken for a single server request/response.
How To Set This Up?
It’s simple, just add a new favorite (for IE) or bookmark (for FireFox) in your browser and paste following code as the URL (for IE) or Location (for FireFox):
javascript:(function(){var%20word=prompt(%22Enter Word:%22);if(word!=null){window.open(%22http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/%22+word);}})();
Add bookmark dialog box in firefox
Now, when you open the favorite/bookmark, it will ask you for the word you want to look for and open the definition in a new window/tab.
Sample use of the script
It’s easier to use if you add the bookmark/favorite as a button into your bookmark/links toolbar
Bookmark button
This small script helps me a lot daily so I hope this would help you too!
Was this post helpful to you? How can I improve? – Your comment is highly appreciated!
Cassian Menol Razeek
