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Popup Chinese: Firefox Dictionary Plugin

Posted by trevelyan at October 1, 2008

Hi Guys,

We're currently looking for beta testers for our new custom Firefox Chinese dictionary plugin. This provides popup definitions and pinyin for ANY Chinese content on ANY website. It also translates numbers because we decided that was important too.

The plugin is built atop our own dictionary, but is generated with your wordlist data as well. You can edit it either by adding entries to your vocabulary list, or by using the plugin itself. Edit any popup by clicking on your mouse to freeze it, and then clicking on the field you'd like to edit. Add new words by highlighting them (a box will pop up asking for the definition). Our goal is to make it possible for you to write/compile your own dictionary if that's what you'd like.

The software is designed to be useful to advanced students who translate professionally and need the ability to customize their own reference tools. We are interested in getting feedback on usability, and hearing of other features we can add that would make it more useful to a wider range of students.

To generate/install your custom plugin, fire up Firefox and visit:

http://popupchinese.com/words/plugin

The page may take a few seconds to load - it isn't our site isn't being slow, it's our backend systems building a 6MB dictionary for you. :)
roger.james
 said on
October 1, 2008
Some problems leading the tool: the period in the middle of my user name had been dropped in the link from the tools page so it was looking for rogerjames-edit.xpi. I found I could look at the /plugins directory (which maybe should be protected) and saw the correct file name there.

However once I got the tool it seems to work well and looks as if it will be very useful, although I am doubt if I'll be using it's more advanced features for some time.

(using OS X10.5 Firefox 3)
 
sandra
 said on
October 2, 2008
So far, I can't get it to show up on my list of plugins and addons. It installs, I shut Firefox nd restart it, but can't find the popup dictionary anywhere. I'm working on a solution.
 
sandra
 said on
October 2, 2008
OK, fine now. Third time's the charm--have no idea what was wrong the first two times. Didn't do anything different. (I know that's no help, but I can't find any variables.
 
trevelyan
 said on
October 2, 2008
glad it works. Brendan was having some trouble with it too, but we haven't had any issues here ourselves. Will still up a direct download link in the meantime.
 
Maple
 said on
October 2, 2008
wow, guys, thanks, this looks great. I installed the dictionary twice actually, because it took me a second thought to realize that step 2 of the instructions is really as easy as using the right click menu....I was like: Where is the icon ? Let me do it again..haha, whenever you need feedback from not-a-computer-genius, let me know:))) any other feedback, too, of course. Am really happy to have access to this site and this cool tool.
 
sprungturnip
 said on
October 3, 2008
It says it's not compatible with FF 3.0.2.
 
trevelyan
 said on
October 3, 2008
Anyone else having difficulty with FF 3.0.2? I've got it running on FF 3.03 under Linux, Vista and XP....

@Maple - glad you like it, and we *always* need help figuring out how to make things easier. If you don't want to use the right-click menu, you can toggle the popups on/off by holding down the Cntl and Shift keys and pressing A.
 
orbital
 said on
October 3, 2008
Firefox 3.0.3 here - works perfectly for me. awesome little tool.

 
sprungturnip
 said on
October 4, 2008
My FF upgraded itself and now all works - agree with orbital - great tool.
 
sandra
 said on
October 4, 2008
The popup dictionary is now listed (permanently, I think) as an installed Firefox plugin, but that's it. It does zip, zero, zilch, the three Zs. Using Firefox 3.03.
 
trevelyan
 said on
October 4, 2008
sandra,

Have you activated the plugin using the right-click menu? When you do this, you should see a yellow popup briefly appear at the top-left corner of your browser reading "Enabling Chinese Popups". It will disappear and the popups should start working a second or two later.

If this doesn't work can you let us know your OS and the webpage you are trying to view characters on? The plugin can always be uninstalled by going to Tools->Addons and clicking on the uninstall option as well.

Thanks.
 
sprungturnip
 said on
October 5, 2008
It goes a bit funny when I select Chinese text to put in a Chinese dictionary (all at nciku.com). It changes my selection to the little popup window with the text "translation" highlighted... leading me to paste that into the Chinese dictionary instead of what I wanted. And if you highlight a couple of lines of text, it copies it all into that little popup box and asks you to translate - English and all.

It also came up with bu le as the pinyin in

你连基本生活都保证不了

not sure if that's right.

It would be good if clicking in the background window closed the popup rather than having to mouse to the little X.
 
sandra
 said on
October 7, 2008
All of a sudden, your popup has been working fine. Never fail, in fact. However, on sites such as Baidu, the translations are a little too literal so that I find myself guessing (usually correctly) what, for example, zhidao means as a menu item. Still, I've grown quite fond of it. It may well replace hanzibar in my heart.
 
trevelyan
 said on
October 7, 2008
@sandra - glad to hear it. :)

@springturnip - we've just updated the plugin. It now only shows that "add entry" box when you've highlighted text twelve characters or less in length.

It isn't very likely that people will want to add longer words, and this makes it possible to copy and paste larger passages without having to worry about the popup.

If you want to copy and paste a single word the best approach is to hit Cntl+Shift+A and toggle the popup functionality off. When you're done hit Cntl+Shift+A again to toggle the dictionary back on. Toggling the popup off should cause any of the popups on the page to instantly disappear.

To update just reinstall the plugin again by visiting the plugin installation page. Any additions or edits you made through the plugin should be included in the updated version:

http://popupchinese.com/words/plugin
 
Thaigi
 said on
October 8, 2008
Installed fine with Firefox 3.0.3 although at first I was unsure what I was looking for; I was looking for a toolbar icon. Went back to the instructions, drop down 'tools' and all became clear. Great tool, good job guys, thanks.
 
trevelyan
 said on
October 9, 2008
glad you like it Thaigi. Be sure to let us know if you run into any problems with it so we can get them fixed.
 
trevelyan
 said on
December 17, 2008
Version 1.2 is online. This fixes a couple of issues with browsing using multiple tabs, and iframe support. If you've installed an earlier version I'd encourage you to upgrade. I'm finding a noticable difference in responsiveness and ease-of-use.

http://popupchinese.com/words/plugin

As part of the update we've put up a non-customized version that doesn't require signin to download:

http://popupchinese.com/words/free_chinese_popup_dictionary_plugin

The major difference between the free version and premium version is that the free version doesn't support read/write functionality and integration with Popup Chinese vocabulary lists. We may update the free version less frequently as well, but with the amount of data already crammed into these things that shouldn't be too much of a concern.

 
421591874
 said on
December 20, 2008
This site is very good!
 
weijin
 said on
December 20, 2008
When I press a, I'm told to subscribe to PopupChinese for vocab integration, yet when I go to the tools section the vocab has been added to my personal vocab list. It used to say something like '... added to your dictionary'.
 
trevelyan
 said on
December 20, 2008
arrrgh... (tears our hair).

It should only do that in the public version. If youve logged in and downloaded as a logged in user it should just add it.

Ill check this out later today and post an update. Thanks weijin.
 
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