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Why I built a dictionary app

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101–110 of 187 posts

Re: Why I built a dictionary app

#101

Post by xenodium »

> No Lock-in This principle comes from the local-first software movement: users taking back data ownership so they can export and manipulate what they have created.

I’d love for this to become a well-recognised badge of honor, bringing more visibility to lesser known tools.

I built a couple of iOS apps that happen to use org as their portable file format. The fact that its org is less relevant. The iOS apps stand on their own with mobile-friendly UI. If you want to peek at the org content, you can too of course:

https://flathabits.com

https://plainorg.com

There are a handful of other org-based tools out there. Org apps are great for those with an org background, but these apps can be equally recommended for new-comers. What’s important is these apps serve a purpose while also respecting privacy, portability, etc.

https://BrainTool.org

https://logseq.com

https://orgzly.com

https://beorg.app

https://easyorgmode.com

https://organice.200ok.ch

https://orgro.org

Re: Why I built a dictionary app

#102

Post by trumpablehump »

wonderbore wrote: post #93
jxramos wrote: post #53

> Noise Free It's incredible how many distractions this kind of app usually has: extra clicks, unnecessary features, rectangular ads, and too many typography styles. I very much like this adaptation of the term noise. I’m starting to realize a growing angst against intrusive noisy products that present junk to me I did not ask for. I realize there’s a non-zero cognitive load to ads and variable UI that’s unrelated to…

From my experience, either an app reaches momentum and the author wants to monetize it or it was last updated 4 years ago. Non-monetized good apps are few and far between. One of which is actually related, by thai-language.com: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/thai-english-dictionary-tl/id7... It's clean, it has whole sentences mixed in the vocabulary, it links phrases parts to their sub-definitions, and lets you paste…

Why does it need updates?

Re: Why I built a dictionary app

#103

Post by wingerlang »

Forricide wrote: post #98

The flashcards feature of this makes it seem super useful for language learning. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to support non-English languages? At least on iOS, the OS has built-in dictionary support for a huge variety of languages. It would be super cool to see something just like this app, but with support for more languages, perhaps through the OS's dictionary (although I'm not sure if iOS makes that available t…

Learning language is much more than drilling vocabulary. And I say this as someone who has built at least 3 different flashcard apps for myself over the years. It is very low down on the list, especially if it is words only.

And no, it doesn't seem like iOS gives us access to its dictionary as developer, unfortunately.

Re: Why I built a dictionary app

#105

Post by boffinAudio »

Excellent project, and like many here I have also considered writing such a dictionary app for my own personal purposes - precisely because nothing out there does what I really want: give me the ability to easily change dictionary databases and work with the entire corpus in productive ways.

For example, I would LOVE to have a dictionary app that allows me to paste in some text, and have it build a custom dictionary that defines every single word in that text - with the option to do it recursively so that the user ends up with a dictionary containing all the definitions for all the words in the dictionary - that is, the user can construct a complete dictionary, rather than a partial one, for any particular text - which, when used with the text, will allow the user to understand any word in the original text, plus any they encounter in the definitions themselves.

This would be immensely useful for technical documentation writers and other authors for whom it is necessary to use uncommon terms.

Anyway, off to parse the rest of the thread to discover everyone elses' dictionary projects before I .. start my own .. ;)

Re: Why I built a dictionary app

#108

Post by mourner »

For me as a non-native speaker who had this problem too, reading on Kindle helped learn the language immensely. You can long-press any word and it will show results from a high-quality dictionary (there are few to choose from, including the Oxford dictionary) — offline, and without putting the book away, which would be a deal breaker for me. It will also remember all the words you look up so that you can practice later.

Re: Why I built a dictionary app

#109

Post by Zopieux »

trumpablehump wrote: post #102
wonderbore wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience, either an app reaches momentum and the author wants to monetize it or it was last updated 4 years ago. Non-monetized good apps are few and far between. One of which is actually related, by thai-language.com: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/thai-english-dictionary-tl/id7... It's clean, it has whole sentences mixed in the vocabulary, it links phrases parts to their sub-definitions, and lets you paste…

Why does it need updates?

To keep track with the ever changing APIs, and look&feel, of the host OS.

I agree that some apps are feature-complete enough to be both useful and left without updates for years, but sadly they will eventually bitrot after some time and be increasingly annoying to use. This is usually the moment the maintainer is nowhere to be found as they lost interest, are busy, or dead.

Re: Why I built a dictionary app

#110

Post by blowski »

dionidium wrote: post #49
prawn wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very stupid, but I check dictionary definitions in an incognito window because I'm horrified of someday people coming across my browser history and thinking "Wow, he didn't know the definition of that ?! What an idiot!" The idea of a dictionary that tracks my searches horrifies me in a silly way. Ha!

I look up words for which I already know the primary definition all the time. Sometimes it's just to confirm that it doesn't mean something subtly different than I remember. Sometimes it's to find alternate/secondary uses. Sometimes it's to confirm spelling. Sometimes it's a jumping off point for synonyms or related words. I wouldn't assume you were totally unfamiliar with a word just because you looked it up.

I’m amazed how often I “know” the primary definition, only to discover I’m wrong when I look in a dictionary. Same with pronunciation of words I’ve only seen written.
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