Customizations in WebKit and LiveDictionary
 

[quote]OmniWeb has been based on WebKit for a while. The problem is not the lack of WebKit, but rather that Omni makes a special build of it for their browser, with various customizations. Since LiveDictionary relies on certain extremely minor details in WebKit such as the exact location of certain function pointers, it doesn't work with Omni's builds. (This is incidentally why LiveDictionary sometimes ceases to function when Apple releases an OS update.)

In case Omni has dropped their customizations, or the customizations have become minimal enough that LD can work with them, you might try the "Make LiveDictionary Load in Mail and Other Apps" thread to try it out. Of course beware that it might crash if it's not happy with what's in there.[/quote]

Any chance that this may happen? Right now it's the only stopper for me; I absolutely need a foreign language dictionary that will pop up definitions.

Perhaps we could help LiveDictionary support OmniWeb using a more public interface, I don't know which pointers they need to override, but we could probably make those more available...

[QUOTE=Len Case]Perhaps we could help LiveDictionary support OmniWeb using a more public interface, I don't know which pointers they need to override, but we could probably make those more available...[/QUOTE]

I don't profess to really understand how it all works. Mike Ash at LiveDictionary is quoted in my initial posting. With your permission, I will post your reply on the LD forum.

With the improved performance of OW5, I'd really like to be using it everyday. Just need that LiveDictionary for my work. I understand, however, that it may be much more trouble for all involved.

Thanks Len. I've always appreciated the great support from Omni, as well as the wonderful products.

Feel free to copy my response--not knowing exactly what they need I can't promise that we can make it work...

[quote]
Thanks for the info. When you say LD loads fine with 5.5, is that actually loads and works? If so, that's good news.

In any case, one of my longer-term goals is to move away from the horrible C++ mangling that LD currently does. I think that more recent versions of WebKit have enough public interfaces to accomplish what I need, but I haven't been able to investigate it thoroughly yet.

Whenever I get to that point (hopefully sometime this summer, I'm tired of having to fix LD every time Apple updates Safari ), I'll see about contacting Omni if it still doesn't work with their stuff.[/quote]

I hope this reply from Mike at LiveDictionary helps. Looks like a major overhaul for LD, which may bode well for other applications.

Thanks again for your attention to this matter.