(old request) Sticking with Safari for dictionary integration
 

I like a lot of things about OW. I paid for it, and I will continue to review the releases as they come out. But I'm going to have to stick with Safari; the dictionary integration is too convenient to move away from.

(Do you know that the edit control used to type entries to this forum under OW is integrated with the dictionary?)

Sincerely,

Jack P. Starrantino

What is it, exactly, you're asking for?

1. Select a word or phrase with the left mouse button.
2. Use the right mouse button to drop down a menu of options to apply to the selection -- search in spotlight or google, look up in dictionary, copy.

Clean and easy when I've made a misspelling or when I'm reading something and I come across a word I don't know.

It's a deal maker for me.

Any hope?

BTW, I just pulled down Plan. You guys are really getting it done. Congratulations.

Sincerely,

Jack P. Starrantino

I agree that our options for text selection should be more text centric.

However, are you aware that you can hit Command-Control-D to bring up the dictionary on the word under the mouse?

No I wasn't, and I thank you for the heads-up.

And I agree that that chord will get you the same functionality, albeit by a different UI.

But (speaking very humbly) why do I have to have a different UI? Some of the Very Fine Programs that integrate to the system dictionary program using "Apple's method" are: OmniOutliner Professional, OmniGraffle Professional, and OmniPlan.

Why is OmniWeb doing it differently? Do you think this is a good idea going forward?

Sincerely,

Jack P. Starrantino

Isn't command+control+d Apple's method?

The difference is that OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, and OmniPlan get the behavior of which you speak for free because they use the Cocoa text object. Not all views get that behaviour--and you wouldn't want the exact same behavior because there are lots of other things people want to be able to do in a web browser, like go back in history.

Right now we are busy with reimplementing our core features after having replaced much of our underlying engine with WebKit. And fixing critical bugs like crashing when uploading files or closing windows on certain websites. Once we get past those issues--we can look at fixing these less critical issues.

I understand. I mostly write for a living myself, and I appreciate the opportunity to put in my $0.2 worth.

Sincerely,

Jack P. Starrantino

The Command-Control-D shortcut to look up the word that's under your mouse cursor is very convenient -- much more so than having to open the definition in another program. You don't even have to select the word first. It's not an OmniWeb-specific thing; it's a feature of Tiger, and it works in many different programs.

If you keep holding Command and Control after invoking it, you can also move your cursor around and the definition will appear under any word you point at. It's even smart enough to look up phrase definitions when it notices two words in a row that have a definition entry as a phrase (for example, point at the word "Command" above, and you'll get a definition for "Command and Control").

You can also switch between dictionary and thesaurus, and there's a button to take you to the full Dictionary program if you are so inclined.

In short, this feature rocks, and I'll take it any day over having to first select a word, right-click it, choose a command, wait for another program to launch, then view the definition in another window.