bing-dict.el

A minimalists' Emacs extension to search http://www.bing.com/dict. Support English to Chinese and Chinese to English.

极简主义者的 Emacs 必应词典。 支持中英互译。

Setup

You can install via melpa.

If installing this package manually:

(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/bing-dict.el")
(require 'bing-dict)

Usage

You can call bing-dict-brief to get the explanations of you query. The results will be shown in the echo area.

Here is the screenshot:

You should probably give this command a key binding:

(global-set-key (kbd "C-c d") 'bing-dict-brief)

Customization

You can set the value of bing-dict-add-to-kill-ring to control whether the result should be added to the kill-ring or not. By default, the value is nil. If set to t, the result will be added to the kill-ring and you are able to use C-y to paste the result.

Also, sometimes synonyms and antonyms could be useful, set bing-dict-show-thesaurus to control whether you need them or not. The value of bing-dict-show-thesaurus could be either nil, 'synonym, 'antonym or 'both. The default value is nil. Setting the vaule to 'synonym or 'antonym only shows the corresponding part, and setting it to 'both will show both synonyms and antonyms at the same time:

(setq bing-dict-show-thesaurus 'both)

The variable bing-dict-pronunciation-style controls how the pronunciation is shown. By default, its value is 'us and the pronunciation is shown using "American Phonetic Alphabet" (APA). You can choose the "International Phonetic Alphabet" (IPA) by setting its value to 'uk (In fact, any value other than 'us will work):

(setq bing-dict-pronunciation-style 'uk)

You can also build your own vocabulary by saving all your queries and their results into bing-dict-vocabulary-save (which points to ~/.emacs.d/var/bing-dict/vocabulary.org by default):

(setq bing-dict-vocabulary-save t)

By setting bing-dict-vocabulary-file, you can change where all the queries and results are saved:

(setq bing-dict-vocabulary-file "/path/to/your_vocabulary.org")

screenshot:

Use the following configuration if you want bing-dict.el to cache all your queries and results:

(setq bing-dict-cache-auto-save t)

You can customize the value of bing-dict-cache-file to change the location where bing-dict.el stores the cache. The default value is ~/.emacs.d/var/bing-dict/bing-dict-save.el.

Command Line Usage

Add the following script to your PATH to look up a word from the command line:

#!/path/to/emacs --script
(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/bing-dict.el")
(require 'bing-dict)
(defun main ()
  (bing-dict-brief (format "%s" command-line-args-left) t))
(main)

For Features Requests

This extension aims for a quick search for a word. Currently this extension only parses several sections in the search results and show a brief message in the echo area using bing-dict-brief. I don't plan to write parsers for all the sections of the search results. At least, for bing-dict-brief, it should not present too much information which may not fit into the echo area.

If you want to view the complete results of your query word, there are two options: using the external browser to do this or contributing to the repo by adding more parsers. For the first option, the following code could partly achieve the goal:

(browse-url
 (concat "http://www.bing.com/dict/search?mkt=zh-cn&q="
       (url-hexify-string
        (read-string "Query: "))))

If you prefer to browse inside Emacs, use eww instead:

(eww-browse-url
  (concat "http://www.bing.com/dict/search?mkt=zh-cn&q="
          (url-hexify-string
           (read-string "Query: "))))

Or open the web page in other window:

(switch-to-buffer-other-window
 (eww-browse-url
  (concat "http://www.bing.com/dict/search?mkt=zh-cn&q="
          (url-hexify-string
           (read-string "Query: ")))))

For the second option, you're welcome to contribute to this extension by adding more parsers. For example, you could try to add a parser for the "Sample Sentences" section. If you're able to write parsers to parse many sections, which turns out to be too large to be shown in the echo area, you should probably define a new command, maybe called bing-dict-complete. I'm totally OK with new commands that could present more results, as long as bing-dict-brief remains its original simplicity.