Better Dictionaries

Better search and live previews for built-in macOS dictionaries.

Features

• IPA (phonetic) pronunciations: Press ⌘↩ to hear the pronunciation.

• In-Alfred live previews with colors that automatically adapt to Alfred's theme:

• Reverse search:

• More relevant search results:
  left: macOS/Alfred built-in search, right: BetterDict

• If one word has multiple, unrelated meanings with different origin, they are showed as diffrent entries (in the above example, see "arm" has two entries at the top)

• Import any compatible dictionary

Setup

After importing the workflow, first type .setup-better-dictionaries into Alfred and follow the instructions for granting permissions.

Importing a Dictionary

After setup, type .dict-import into Alfred. Select the dictionary you want to import.

Dictionary-specific Keywords and Hotkeys

After a dictionary is imported, a script filter and a hotkey trigger is automatically created into the workflow editor.

• Freshly-installed workflow without any imported dictionaries:

• Two hotkeys and keyword triggers each automatically added after importing two dictionaries. They come pre-labeled with dictionary names:

• This allows you to assign hotkeys and keywords for specific dictionaries. For example, below you can see how I have manually assigned keywords thesaurus and defn to the thesaurus and dictionary respectively. In addition, I can trigger the dictionary search using ⌃⌥⌘D.
  

Word Lookup

You can use the hotkeys/keywords created above for directly searhcing specific dictionaries. That's the recommended way for dictionaries that you use frequently.

For the infrequently used dictionaries for which you haven't assigned any hotkeys/keywords, follow this:

1. Type lookup into Alfred. You'll see a list of all dictionaries imported into BetterDict.
2. Select the dictionary to search, and type the search query.

Notes and Warnings

• Importing a dictionary could take as much as 30 minutes on old machines or if there's significant CPU activity from other apps.

• After each mac restart, for the first time when you run the workflow, expect a comparatively slower search. Subsequent searches should be instant.

• This workflow takes a LOT of space on disk. Take a look at the comparison:

  # Built-in dictionaries
  Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus:  7 MB
  New Oxford American Dictionary:     36 MB
  
  # After importing into BetterDict
  Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus: 101 MB (html files)
  New Oxford American Dictionary:     442 MB (html files)
  Combined search index of these two: 730 MB (apart from html)

Known Issues

• The workflow doeesn't work if the theme is Alfred Classic.
  If you must use that theme, duplicate that theme and use the duplicated one.