Re: How to make Emacs popular again.

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2020 01:25:17 +0300
> From: Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>
> Cc: rms@gnu.org, jamtlu@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> * Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> [2020-09-27 10:54]:
> > > Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2020 10:32:21 +0300
> > > From: Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>
> > > Cc: eliz@gnu.org, jamtlu@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> > > 
> > > Emacs should in general have an option under Tools -> Look up word
> > 
> > We have that under Help->Search Documentation.
> 
> Search documentation is separate feature from looking up any technical
> or special word in glossary

No, I think it's quite related, especially since the Glossary is part
of the manual.

> and third feature would be looking up any word in dictionaries.

That's an almost unrelated feature.  Useful, but unrelated to the
current discussion.  Let's not mix them.

> I am personall using dictionary servers straight from Emacs, {s-d} on
> any word gives me helm completion, list of dictionaries I can choose
> from, to find a definition, it runs these functions below, and {s-w}
> runs (wordnut-search) from wordnut package, so definitions are
> quickly there accessible. If we speak of text editing, we edit words,
> words are defined and Emacs should have reference to dictionary for
> each word, and fall back to online searches.

I'd rather have Emacs implement the client side of the DICT protocol,
it shouldn't be too hard.  Especially people already tried (there are
packages floating out there).  Depending on an external tool makes the
solution less portable.