Re: A proposal for a friendlier Emacs

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2020 08:45:46 +0300
> From: Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, alexander.adolf@condition-alpha.com,
>   rms@gnu.org, drew.adams@oracle.com
> 
> > Btw, we have a similar functionality built in: try "M-s M-w" after
> > marking a word or a phrase.
> 
> I did not know, that is good to search words online, it does not
> really define words, it searches for whatever is marked, that is
> good. It is not a dictionary though.

First, what it does by default has an advantage of being able to look
up phrases, not just words.

And second, you can customize eww-search-prefix in a way that will
search dictionaries: for example Google does that when the query
begins with "define:"

> I prefer if Emacs would be using GNU Dico software, as part of GNU system:
> https://puszcza.gnu.org.ua/software/dico/ as a built in feature, so if
> dico exists, it could use it, if it does not exist, it could then
> provide www fallback.
> 
> If local dictionary server serves, dico would be using local
> dictionaries, if not, it would be using online dictionaries.
> 
> There are hard coded settings for Google Chrome browser in {M-x 
> customize-group RET browse-url RET}
> in Emacs, so why not have hard coded settings for dictionary features.

That is a completely separate issue: you are talking about setting up
the dictionary _servers_ to which the client will talk, something that
IMO should be entirely up to the Emacs users.