new dictionary in gnome-utils

[Emmanuele Bassi <ebassi gmail com>]

[Cc:ing gnome-doc and gnome-i18n since the new package will require new
translations and documentation]

Hi all.

After two months of fast and steady development inside the
"new-dictionary" branch of gnome-utils, the new GNOME Dictionary code
has finally landed into gnome-utils HEAD branch.  It's still under
development, but the code is already pretty much stable for daily use[*]
and it's unlikely for it to have major changes at this point.

* What's new?

The old Dictionary code had become a collection of hacks and rotting
code; this is a complete rewrite of that code, with a twist for
enhancements and better maintainability.  The new Dictionary is based on
a object oriented library, called libgdict, which supports multiple
dictionary sources, using multiple transport methods (albeit, at the
moment, only a RFC2229 client is provided; I plan to add more in the
next GNOME release cycle).

* New features

The new features of this release are the new print format and the new
applet, using an aligned window (like Seth's gnome-blog applet) for the
definitions.  You can now search the text using a bottom pane,
a-la-Evince, instead of a find dialog.  You can add multiple dictionary
sources: if you have a preferred dictionary server (or your preferred
database) you can create a new source and switch between the other
sources you have.  You can save a definition into a text file.  The new
Dictionary code supports gnome-doc-utils, making localization and
documentation easier.

I know everyone like shiny screenshots, so:

http://log.emmanuelebassi.net/2005/11/29/dictionary-applet8/
http://log.emmanuelebassi.net/2005/12/07/maintainership/
http://log.emmanuelebassi.net/2005/12/09/dictionary-applet9/
http://log.emmanuelebassi.net/2005/12/13/dictionary-applet10/
http://log.emmanuelebassi.net/2005/12/15/dictionary-applet11-and-final/

* Known regressions

There a few known regressions, some of which are going to be addressed
before the UI/code freeze, some are going to be fixed in the next
release cycles and some are going to be removed for good:

  + Speller widget [still under consideration]
  + The entry doesn't do word completion [fixable before 2.14]
  + Web search [removed(**)]
  + Syntax highlighting [fixable before 2.14 (***)]

The important issue that this release addresses is the re-factoring of
the code, which was something short of unmaintainable; while these
regressions might seem important, I'd like to point out that two months
ago this code didn't even exist.

I'd like to thank gnome-util's maintainer Vincent Noel, for the great
support and trust he gave me while writing this code.

+++

[*] During the composition of this email, for instance. ;-)

[**] I've removed the web search because it was basically useless:
firing up a web browser for searching words isn't really ideal,
especially when all major browsers under Linux offer a link to
Dictionary.com, and when we have other applications doing it - like the
deskbar applet;  it was handy for users behind a proxy, though: for
them, I'm going to add a HTTP based transport in the next release cycle,
using Dictionary.com web APIs.

[***] Even though it's not for certain, as the syntax is not standard,
and dictionary entries might break it without notice.  Also, when using
non-English dictionary sources it might lead to messy output (and I
don't want parse rules for every written language to be included inside
the code base).  I'm still thinking about this.

Ciao,
 Emmanuele.

-- 
Emmanuele Bassi - <ebassi gmail com>
Log: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net