No good extensions for Safari yet?

[bluetortilla]

I use Safari as my main web browser, but whenever I'm studying or looking up grammar I use Firefox for the great translation extensions. I'd rather just use Safari though, so periodically I check for any new extensions for Safari. Today I found nada again, except for a Google translator that translates the whole darn page. Anybody know what the deal with Safari is? Just not enough users? Is there an extension out there I'm missing?

[renzhe]

Although other browsers have started supporting extensions, and many popular extensions are now available for other browsers, extensions are still Firefox's territory. That's the killer feature of Firefox.

It's unlikely that most of these will ever be ported to Safari.

[miknight]

I was similarly frustrated with the lack of Chinese pop-up translators for Safari so I wrote my own one called Frill (it's free & open source).

 

I hope others find it helpful! Would love to hear any feedback.

[FadedStardust]

Why don't you just use the built-in OS X dictionary.app? It's pop up functionality works everywhere, web browser or not. If you're using Mavericks (maybe Mountain Lion, but I don't know) it has the Oxford Chinese-English Dictionary and the Hanyu Guifan Cidian installed by default and you can install XiaoCiDian for CC-CEDICT access for free. Works great in Safari, Word, Pages, QQ and anywhere else you have highlightable text. And it's on your Mac already, no need to install anything extra, if you don't want to!

[bluetortilla]

Yes, I have discovered that about Dictionary.app, and it is a good feature. But it's not exactly 'pop up,' it's a three-step operation with waiting involved.

 

Trivial complaint I know. In the future someone will be complaining that their babelfish brain chip implant isn't as great as they thought it would be! 

[FadedStardust]

I don't know how to do it with a mouse, but with a trackpad all you need to do is three finger tap on a word and the definition does pop up... but maybe that's not common knowledge?

 

Example from this very post:

 

[OneEye]

Unfortunately, it doesn't work with traditional characters. Unless I'm missing something?

[bluetortilla]

FRILL

I'll try the three-finger tap thing FSD. Thanks.

 

Frill is putting automated FRILL typos in my posts on Chinese-Forums MK. Whaddup with that? Otherwise, it's installed and enabled but not working (meaning I presume I just haven't figured it out yet). I'll let you know.

[bluetortilla]

See- that top FRILL? I did not write that. This post should have an extra FRILL as well. Note- I've only typed it twice. 

 

Somehow the extension is messing with the system or with aText, a Mac shorthand writing utility.

FRILL

[jmido8]

can frill be used on the iphone 5s? or are there any other programs like it for the iphone?

[bluetortilla]

FSD, the three finger tap works great, thanks!

[miknight]

 

Somehow the extension is messing with the system or with aText, a Mac shorthand writing utility.

 

Oh no! That must be very annoying. It's quite possible that two apps are interfering with each other. I will try and give aText a go and see if I can figure out what's going on.

[bluetortilla]

Actually, Roddy just informed me that it's probably something to with the forum. Maybe you should contact him. I've turned Frill off for now. Thanks.

[miknight]

 

Thanks again for the bug report! I've updated the extension so that it won't cause problems with rich text editors that use iframes in interesting ways (such as the one on this forum ) Safari should auto-update the extension to version 1.0.1, otherwise you can re-install it.

 

 

 

[El Macho]

I noticed today that there is an open-source popup kanji dictionary for Safari. Seems like it would be trivial for someone who knows javascript to turn this into a popup hanzi dictionary, if they wanted to roll their own.