I love how whenever I think "I wish I could make firefox do this", somebody has already done it. In this case, I was thinking how handy it would be to always have another window open to always have a dictionary handy. Instead of having to switch tabs, it would be open, making it much faster to look up a word.

Somebody made such an extention for Firefox, and it works wonderfully. I took a screenshot so you can have an idea of how it would work (click to enlarge):



You can split the browser as many times as you like. As you can see, I have a couple dictionaries open on the right as I'm reading the news. (And I learned how to say cardboard box in Japanese!)

For anyone reading a lot of Japanese articles, this is a must. I know a lot of you are probably thinking "why not just use Rikaichan?". Personally, Rikaichan is way too much of a crutch. Copying and pasting might not be that much more work, but it's enough to keep me actively looking up a word, rather than lazily looking at the English defintion and foretting what it means 5 seconds later. (Rikaichan only supports the EDICT dicationary, anyway)

edit-- considering you're all too damned lazy to write your own plugin, I guess I'll supply the link for the one already made:

Split Browser
Split Browser (日本語版）

I rarely use Firefox and stick to Chrome since it's much faster, but... maybe you should have supplied a link to the addon ^^

EDIT: Is this the one you're using?
https://addons.mozilla.jp/firefox/details/4287

Link? I figured users were were smart enough to simply write their own plugin.


(uh.. yeah. that's it)

By the way, have you tried out the new Firefox beta? I like Chrome too, but it makes Google's browser look like a two-legged turtle.

samesong, what dictionary do you use in the upper right part of the screen?
this is a great add on, especialy on a 26" screen.
this forum only take up half the screen :/

ALC

http://www.alc.co.jp/

Thanks for the link, this looks pretty nice. I also stopped using Rikaichan for pretty much the exact reason you said (and wanting to go J-J), so looking up words and switching between tabs/windows got frustating.

heh, i just use a separate monitor for that ^_^

yeh dual monitors isn't a bad investment... I don't think I could ever go back to just one

Great find, thank you. I'll raise you an add on not so useful for Japanese (yet), but good for other languages.

It's a diglot weave generator. It changes some of the words in a webpage into another language, a bit like the Kanjilish add on. However there is no Japanese available yet, only Spanish, French and Chinese, but more languages are coming.

Language Bob:

http://languagebob.com/Pages/Default.aspx

Hashiriya Wrote:yeh dual monitors isn't a bad investment... I don't think I could ever go back to just one

I agree, I'm gonna miss my second monitor when I go overseas, they increase your productivity like nothing else.

I keep EBWin open all the time with my favourite dictionaries in there. These days I've just been using the J-J dictionaries 大辞泉、大辞林、広辞苑. I think 広辞苑 (こうじえん) is the best J-J dictionary, but I often switch between the three.

samesong Wrote:In this case, I was thinking how handy it would be to always have another window open to always have a dictionary handy. Instead of having to switch tabs, it would be open, making it much faster to look up a word.

um, File->New Window?

if you can find an extension to split a single page in half so that it's rendered over 2 columns, with content continuing from the bottom left to top right, then I'll be excited

[ファブリス]

Someone created a bookmarklet for doing something similar in Google Chrome.

Since this is aJavascript bokmarklet, I assume it will also work in Opera and Safari.

The extension All-in-one-sidebar does something rather similar, but differently.
It basically gives you an easily accessible sidebar on firefox which gives you quick access to everything from bookmarks, history, extensions, and more. You can even stick buttons on it for loading things like adblock and rikaichan. It also lets you load a webpage into the sidebar, so you could have your dictionary in the sidebar while you are reading content in the main window. One cool thing about it is that it remembers the site you had loaded into the sidebar, so as long as you only use one site in it, it can be there ready to go everytime you open your browser.

samesong Wrote:Link? I figured users were were smart enough to simply write their own plugin.

The number of Firefox users -- here or anywhere else -- who know anything at all about writing plugins is probably pretty small. A higher proportion than for other browsers, surely, but still small.

Also, even if we were smart/non-lazy enough to do it ourselves (I'm smart enough, but not non-lazy enough), it's always a good idea to use someone else's solution to a problem instead of reinventing the wheel.

- Kef

Nonsense. If Japanese learners aren't dedicated enough to take a few months out of their year, learn a programming language, and write a plugin, then they shouldn't be studying Japanese.

Reinventing the wheel builds character!

[ファブリス]

Hey wait a minute, the sidebar thing is actually a built in option in Firefox isn't it ?

I always forget it is there! Ah... here it is :

Simply copy/paste this into the URL bar of Firefox :

Code:

javascript:window.sidebar.addPanel('My Lovely SideBar Bookmark', 'http://www.alc.co.jp','');

Once you press enter it should ask where you want to save the bookmark. If it doesn't and execute directly, then drag and drop it to your bookmarks etc. It's a short snippet of Javascript code, which is usually called a bookmarklet.

It will execute anytime you select that bookmark, it is best if you place it on the visible bookmark toolbar.

Of course you can change the title and URL to your liking, and save many different versions.

Woo, very nice!

Maybe I should demand more unreasonable things from now on.