Support for dictionary contacts

While exchanging instant-messages, it is frequent to have to look up for a word definition or translation. However, this research is done routinely via a web page or another separated application.

For this reason, we propose to create a dictionary plugin for SIP Communicator. The solution is to create contacts able to give the definition or the translation of a given word.

Attach:dict_exemple.png Δ

We retain the DICT protocol, which use a TCP transaction based query/response protocol that allows a client to access dictionary definitions from a set of natural language dictionary databases. The client part of this protocol is very simple. You can give a try using a telnet connection and the following commands :

  • Connection to a DICT server: 
lucas@chansonet:~$ telnet
telnet> open dict.org 2628
Trying 72.36.131.187...
Connected to dict.org.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 aspen.miranda.org dictd 1.9.15/rf on Linux 2.6.18-5-k7 <auth.mime>
<8815656.20467.1194296032@aspen.miranda.org>
  • Query a word definition: 
DEFINE * communicator
150 2 definitions retrieved
151 "Communicator" gcide "The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48"
Communicator \Com*mu"ni*ca`tor\, n. [L.]
   One who communicates. --Boyle.
   [1913 Webster]
.
151 "communicator" wn "WordNet (r) 2.0"
communicator
     n : a person who communicates with others
.
250 ok [d/m/c = 2/0/172; 0.000r 0.000u 0.000s]-
  • Query a word translation: 
DEFINE fra-eng bonjour
150 1 definitions retrieved
151 "bonjour" fra-eng "French-English Freedict dictionary"
bonjour [bő&#658;ur]
     goodmorning
     goodday
.
250 ok [d/m/c = 1/0/14; 0.000r 0.000u 0.000s]
  • List of currently accessible databases: 
SHOW DATABASES
110 77 databases present
gcide "The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48"
wn "WordNet (r) 2.0"
moby-thes "Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0"
elements "Elements database 20001107"
vera "Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002)"
jargon "Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001)"
foldoc "The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)"

...

--exit-- "Stop default search here."
afr-deu "Africaan-German Freedict dictionary"
afr-eng "Africaan-English Freedict Dictionary"

...

english "English Monolingual Dictionaries"
trans "Translating Dictionaries"
all "All Dictionaries (English-Only and Translating)"
web1913 "Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)"
world95 "The CIA World Factbook (1995)"
.
250 o

References:
The Dictionary Server Protocol is described in detail in RFC 2229
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2229

The DICT Development Group official web page
http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict

Other SIP Communicator student projects
http://www.sip-communicator.org/students

The official SIP Communicator website
http://www.sip-communicator.org

The SIP Communicator developer website on Java.net
http://sip-communicator.dev.java.net/index-jn.html