Great Moments by Design - OS X and Dictionary.app
One application that is quickly becoming a favorite for me is OS X’s Dictionary. It’s a simple utility, but since I started writing more frequently, this tool has become indispensable.
There are a couple of features that made this application the focus of today’s edition of Great Moments by Design.
System wide integration
Perhaps the design features of this app can more appropriately be attributed to the operating system. The overall design of OS X is superb, and with the launch of Tiger (10.4), the dictionary was [re]introduced.
The following integration features make this utility shine:
- Contextual right click menus - right click on a word in any app and you will see the following menu option: “Look Up in Dictionary”. Choosing this option brings the dictionary app to the forefront with the definition displayed.
- Spotlight searches - you can invoke spotlight, type out a word and a search result of type Definition will be near the top of the list (the key here is that you need to type out the full word).
- Ctr+Command+D - hover the mouse over any word in any application and hit this system wide shortcut. Rather than opening the dictionary app itself, you see a pop up window in the application itself as shown below. This is really handy when you don’t want an interruption in your workflow.
These are all great touches to the overall feel of the operating system. I’ll add one caveat though - it would be great to be able to specify the thesaurus in Dictionary.app from Spotlight. I haven’t found or read of a method to do so. This option is however available using the Ctrl+Command+D option.
Dashboard dictionary widget
In addition, OS X ships with a dictionary dashboard widget. Like the weather widget, I find this to be the perfect usage of the dashboard.
This is a small tool with few features. But due to the useful, user-friendly design, it’s an app that has earned a spot in my dock.
