Open Apple Dictionary From vim
Open Apple Dictionary From vim
Apparently you can open Apple’s dictionary from the command line. For example, we can look up the word “absentia” in the dictionary.
> open dict://absentia
When writing text, documentation or other non-code paragraphs, I sometimes find
that I need to look up a synonym since I occasionally tend to reuse the same
words over and over. I don’t want to remember to open my dictionary when I am
writing and I do not need to look up a word in every session, so let us define a
script-local function (denoted by the function’s s:
prefix):
if has('mac') || has('macunix')
" Open Dictionary.app on mac systems
function! OpenDictionary(...)
let word = ''
if a:1 !=# ''
let word = a:1
else
let word = shellescape(expand('<cword>'))
endif
call system("open dict://" . word)
endfunction
endif
The function is only available on Mac systems thanks to the outermost gurads.
The function checks if it got a single argument. If not, it defaults to getting
the current word under the cursor (by expanding ‘
if has('mac') || has('macunix')
command! -nargs=? Dict call OpenDictionary(<q-args>)
endif
Executing :Dict absentia
will now open the dictionary on the entry of
“absentia”. Without an argument, it will open the dictionary with the current
word under the cursor.