Re: [ELPA] New package: dict

[Eshel Yaron]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Eshel Yaron <me@eshelyaron.com>
>> Cc: philipk@posteo.net,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
>> Date: Mon, 15 May 2023 21:50:57 +0300
>> 
>> >> In short, we need two things: a way to obtain a word's definition and a
>> >> way to obtain dictionary matches given some input (for completion).
>> >> dictionary.el does these things already, but in way that's too coupled
>> >> with its user interface to admit reuse for my purposes.  So the question
>> >> is whether to add the needed stuff from Dict to dictionary.el and accept
>> >> some code duplication, or try to refactor the parts of dictionary.el
>> >> that communicate with the dictionary server to provide a cleaner API.
>> >
>> > I'd say try the latter if it's reasonably easy; otherwise try the
>> > former.
>> 
>> Alright, I'm attaching a patch that extends dictionary.el with new user
>> options that modify the behavior of `dictionary-search`.
>
> Looks reasonable, thanks.
>

Thank you for the review.

>> With this patch, `dictionary-search` behaves like my
>> `dict-describe-word` after applying the following customizations:
>> 
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>> (setq dictionary-read-dictionary-function
>>       #'dictionary-completing-read-dictionary)
>> (setq dictionary-read-word-function
>>       #'dictionary-completing-read-word)
>> (setq dictionary-display-definition-function
>>       #'dictionary-display-definition-in-help-buffer)
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
> This looks excessive.  How about adding yet another defcustom, with a
> :set function, which will make all these adjustments for users who
> want the words displayed in *Help*?

I agree setting three options may be a bit much for casual users, but
note that in order to display word definitions in *Help* you only need
to customize the last option, `dictionary-display-definition-function`.
The other two only affect the interactive word and dictionary selection
(mostly adding completion), so I'm not sure it's necessary to couple
them with how the definition ends up being presented.

-- 
Best

Eshel