mid - MID Mini-Howto

Mini-Howto

1. Understanding dictionary types

Dictionaries can be chosen by their types, so it is important to know what dictionary types are available:

language to language dictionary types: 'English-French' ...,
monolingual dictionaries, references, thesauri : 'French' ...,
multi-language to one language dictionaries, type name is 'Babylon',
Wikipedia and other online encyclopedias : 'Encyclopedia',
'Acronyms and Abbreviations' type,
miscellaneous helpers, such as Wortschatz, Google Images are grouped under the type name of 'Auxiliary' .

2. Understanding dictionary sets

Assume that you want to translate words from French to Czech and your English is quite good. Then

choose your preferred French to Czech dictionaries ('French-Czech' type),
choose some French monolingual dictionaries ('French-French'),
choose your favorite French to English dictionaries ('French-English' type),
choose Babylon-English ('Babylon' type),
and choose Google Images ('Auxiliary type').

What you have just made is a 'dictionary set'. Refine your dictionary set, reorder your tabs by drag-and-drop and then save this dictionary set to a file for later usage.

Assume you've saved your dictionary set as French-Czech.ddd . You can then move it form one PC to another or send it to another user having MID installed. Opening French-Czech.ddd from the File/Restore dictionary set from... menu would result in opening the same dictionaries in the same tabs. (Using filename extensions is optional. If you decide to use one you can choose any one.)

3. How to search

There are four ways you can start a search:

Type the word you want to search for into the input field at the upper right corner of the window, and press Enter. See screenshots.

The two other ways below are only relevant when the browser pane is open. See screenshots.

Simply double click on a word you want to search for.
Select a word or an expression (or only a part of a word) you want to search for and then right click. Then select 'Lookup' from the popup menu. Again, see screenshots.

Searching from the context menu of Firefox:

While browsing in Firefox, select what you want to search for and then right click. Then choose 'MID' from the popup menu. Do not close the window of mid because the next search will call it foreground, which is much quicker then restarting.

If you want to repeat a search for a word, just double click on it in the word history list.

4. Adding new dictionaries

Mid can use Firefox's searchplugins. By adding a new searchplugin to Firefox, it will then appear in mid, too. These searchplugins (dictionaries) can be found under the last, '+' tab of the Dictionary Chooser dialog.

The Mycroft project offers countless dictionary searchplugins, and you can create your own ones by using the excellent Add to Search Bar extension.

5. How to speed up mid - Adblock Plus and Stylish

If you find mid slow, the easiest way of accelerating it is by installing Adblock Plus Firefox extension. Another extension, Adblock Plus: Element Hiding Helper can help you, too. These excellent Firefox extensions 'filter' out unwanted content from websites, gaining considerable speed, and fortunately both work well within mid.

Attention! Do NOT search these extensions while in mid. Filtering is to be set up in Firefox. Filters just work silently in the background in mid.

I suggest that you start with Adblock Plus, and install Element Hiding Helper later, when you'll already have some knowledge about how Adblock Plus works. Here is a little help for element hiding:

open the dictionary you want to speed up in Firefox,
search for a word,
remove the unwanted elements from the result page.

The result page then should look the same in mid as in Firefox.

Another great tool is Stylish. It can do wonders. It is easy to use and works in mid, too, but as with Adblock Plus, filtering is to be set up in Firefox.