As a super fan of wordweb in windows, I always looking for a such dictionary in linux platform. Artha -definitely the most prominent alternatives of wordweb in linux. Artha is a free cross-platform English thesaurus that works completely off-line and is based on WordNet. It is a “handy thesaurus that focuses on high usability, without trading off simplicity and ease of use. It has the following distinct features that increases its usability:
- WordNet – Artha harnesses the extensive & in-depth database provided by WordNet. Unlike other dictionaries which goes on-line for every single lookup, Artha works completely off-line; thanks to WordNet for its excellent and cognitive database.
- Hot key Lookup – When you press a pre-set hot key, after selecting some text on any window, Artha pops up with the selection’s definitions looked-up.
- Regular Expressions Search – When a word is vaguely known, i.e. the user is unclear of its spelling or when it’s start/end alone is known or when the number of characters is known; one can speed up/narrow the search using regular expression to locate the particular word they have in mind.
- Notifications – Artha can show passive notifications (balloon tips) instead of the application’s window popping up, so that you can continue what you were doing, uninterrupted. (like reading, writing, etc.)
- Suggestions – When a misspelled word is queried for, Artha gives you its near-match suggestions.
- Relative to Sense Mapping – Relative words like synonyms, antonyms, etc. that are displayed are many. You might not know to which sense/definition of a word does a relative map to. In Artha, when you select a relative, its corresponding definition is scrolled to and highlighted for easy comprehension.”
One of the most important feature of Artha that makes it handy is the hotkey lookup feature. When you are reading an article in the browser, or composing a mail on a mail client, or working on the Terminal, be it any window, when you select some text in it and press the pre-set hot key combination assigned to Artha, it will pop-up with the definitions of the selection made of that window.
Installation
- Artha is available in the Ubuntu / Debian Repository. However the latest version has been compiled to .deb and can be downloaded from artha.sourceforge.net
- Command line installation:
$ sudo apt-get install artha
Configuration and Start Artha:
After installation, the rest is easy. You can start artha from Applications > Accessories > Artha. When you start Artha Its minimizes in the Notification area of your desktop. From the application window you can easily set you keyboard short cut by clicking on the settings. The default keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+Alt-W. By default the Notification feature is disabled but can be easily enabled by right clicking on the notification area icon.
Add Artha to Ubuntu startup list (After login):
- Go to System > Preferences > Startup Applications:
- Click Add button and fill as bellow image.
- Yahoo! Your best offline dictionary in linux will start automatically after your login.
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I tried installing Wordweb in my Ubuntu 11.04, it worked well. It runs over WINE. 1.3.xx