nvhair (nühair)

Popup Mandarin dictionary for Linux

This couple of scripts use dunst and xsel and the CEDICT text based dictionary to provide definitions of mandarin chinese characters. Currently at a very basic but functional state. Inspired by the Zhongwen browser extension. Supports simplified chinese, although it can be set to recognize traditional characters with a little bit of tweaking.

This program has the advantage of working outside and inside of the browser, so for example on a pdf reader or anywhere where mandarin text can be selected with the mouse.

Requirements

• dunst notifications daemon with dunstify.

  Other daemons might work, you could also run dunst and nvhair in parallel with some dbus-run-session magic, probably.

• xsel, the tool used by the script to get your text selection.

• GNU awk

• some linux literacy

Installation

• Clone the repo and place the files nvhair and nv.awk somewhere in your $PATH, I use $HOME/.local/bin. (use chmod +x to grant them execution permission)
• Download the CEDICT free dictionary (CEDICT) in .gz format.
• Unpack it and tweak it with it with:

cat cedict_1_0_ts_utf-8_mdbg.txt.gz | gzip -d | dos2unix | cat - <(echo)  > cedict_1_0_ts_utf-8_mdbg.txt

• Dictionary needs sorting, use the sorting script sortit.py to generate a sorted version:

  python sortit.py #generates  file dicout
  
  mkdir -p "$HOME/.local/share/cedict"
  mv dicout "$HOME/.local/share/cedict/cedict.txt"  # put the dictionary where nvhair expects it
  

• done, now just set up a keyboard shortcut to run the command nvhair after you select some chinese text

Usage

• Select some chinese text with your mouse
• Run the program nvhair (most practically by a keyboard shortcut)
• That's it, a popup notification should appear with different defintions lifted from the CEDICT dictionary.