January 11, 2009 12:27 pm GMT
WP-Plug: DefiThis
by Gary IllyesFirst of all, what the heck is DefiThis?
DefiThis is the first Wordpress plugin we released for public use and is currently in beta state. Why? Because we’d like to hear your feedback.
What does this plugin do? It adds a new feature for your blog’s users: when they highlight a word with their mouse, a bubble will appear over it which if clicked, will open a new window where it’s explained what the particular word means. The best would be if you’d test it yourself! Select with your mouse the following word: Google , and click the bubble (if it appeared).
We think this feature is interesting for those whom blog’s visitors come from all around the World as many times native English authors uses words which is hard to understand for non-native English speakers.
If you have issues, suggestions, if you like or dislike the plugin, please, drop a comment. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
To install the plugin:
- Download a copy and unpack it on your hard drive.
- Upload the unpacked directory as is — unchanged — to your Wordpress installation’s wp-content/plugins directory
- Login to your Wordpress back-end and activate the DefiThis plugin.
- Optionally, change the settings of the plugin on the Settings>>Defithis page to best fit your needs and taste
If you want to see more icons and services added to the plugin, drop a comment with your needs.
Happy blogging 
Updates
- January 12, 2009: Misbehavior detected on Internet Explorer 8 (beta). The selected text triggers both IE’s inbuilt bubble and DefiThis.
SpudR on Sun, 11th Jan 2009 1:47 pm
Great little plugin, but the ability to manually select words to define AND the obvious addition of wikipedia would be great!
methode on Sun, 11th Jan 2009 1:51 pm
Hello SpourD,
What do you mean by manually select words?
We don’t really like Wikipedia since it flooded Google with its less than relevant pages and they popped up even if you searched for “headless chicken”. But, if enough people will suggest Wiki, we’ll put it amongst the selectable features.
Thanks for your comment.
SpudR on Mon, 26th Jan 2009 12:21 am
If I had a post with a technical word in it, I would like to be able to manually highlight it to be defined.
i.e.
“Today I installed PHP and Java”
(manually highlight PHP and Java for defining…
As for wiki – I’d add it as an option, you don’t have to select it if you don’t want to
fernando ramirez on Fri, 30th Jan 2009 3:05 am
hello, i wanted to ask what licence this is made available under, and if you have the unobfuscated js source codes to release to public.
Thanks!
methode on Fri, 30th Jan 2009 6:06 am
The license of the plugin is GPL as this is required by WordPress.
We obfuscated the JS- and minified the CSS code to save the people bandwidth. We were about to host the images included in the package, but someone told us that people would have privacy concerns. If you can wait a day, I will post a link to a human readable format of the JS.
methode on Sat, 31st Jan 2009 10:17 am
Fernando,
As requested and promised, here’s the unminified version of the Javascript code from within the Defithis plugin: http://devoracles.com/defithis-un-minified-javascript-and-code-explanation
Sorry for the waiting
Edward on Mon, 2nd Feb 2009 4:01 pm
Hi my name’s Edward and I run a blog for teaching English to Japanese students in Japan. I like your plug in very much and so do my users.
My users and I would like to use a Japanese look up dictionary which is this one here:
http://www.alc.co.jp/
If I do a test search for the word: “TEST”
The string in the URL looks like this:
http://eow.alc.co.jp/TEST/UTF-8/?ref=sa
Can this be added to the plug in?
Thanks,
Ed.
methode on Mon, 2nd Feb 2009 4:12 pm
Absolutely, however you will have to wait a few days because the developer team which works on the plugin is busy with another website and I don’t think they will interrupt that work for this update.
We may put Wikipedia too in the list, as SpudR requested.
I will try to make the arrangements to release the update by the weekend if that’s OK.
Edward on Mon, 2nd Feb 2009 10:30 pm
That’s fantastic! Thanks, When you get time, no rush.
Have a nice day!
Ed.
Helen Roberts on Tue, 10th Feb 2009 1:48 pm
I just added the DefiThis plug in to my website and would like to suggest that you add the following web dictionary to your choices:
http://www.onelook.com/
I provides everything — and more — than the three that you current offer as options, with the bonus that the advertising is not intrusive. Please check it out and see what you might do.
methode on Tue, 10th Feb 2009 5:08 pm
Hi Helen,
Are you related to this dictionary service? It would be cool. I’ll add this to the queue though. I can’t state anything regarding when it will be added.
SpudR on Tue, 3rd Mar 2009 11:38 pm
Has development for this plugin stopped?
methode on Wed, 4th Mar 2009 6:05 am
No, we just didn’t have the time to update the code yet.
SpudR on Fri, 6th Mar 2009 11:11 pm
leepton on Sat, 26th Sep 2009 11:40 pm
i’d like propose you to add a buisess word defiition example
Short Covering and the ballon will show also by tooltip: What Does Short Covering Mean?
Purchasing securities in order to close an open short position. This is done by buying the same type and number of securities that were sold short. Most often, traders cover their shorts whenever they speculate that the securities will rise. In order to make a profit, a short seller must cover the shorts by purchasing the security below the original selling price.
i got this from http://www.investopedia.com
my reagrds