Tell me more ×
Ask Different is a question and answer site for power users of Apple hardware and software. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 3 down vote favorite

Dictionary seems to be several versions ahead of the Apple documentation (2007). I found a good blog post about it, but everything seems different now. I installed Xcode (including the command line tools) but nothing is where it's supposed to be (e.g. /Developer does not get created and there is no Dictionary\ Development\ Kit). I would like to make a pretty complicated dictionary, so I'd like to make this work instead of convert file types several times.

share|improve this question
I'll close this for the moment to avoid getting a lot of flags. If you want to keep it around as a user level question (where do I place a dictionary file) - we can edit out the Xcode, but my read is this is off topic per the faq. – bmike♦ Jan 27 at 1:38
@LauriRanta your on - thanks for the save. – bmike♦ Jan 27 at 4:34

2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

Xcode no longer comes with Dictionary Development Kit, but you don't even need Xcode to use it.

  • Register a free developer account and download the auxiliary tools package from developer.apple.com/downloads
  • Move the Dictionary Development Kit folder to /Applications/Utilities/DictionaryDevelopmentKit/ (without the spaces), and copy the project_templates folder to ~/Desktop/
  • Open ~/Desktop/project_templates/Makefile and change DICT_BUILD_TOOL_DIR from /DevTools/Utilities/Dictionary Development Kit to /Applications/Utilities/DictionaryDevelopmentKit
  • cd ~/Desktop/project_templates/; make && make install

The dictionary should show up in Dictionary.app after you quit and reopen it. After that, try editing MyDictionary.xml or MyDictionary.css. The dictionary name is the same as CFBundleName in the Info.plist, and the bundle name is DICT_NAME in the Makefile.

If the lookup popovers show results from an older version of the dictionary, try logging out and back in. Terminating com.apple.lookupd or removing ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Dictionary* didn't seem to work.

share|improve this answer
up vote 0 down vote

Everything that used to be in /Developer is now in Xcode.app/Contents/Developer with Xcode normally in /Applications, but you could put it anywhere in reality.

Other than that, you should be able to pop the dictionary file of your choosing either in the System Dictionary like the blog article you linked or only within Xcode for use to expand its dictionary.

share|improve this answer
I'm trying to create a dictionary, not use other people's. I looked at every single folder under /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents and there is no Dictionary\ Developer\ Kit. I know I need a build_dict.sh . – Robert Marshall Murphy Jan 27 at 1:28
Oops - we are a site for users of programs and not so much for developers. Are you familiar with stackoverflow.com? Be sure you read stackoverflow.com/questions/how-to-ask about how to do research and show code level problems as they tend to rapidly close overly vague "teach me how to X" questions. Let me know if you want this migrated there after reading up on things. – bmike♦ Jan 27 at 1:36
My apologies I've never used this before. Please close this off! I'll repost it once I read up more! Sorry. – Robert Marshall Murphy Jan 27 at 1:48
1  
No apologies needed at all. We're here to help - please do come back with more questions that fit our small slice of the stack exchange network. We love answers too if you want to help that way. If you can't self-delete it, just flag that you need help from a moderator (or you can edit it and flag it for migration to Stack Overflow and we can handle it) - if it sits here closed for a while, it hurts nothing. – bmike♦ Jan 27 at 1:53
@RobertMarshallMurphy We're going to keep this - I think one of our users will have a good answer as well as has clarified that this is more of a "what format does Apple use" than a "programming" question. – bmike♦ Jan 27 at 4:37

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.