Web and local searches

Select a term, open the menu, pick a source: the term is looked up there in your browser, in the language pair you are working in. That is a search entry. The starter menu has the sources that work for any language – IATE, Juremy, Linguee, ProZ, Reverso, BabelNet, AcronymFinder, Microsoft Terminology, Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Google Patents and Google itself – and language packs add the ones that belong to one language.

The language pair

One pair serves the whole program: the searches and QuickTrans both read it, and the tray icon’s tooltip shows it. Set it in any of three places:

• the From and To dropdowns in the QuickTrans tab of the window
• Settings → Language pair…, a small dialog with the same two dropdowns
• Settings → Swap languages, which flips the direction – put it on a key if you work both ways

Change it once and every search follows. An IATE lookup is one menu entry whether you translate Dutch to English or German to French.

A search is one line

Adding a source of your own is one entry in the Library Editor: a label and an address with placeholders where the term and the languages go.

{
  "kind": "search",
  "label": "IATE",
  "url": "https://iate.europa.eu/search/byUrl?term={q}&sl={sl}&tl={tl}"
}

Placeholder	Becomes	For Dutch → English
{q}	the selected text, percent-encoded	warmtewisselaar
{sl} {tl}	two-letter codes	nl en
{sl_upper} {tl_upper}	the same in capitals	NL EN
{sl_full} {tl_full}	the language’s English name	dutch english
{sl3} {tl3}	three-letter codes (ISO 639-2/T)	nld eng
{sl3b} {tl3b}	three-letter codes, bibliographic (ISO 639-2/B)	dut eng

Most sites take the two-letter codes. Reverso and Linguee want names, Juremy wants nld, ProZ wants dut; the starter entries show which is which. The placeholders are the ones SuperLookup used, so a resource list from there transfers unchanged.

The selection is percent-encoded before it is substituted, so terms containing &, ?, + or accented characters work. Any site whose search results have their own URL can be a source, and a key in Keyboard shortcuts makes the lookup one keystroke from anywhere.

Sites with no code in the URL. Some sites bake the pair into an opaque id – Van Dale, for example, names its Dutch–English and English–Dutch dictionaries gne and gen. There is no placeholder for those, so such an entry carries one address per direction instead, under by_pair:

{
  "kind": "search",
  "label": "Van Dale (Dutch/English)",
  "by_pair": {
    "nl-en": "https://zoeken.vandale.nl/?dictionaryId=gne&query={q}",
    "en-nl": "https://zoeken.vandale.nl/?dictionaryId=gen&query={q}"
  }
}

When the current pair is not in the list, the entry says so rather than opening the wrong dictionary.

MultiSearch – a batch at once

MultiSearch opens a whole set of sources in one go, each in its own tab of a fresh browser window, for the current pair. Read down the tabs, close the window, done. The starter batch, at the top of Web searches, is eleven sources: Google Patents, IATE, ProZ, Beijerterm, Reverso, Juremy, Linguee, Wikipedia, Wiktionary, AcronymFinder and BabelNet. A language pack brings its own batch for its pair.

It is an entry of kind multisearch in the Library Editor: one address per line, the same placeholders. Make as many batches as you like – one for legal, one for engineering – and give each a key.

The window opens in your default browser. Chrome, Edge, Brave and the other Chromium browsers open the whole batch in one new window; Firefox opens the first in a new window and the rest as tabs in it. Anything else gets the tabs in the current window.

Language packs

A language pack is everything for one language pair, both directions: the bilingual sites, the monolingual dictionaries on either side, and a MultiSearch that opens them all at once. A Dutch and English translator installs Dutch ⇄ English and has the lot; a Dutch and German translator installs Dutch ⇄ German and nothing else. The installed pack for the pair you are working in appears as one folder at the top of Web searches, named after the pair – “Dutch ⇄ English (language pack)” – so a translator with several installed sees the right one after switching the pair.

Settings → Language packs… lists the packs Sidekick ships, one checkbox each. Until you save that dialog, the pack for your current pair is installed automatically if there is one, so a fresh install with Dutch → English gets Dutch ⇄ English without being asked.

Pack entries are never written into your menu, so removing a pack is one untick, and the Library Editor only ever shows your own entries.

Sidekick ships Dutch ⇄ English today, with thirteen sources: a MultiSearch over the pair, Beijerterm, Mijnwoordenboek, Woordenlijst, Synoniemen.net, Encyclo, Merriam-Webster, Cambridge, Collins, OneLook, Thesaurus.com, Wordnik and Ludwig. A pack is a small JSON file in the packs\ folder of the Sidekick folder, in exactly the format of a search entry, so a pack for another pair is a matter of writing one – and contributing it back on GitHub so the next translator in that pair starts with it.

Local searches

• Google the selection – Ctrl+/
• Search the desktop – Ctrl+Shift+D – hands the selection to dtSearch, if you have it
• Entries for desktop terminology tools such as LogiTerm ship in the starter set and are easy to drop if you do not use them

Other language pairs

Every source is pair-aware, so a German-to-English translator sets the pair once and the starter sources just work – IATE, Linguee, ProZ, Reverso, Juremy, BabelNet, Wikipedia and Wiktionary all cover it. The pair’s own sources come from a language pack; Dutch ⇄ English exists, and more are welcome.