GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 389471
Poor instructions for configuring gnome dictionary
Last modified: 2007-08-09 18:53:30 UTC
That bug has been opened on https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/gnome-utils/+bug/70377 "This is a bug with gnome-dictionary in Dapper. I want to configure gnome-dictionary to look up German words, but I can't find out how to do it. Ideally there should be a long dropdown list of dictionaries to choose from -- English, French and Spanish, by themselves are not enough. Failing that, you should at least be able to look at the settings for the dictionaries that are already set up so that you can make an educated guess as to the correct settings for the dictionary you actually want to use. A button somewhere in the dictionary preferences dialogue that would take you to a website with a large directory of dictionary servers would also be very useful."
I can confirm this with gnome-dictionary 2.18.1. There should be a long list by default from which i can choose my language.
ideally, yes: there should be. in practise, there are not enough dictionary server around to make it possible. some of them ship with translation dictionaries, but it's something that must be discovered for each service by the user - because there's no programmatic way to do it. you can see what databases are available by looking at the default dictionary source and looking at the "Dictionaries" tab; you can select the default database from there. also: there is no "website with a large directory of dictionary servers". none that google can find, anyway. resolving as NOTGNOME because GNOME doesn't control the availability or the contents of the dictionary servers.