MDBG Chinese Reader
bababardwan
November 18, 2009, 09:09 PM posted in General DiscussionDoes anyone have any experience with using MDBG Chinese Reader? :
http://usa.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=chinese_dictionary_windows
I previously used Chinese perakun and currently use Mandarin Popup as a popup translator,but I'm pretty sure these only work within Firefox,and not within other applications like email,word,skype,whereas I think reader works within some of these other applications [not sure about skype though..anyone know].How good is it and are there better alternatives?
bendidelaowai
November 19, 2009, 12:36 PMIf we talk about MDBG reader....
my main disappointment is: it shows the words, but doesn't show is it a noun/verb etc. also, due to the specific internet situation in Mainland I use several browsers (IE, Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari...) because they have different acceleration and work with different websites.But, not a single Chinese reader works in everything. The only one which worked for me in most of the browsers (except Safari) was PowerWord lite (google and 金山 co-production, free： 谷歌金山词霸合作版). It works in most cases, but doesn't read traditional Chinese. Also it is linked with translate.google.com (not google translation kit though).
I don't know about Dim Sun Chinese tools, I will try it.
bababardwan
November 18, 2009, 10:19 PMsimon,
Not quite sure what you mean by:
It works with any web browser
..I've downloaded it just now.It then just seems to open it's own little programme rather than doing anything within a browser as far as I can see.At the top of the programme it does have a web address line,so when I entered CPod's address it tried to open something in firefox when I had entered my signed in CPod address but it just came up blank.When I just entered the ordinary CPod address....www.chinesepod.com it asked me if I wanted to save the file and gave me no other options.Saving it didn't seem to do anything.Nothing showing up in IE as far as I can see either.Sorry,I'm sure I'm missing something obvious.I was hoping it would be a bit more intuitive without having to read through reams of instructions.Any tips?
Tal
November 18, 2009, 10:54 PMMDBG is the best there is. It works with anything (except the Google Chrome browser).
bababardwan
November 18, 2009, 11:02 PMtal,
So that's the MDBG reader [as opposed to the popup translator in browsers...or are they one and the same?]? If so,have you tried it in other applications [non browser based] and is it good there?
Tal
November 18, 2009, 11:09 PMbaba, like I said, it works withn anything you can run on a PC. (Except Google Chrome.) Try it free for 15 days. I did and was happy to pay for it afterwards.
bababardwan
November 18, 2009, 09:58 PMThanks Simon.I think I'll check that out on IE as the other popups I've used only work in Firefox I think,and see how it compares.I'm interested in the calligraphy paper generator.
I'd particularly like something that was going to work within skype though,and some other non browser programmes.Actually I should have said that the firefox popups work with my gmail as I open that in firefox,but it doesn't work in non browser based email.
bababardwan
November 19, 2009, 01:41 AMOk,well I've installed mdbg Chinese reader and the good news is that it works in skype [as well as the other nonbrowser applications it's meant to work in].A suprising thing though is that it's not working in firefox.I presume this is due to some sort of turf war [or more precisely,some default setting somewhere ] between it and mandarinpopup ,but it's still the case when I disable mandarinpopup [still,presumably because the latter is installed though].However it's working in IE.Is there a way to toggle it on and off though.I've right clicked on it's icon and there are things you can select or deselect like livescan but that doesn't seem to affect in ..in firefox at least.I'm yet to test how it affects bootup time ,but I'll let you know for anyone who may be interested.But yeah,thanks tal,awesome to be able to use it in these other applications.
simonpettersson
November 19, 2009, 04:24 AMRegarding Dim Sum: Sorry, baba, it seems it's not working properly on your computer. On mine, I enter a web address in that little bar and it launches the site within my browser (Safari, as I'm on a Mac) with a "localhost:4445" in front of it. That now has popup translations. In fact, I can just add "localhost:4445" to any address to automatically get popup translations. Just entering "http://http://localhost:4445/" gets me the settings page.
bababardwan
November 19, 2009, 05:13 AMthanks for getting back to me on this simon.Yeah,it did the localhost:4445 thing,but then nothing came up.Suan le ba.Thanks anyway mate.
Tal
November 19, 2009, 07:28 AMThe MDBG Chinese Reader should work fine in Firefox. Maybe you'd better drop MDBG a line. Their customer support is very good.
bababardwan
November 19, 2009, 07:34 AMMystically,it started working after a while [quite a while...well after it had been working fine in every other application].Thus I'd have both mdbg and mandarinpopup both popping up over the characters.
bababardwan
November 18, 2009, 11:19 PMThanks tal,
So I take it that it is one and the same thing.I did try it before then but only as a popuptranslator and not within any other applications.Sorry to go over old turf but you may recall my one thing I didn't like at the time was that it significantly slowed my bootup [I know ..impatient].However I have windows 7 now which is supposed to speed up things like bootup so perhaps it won't be quite such an issue.I'll give it another shot.Thanks for your feedback.I wonder if there's a way to have it so it doesn't automatically load at bootup but rather only when you want to use it?
simonpettersson
November 18, 2009, 09:44 PMI use Dim Sum Chinese Tools. It's awesome. It works with any web browser, but it does not work with any other programs. However, you can copy and paste text into the program itself and get the popup translations there. It also does stuff like converting simp and trad, both in the application and in the browser.
Also, it has crazy stuff like family title generator, Chinese name generator, a Chinese abacus, calendar converter, dictionary, flashcards, frequency lists, stroke order, radical lookup, calligraphy papaer generator, encoding converter (for when you ger garbled stuff that's encoded in weird ways), romanization converter, measurement converter, number converter, email fixer (I don't even know what that is!), GIF generator (for making image files of text or characters), automatic pinyin generator, automatic glossary generator (sorted by appearance, pinyin or word frequency), adding of word breaks and handwriting recognition. Oh, and there's an additional audio install of some kind that I think gives you an audio file based on the text. I haven't done that, so can't tell you exactly.
It's also free and multi-platform.