wuDict Hover Chrome/Firefox Extension¶

Install¶

Click a badge below to install:

With the wuDict Hover extension you can quickly get a definition for any word in Chrome/Firefox by hovering (with an optional key) or via the right-click context menu — no need to copy-paste words into another app.

The extension needs the wuDict server to be running on localhost or another computer in your local network.

Preconditions¶

• a running wuDict server, by default 127.0.0.1:6888. You can also configure the wudict server to run on another computer in your local network, and then set the IP address in the extension settings.
• Chrome or Firefox, current version, Manifest V3.

Without a running wudDict server the browser extension cannot work. Keep it running

Using wuDict Hover¶

Hover a word while holding the Alt key, or without a key, depending on what you set in Options. The definitions from wuDict will show in a popup below your mouse.

• Exact lookups only. The popup asks for the word itself, never for every word starting with it. Hovering run will not return running. You get one or two results per dictionary.
• Audio plays in the popup when available.
• Look up selection in wuDict is an alternative way to show definitions. Whether the results open in the popup or in the main wuDict page is controlled by Options > Options > Search opens: popup/full wudict page.
• Cross-references leave the popup. Clicking a link inside the popup opens the target in the main wuDict page.

Options¶

wuDict Hover options

Server          http://127.0.0.1:6888      set once, remembered
Dictionaries    all enabled                 or pick a short list
Trigger         hover, or a modifier key plus hover
Payload         clean HTML: structure only, no scripts
Cache           500 lookups, held by the background worker

Set a modifier key, for example Alt, and the popup stays silent until you ask for it.

wuDict Hover Source Code Repository¶

• https://github.com/wuweidict/wudict-browser-extension

How does it work?¶

Small payloads. The popup asks for clean articles. That form is about half the size of the original markup and drops every stylesheet and script request. Repeated lookups are answered from the worker's cache and never reach the network twice.

The worker Modern browsers do not allow ordinary web pages to access a server running on your machine. The extension uses a service worker to talk to the wudict server, and passes the result to the popup.

The wudict server only exposes three endpoints to browser extensions: /api/dicts, /api/search and /res/. Settings, preferences and the library are unreachable this way.

To allow named extensions only, list their origins in BROWSER_EXTENSIONS.

Regular web pages are now allowed to access the wudict server, but you can explicitly whitelist the origins that you control and trust via WEB_ORIGINS.

Install the wuDict Hover extension in development mode¶