Youdao Dictionary interface for Emacs

youdao-dictionary is a simple Youdao Dictionary (有道词典) interface for Emacs.

Installation

Install youdao-dictionary from MELPA with:

M-x package-install RET youdao-dictionary RET

Setup

Youdao discontinued the free API earlier this year (2023), so this package is no longer ready to use out of the box. You will need to apply for an API on your own.

You can set your api key and secret in ~/.authinfo.gpg or ~/.authinfo, e.g,

machine openapi.youdao.com login 应用ID password 应用秘钥

Alternatively, you can set them in your config, e.g,

;; Change 应用ID and 应用秘钥 to yours
(setq youdao-dictionary-app-key "应用ID"
      youdao-dictionary-secret-key "应用秘钥")

Usage

youdao-dictionary-search-at-point

Search word at point and display result with buffer

youdao-dictionary-search-at-point+

Search word at point and display result with popup-tip

youdao-dictionary-search-at-point-tooltip

Search word at point and display result with tooltip

youdao-dictionary-search-at-point-posframe

Search word at point and display result with posframe

youdao-dictionary-search-from-input

Search word from input and display result with buffer

youdao-dictionary-search-and-replace

Search word at point and display result with popup-menu, replace word with selected translation.

youdao-dictionary-play-voice-at-point

Play voice of word at point (by @snyh)

youdao-dictionary-play-voice-from-input

Play voice of word from input (by @snyh)

Customization

youdao-dictionary-posframe-tip-face

Face for posframe buffer, defaut to inherit tooltip

Sample configuration

;; Enable Cache
(setq url-automatic-caching t)

;; Example Key binding
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c y") 'youdao-dictionary-search-at-point)

;; Integrate with popwin-el (https://github.com/m2ym/popwin-el)
;; (push "*Youdao Dictionary*" popwin:special-display-config)

;; Set file path for saving search history
;; (setq youdao-dictionary-search-history-file "~/.emacs.d/.youdao")

;; Enable Chinese word segmentation support (支持中文分词)
;; (setq youdao-dictionary-use-chinese-word-segmentation t)

Notes: A external Chinese word segmentation tool (e.g. 结巴分词) is needed to enable Chinese word segmentation support. For more info, see chinese-word-at-point.el#prerequisite.

Related tools

ydcv

YouDao Console Version in Python (youdao-dictionary.el is inspired by it)

fanyi

A translate tool in your command line (supports both Youdao and iciba)

go-translate

Powerful translator on Emacs. Supports multiple translation engines such as Google, Bing, deepL, StarDict, Youdao.

bing-dict

Minimalists’ English-Chinese Bing dictionary