Dict

Wrapper for DICT Protocol Client

---

• ⬆️ Top of Document
• 🏗️ Requirements
  • Development dependencies
• ⚡ Quick Start
• 🧰 Usage
• 🗒 Notes
• 📈 Contributing
  • 🔱 Forking
  • 💱 Sponsor
• 📇 Attribution
• ⚖️ Licensing
  • Commercial and/or proprietary use
  • Non-commercial and FOSS use

---

Requirements

This repository requires the Vim text editor to be installed the source code is available on GitHub -- vim/vim, and most GNU Linux package managers are able to install Vim directly, eg...

• Arch based Operating Systems

  sudo packman -Syy
  sudo packman -S vim dictd
  yay -S dict-gcide

  Note; if dict-gcide pops 404 errors about deb file not found, then consider trying the fork hosted on GitHub at S0AndS0/aur-dict-gcide

• Debian derived Distributions

  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install vim dictd dict-gcide

---

Development dependencies

• Vim Doc for help from doc-comments

  git clone https://github.com/vim-utilities/vimdoc
  pushd vimdoc
  python setup.py config
  python setup.py build
  pipx install .
  popd

  Execute with vimdoc .

  Note; until certain bugs are fixed upstream it is necessary to use the patched version of vimdoc which handles longer lines, and Vim 8 parameters a bit more correctly.

• Vader for testing code

  call plug#begin('~/.vim/plugged')
    Plug 'junegunn/vader.vim'
  call plug#end()

  Execute with scripts/vader-run-tests.sh --cicd --test units

---

Quick Start

Use your preferred plugin manager, such as Plug;

call plug#begin('~/.vim/plugged')
  Plug 'vim-utilities/dict'
call plug#end()

Check :help dict for details on configuration and available functions.

---

Usage

Add something similar to the following to your ~/.vimrc file;

""
" Wrapper for `dict#popup#Definition` that accepts a value to be passed or
" uses current word under cursor as value
function! DictWordPopup(...) abort
  if len(a:000)
    let l:value = a:000[0]
  else
    let l:value = expand('<cWORD>')
  endif

  if !len(l:value)
    return
  endif

  let l:data = dict#get#Definition(l:value)

  return dict#popup#Definition(l:data)
endfunction

""
" Registers Normal mode leader sequences
function! s:Register_Leader()
  nnoremap <Leader>wd :call DictWordPopup()<cr>
endfunction

""
" Registers Ex mode commands
function! s:Register_Commands() abort
  command! -nargs=* Dict call DictWordPopup(<f-args>)
endfunction


""
" Call registration functions for specific file types
autocmd FileType markdown call s:Register_Leader()
autocmd FileType markdown call s:Register_Commands()

---

Notes

This repository may not be feature complete and/or fully functional, Pull Requests that add features or fix bugs are certainly welcomed.

---

Contributing

Options for contributing to vim-utilities/dict

---

Forking

Start making a Fork of this repository to an account that you have write permissions for.

• Add remote for fork URL. The URL syntax is [email protected]:<NAME>/<REPO>.git...

cd ~/git/hub/vim-utilities/dict

git remote add fork [email protected]:<NAME>/dict.git

• Commit your changes and push to your fork, eg. to fix an issue...

cd ~/git/hub/vim-utilities/dict


git commit -F- <<'EOF'
:bug: Fixes #42 Issue


**Edits**


- `<SCRIPT-NAME>` script, fixes some bug reported in issue
EOF


git push fork main

Note, the -u option may be used to set fork as the default remote, eg. git push -u fork main however, this will also default the fork remote for pulling from too! Meaning that pulling updates from origin must be done explicitly, eg. git pull origin main

• Then on GitHub submit a Pull Request through the Web-UI, the URL syntax is https://github.com/<NAME>/<REPO>/pull/new/<BRANCH>

Note; to decrease the chances of your Pull Request needing modifications before being accepted, please check the dot-github repository for detailed contributing guidelines.

---

Sponsor

Thanks for even considering it!

Via Liberapay you may on a repeating basis.

Regardless of if you're able to financially support projects such as dict that vim-utilities maintains, please consider sharing projects that are useful with others, because one of the goals of maintaining Open Source repositories is to provide value to the community.

---

Attribution

• GitHub -- github-utilities/make-readme
• Dict -- RFC2229

---

License

This project is licensed based on use-case

Commercial and/or proprietary use

If a project is either commercial or (||) proprietary, then please contact the author for pricing and licensing options to make use of code and/or features from this repository.

---

Non-commercial and FOSS use

If a project is both non-commercial and (&&) published with a license compatible with AGPL-3.0, then it may utilize code from this repository under the following terms.

Wrapper for DICT Protocol Client
Copyright (C) 2025 vim-utilities

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published
by the Free Software Foundation, version 3 of the License.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU Affero General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

For further details review full length version of AGPL-3.0 License.