VocabForager is a browser extension for people build their vocabulary in one, or numerous, languages. Users can highlight text on a webpage and look up definitions from [almost] any online dictionary of their choice. Marks are persisted across page visits, giving users a chance to refresh their lexicon both by rereading the text and by quizzing themselves.
For more information on how to use VocabForager, please read the User Manual.
The standard way of installing this extension is through the appropriate browser webstore.
- For Chrome and Chromium browsers, use the Chrome Web Store.
One can download this git repository and "build" the extension locally using npm.
Building the project as a zip file can be done with this build script from the root directory.
Alternatively, you can run the following to just build the project into a directory named extension.
npm install # downloads all dependencies that source code depends on
npm run clear # removes any build files that may have been made before
npm run build-prod # compiles source code and bundles code and assets into extension directoryThis may be needed to perform local testing.
After doing this, the extension can be installed onto Chrome (or some other Chromium-based browser) by
navigating to Extensions > Manage Extensions > Load unpacked and selecting the extension
packaged extension. The exact steps may vary depending on the browser, but the steps the
general steps should be the same.
- VocabForager tries to load previous marks after webpage has been loaded. Text that appears on a webpage after page is initially loaded may not get re-highlighted.
- VocabForager can only use online dictionaries if the URL contains the word being searched and all word searches on the online dictionary have the same structure (see the manual for more information. ONline dictionaries that do not follow this convention are not usable. The vast majority of online-dictionaries we have encountered follow these conventions, so we do not expect this to be a hinderance for users.