Question

Think of a dictionary application that grabs words upon user’s click from any other application (including browsers) and pops up it’s meaning. Is it possible to twist this behavior based on the word’s HTML attributes?

Edit: I noticed something cool. OSX’s built-in dictionary app has a shortcut (cmd+control+d) that actually pops up a word’s meaning (the word you’re hovering your mouse above). It also highlights the word. The highlight area grows as you increase the font size. check out this fiddle and try various font sizes.

Answer 1

Yes/no

If your dictionary application embeds a browser instance (like a webkit browser) then it should be possible to access the DOM.

If you want your application to manipulate an already running browser instance it has no control over then it could probably done if

• that browser has a browser plugin that interacts with your application
• you intercept low level commands to mess directly with the kernel or the memory of the browser.

Neither of those are easy to do for all browsers.