The VideoLAN Forums

Hi there,

I wish to write a small extension which would allow the user to get the definition of a word in a subtitle.

If you're not a native english speaker but you're displaying the english subtitle to learn, you can sometimes miss some words, the idea is to be able to get the definition right away to improve your vocabulary while watching your favourite movies!

So basically, the workflow could be :

1 - User pause the movie
2 - User select a word in the current displayed subtitle sentence (with arrows, selection underlined)
3 - User trigger a function by pressing Enter key for example
4 - The function will get the word and look for a definition (for example in a dict file)
5 - Function display the definition on screen
6 - User know a new word (cool!) resume the play, definition disappear

I can figure all the steps except the 2, "user select a word". Is it currently possible to do that with VLC ? If yes what should be the function?

Thanks for your insight!

So far, this is not possible.

If you can use Subtitler (lite) to play your subtitles, then an actual subtitle is available in subtitle[3] variable. Then just parse the text to locate appropriate word, mark it with html tags "<u>word</u>" (dialog box supports html/css1) or just something like "[ word ]" and put it back in subtitle[3] variable.

Nice solution in a new VLC Extension: Show Me the Meaning