handle other mw API dictionaries

[mooseyboots]

it would be nice to make this package more generic with regard to the mw API. ie also handle the "collegiate" dictionary.

the issue is that this would involve switching to API v3 and json.

i may have some time to work on it soon.

[mooseyboots]

i made a start on my fork here: https://codeberg.org/martianh/mw.el.

for now only short definitions are supported, as the full defs require a lot of parsing.

[agzam]

This is a commendable effort. Admittedly, I have been putting off updating it to utilize the JSON API for far too long. After all, why fix something that isn't broken? It's worth noting that when I initially wrote the package, MW did not yet have the JSON API. Therefore, any contributions or pull requests that enhance the package would be greatly appreciated.

[mooseyboots]

would you like me to just PR what i've done? if you look at what i've added, it uses aio for async, rather than request. i just feel more comfortable not writing callback-structured code... but that makes the package a bit frankenstein...

yeah i understand JSON is newer than your package. when i looked up the API it made me pretty amazed that they're still supporting XML. maybe it'll just stick around. but unforch the dictionary only supports JSON.

[agzam]

it uses aio for async, rather than request.

That should be fine, although if I have to do it at some point, I would prefer using deferred and request-deferred. The aio approach is also acceptable, I just haven’t personally used it, therefore I have no opinion of one vs. another.

[mooseyboots]

I updated the readme file and did some further cleaning up.

Have you looked at a local diff of my fork? Otherwise should I PR the whole develop branch here?

[mooseyboots]

i've added a full-defs branch to my fork, which aims to handle full dictionary definitions, not just the shortdefs fields.

the org tree structure isn't correct yet, but most of the basic details from the API are implemented. (the API data structure is a real nightmare.)