New Kindle Word Wise feature

[Doitsu]

Apparently, Amazon is planning to introduce a new feature, Word Wise, which will display definitions for SAT vocabulary words above a word. At first glance, this looks like a <ruby> tag implementation, but when I created a quick & dirty test file to test my hypothesis, the end result looked slightly different from Amazon's promo screenshot.

Does anybody happen to know how Word Wise definitions are supposed to be encoded?

[sian]

unless im missing somthing isnt that just the same as x ray?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

Apparently, Amazon is planning to introduce a new feature, Word Wise, which will display definitions for SAT vocabulary words above a word. At first glance, this looks like a <ruby> tag implementation, but when I created a quick & dirty test file to test my hypothesis, the end result looked slightly different from Amazon's promo screenshot.

Does anybody happen to know how Word Wise definitions are supposed to be encoded?

Not yet. I'll ask around next time I gab with them, unless you want the fun of treasure-hunting yourself?

Hitch

[JSWolf]

Well, now because of word wise, I don't see Amazon giving users a reasonable line height for KF8 as they want to keep it big for these definitions.

[Doitsu]

@Hitch: I've unpacked several free Word Wise enabled Kindle books. Since I didn't find any definition markup in those files, I strongly suspect that Amazon simply licensed a large English thesaurus database that eInk Kindles use to add definitions on-the-fly. However, since not all new Kindle books are automatically Word Wise enabled, this feature seems to be artificially restricted to certain books. (Maybe they have to pay a small per book license fee to the thesaurus provider or eInk Kindles can only display Word Wise definitions on-the-fly, if the style sheet of the Kindle book meets certain requirements.)

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

@Hitch: I've unpacked several free Word Wise enabled Kindle books. Since I didn't find any definition markup in those files, I strongly suspect that Amazon simply licensed a large English thesaurus database that eInk Kindles use to add definitions on-the-fly. However, since not all new Kindle books are automatically Word Wise enabled, this feature seems to be artificially restricted to certain books. (Maybe they have to pay a small per book license fee to the thesaurus provider or eInk Kindles can only display Word Wise definitions on-the-fly, if the style sheet of the Kindle book meets certain requirements.)

Hmmm. I may inquire. Honestly, that feature, along with x-ray, makes my head hurt (as a reader)...what was wrong with the idea of tapping a word, if you didn't know it, for heaven's sake? And ditto what Wolfie said: there goes ANY hope of a less-than-1.2em line height.

Hitch
(Who is feeling somewhat grumpy about this, for some reason as-yet-not-understood)

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Hmmm. I may inquire. Honestly, that feature, along with x-ray, makes my head hurt (as a reader)...what was wrong with the idea of tapping a word, if you didn't know it, for heaven's sake? And ditto what Wolfie said: there goes ANY hope of a less-than-1.2em line height.

Hitch
(Who is feeling somewhat grumpy about this, for some reason as-yet-not-understood)

The best way to get rid of the 1.2em line height is to embed one of my two versions of Charis SIL as I've edited the internals for the Kindle to not use such a large line height. Other then that, unless you do the same thing to other fonts, that's the only solution.

The grumpiness is more crap on the screen when trying to read and in the sample in the first post, there are most "complicated" words then some of the ones defined that are not defined. The idea of Word Wise is just a mess and it looks a mess because it's making what looks kind of like a section break to put in the definitions so the line height gets even more screwed with. Not a good idea by any sense of trying to read without formatting getting in the way. I too see nothing wrong with the standard dictionary lookup.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The best way to get rid of the 1.2em line height is to embed one of my two versions of Charis SIL as I've edited the internals for the Kindle to not use such a large line height. Other then that, unless you do the same thing to other fonts, that's the only solution.

Sweetie, I love ya, but I gotta think about those hundreds of OTHER books running through my production system right now--authors who will ask about this, you understand--and not my own Kindles, all however-many-of-them-there-are.

The grumpiness is more crap on the screen when trying to read and in the sample in the first post, there are most "complicated" words then some of the ones defined that are not defined. The idea of Word Wise is just a mess and it looks a mess because it's making what looks kind of like a section break to put in the definitions so the line height gets even more screwed with. Not a good idea by any sense of trying to read without formatting getting in the way. I too see nothing wrong with the standard dictionary lookup.

Yes, it's definitely giving me the grumps.

Hitch

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Sweetie, I love ya, but I gotta think about those hundreds of OTHER books running through my production system right now--authors who will ask about this, you understand--and not my own Kindles, all however-many-of-them-there-are.

Well, without a special embedded font, there not a thing you can do to fix the broken line height.

Yes, it's definitely giving me the grumps.

It just makes what didn't look all that great look even worse.

[eFTy]

I've yet to get the update on my PW2 (office wireless is... not cooperative), but can't this 'feature', like most of the other pieces of... ahem, be turned off in the menu?

As for lien height, I take it the word wise definitions won't increase line height if they already have enough room in the default space between lines?

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by eFTy

I've yet to get the update on my PW2 (office wireless is... not cooperative), but can't this 'feature', like most of the other pieces of... ahem, be turned off in the menu?

I haven't installed the latest update either, but according to Amazon it can be easily deactivated.

To turn Word Wise on or off:

1. From Home, tap Menu, then tap Settings.
2. Select Reading Options, then Language Learning.
3. Next to Word Wise, tap On or Off.

You can tap a word displaying Word Wise hints to see the dictionary definition of the word or rate the helpfulness of the hint.

Originally Posted by eFTy

As for line height, I take it the word wise definitions won't increase line height if they already have enough room in the default space between lines?

Based on the screenshots posted so far, eInk Kindles will increase the line height of all paragraphs to accommodate the display of Word Wise definitions.

[eFTy]

Oh, wow, I can't believe they felt the need to explain 'out of town'...

Still, I wonder if the increased line spacing will only be applied while Word Wise is on.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by eFTy

Oh, wow, I can't believe they felt the need to explain 'out of town'...

Still, I wonder if the increased line spacing will only be applied while Word Wise is on.

I think that's for "dismal."

Hitch

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I think that's for "dismal."

Hitch

They got the definition of dismal incorrect. It should read Word Wise.

[eFTy]

They also got the meaning of 'publicly' wrong.

I think we're definitely going to get some laughs if that 'feature' can be tuned to display definitions for all of the words. It will be like reading an alternate, really atrocious novel.