GNOME Dictionary plugin doesn't work

[Žygimantas Beručka]

Binary package hint: gnome-do

GNOME Dictionary plugin of gnome-do (version 0.8.3.1+dfsg-2ubuntu1; maverick) doesn't work because somehow it tries to execute a wrong path. Instead of being relative to $PATH, it's relative to $HOME. The following is an error message I get when launching it from a terminal:

gvfs-open: file:///home/zygis/gnome-dictionary%20--look-up%20hendiadys: error opening location: Error stating file '/home/zygis/gnome-dictionary --look-up hendiadys': No such file or directory

[Dennis van Dok (dvandok-gmail)]

I can confirm this; the error can be seen from ${HOME}/.xsession-errors as well.

[Dennis van Dok (dvandok-gmail)]

Some more information; the source of the problem is the call to System.Diagnostics.Process.Start:

  cmd = string.Format ("gnome-dictionary --look-up \"{0}\"", word);
  System.Diagnostics.Process.Start (cmd);

The error message reads as though the system tries to run a file named "gnome-dictionary --lookup bla", that is, including the spaces and dashes, and of course there is no such thing. The fix is to use a different call with two arguments: the program and then the arguments.

  cmd = string.Format ("--look-up \"{0}\"", word);
  System.Diagnostics.Process.Start ("/usr/bin/gnome-dictionary", cmd);

[AmateurDev (guitrguy595)]

Do you add the patch to Gnome Dictionary or Gnome Do?

[Dennis van Dok (dvandok-gmail)]

The patch should be applied to the sources of gnome-do-plugins-0.8.2.1 as obtained by:

apt-get source gnome-do-plugins

I don't know how/where this is managed upstream.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.