Added May 2012: See here for a better solution to problems with the LDOCE.
It appears there is an unofficial patch which fixes many of the LDOCE’s shortcomings (thanks are due to my readers who told me about it). Here are the main fixes:
- Mousewheel scrolling works (still a little too slow for my liking).
- Keyboard scrolling is fixed for the most part (there are still occasional problems with PgUp)
- You can select any text and right-click it to copy it to the clipboard.
- The PopUp mode window can now be resized. This is probably the most convenient way to use LDOCE, as it has very few distractions. I’ve noticed that in the PopUp mode, LDOCE tries to look up every piece of text you copy to the clipboard. To turn this off, you have to right-click the QuickFind icon in the system tray (bottom right corner of the screen) and choose Exit.
- You now get the dictionary window immediately after startup rather than having to click Dictionary.
The only big problem that hasn’t been fixed is the startup time. It still takes about 10 seconds to open the dictionary.
Installation
Installation is not a one-click affair, so I would not recommend it to inexperienced PC users. Perhaps you can ask your friendly neighborhood geek. Here are the steps:
- Get the patch (RAR archive) from here.
- Extract the archive to some folder. If you have 7-zip, you can right-click the archive file, then choose 7-Zip, Extract here. You can download 7-zip for free.
- Open the folder where you extracted the archive. Inside it, find the chrome folder.
- Locate the LDOCE program folder. It’s usually at C:\Program Files\Longman\LDOCE5. You should see a chrome subfolder in it.
- Copy the chrome folder from the patch folder to the LDOCE program folder, so that it overwrites the original chrome folder.
- Windows will ask you a number of questions. You want to replace files in the original chrome folder. You may have to provide administrator credentials to do this.
Otherwise…
You can use the online version of the LDOCE, which is probably easier for inexperienced users.
You’d have thought they wouldn’t have released such a buggy piece of software in the first place. It can’t be that hard to implement mouse-wheel scrolling, can it?
Thanks a million. This patch is really useful. I kept copying the whole definitions of a word to a Word document and then copying the relevant definition to Anki. Also it’s handy to scroll using the mouse wheel rather than pressing arrows on the scroll bar to go up or down.
This patch is really great. The developers of the software should take a lot at that code.
It’s really a great patch! Waited for it so long!
Is Longman Mobile dictionary any good? If not, which one is the best? I’d really really appreciate it if someone gives me an answer. Thank you.
“It’s an effective device that is also used by the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, which highlights its 2,000 most important words in spoken or written English and labels them as S2 and W2. The dictionary says that the examples in the book are “usually slightly edited versions of real sentences from the corpus” and that “this means the examples are more realistic than in some dictionaries”.
http://www.its-teachers.com/firstimpressions/098.asp
I have found another version of ldoce5.exe hidden on official DVD.
You need manually extract it from setup.exe with 7-zip archiver.
This version is much smaller than ldoce5.exe from “C:\Program Files\Longman\LDOCE5\”.
Perhaps it is small because of absence of awfull SecuROM overhead. May be it will start slighly faster but I’m not sure.
Could you post another download link? The file may be not available.
http://ishare.iask.sina.com.cn/f/7586705.html
Thank you so much. The patch is extremely useful!!!
Thanks for sharing
Does anybody know how to extract all audio files from this dictionary?
What I need them for is…
I believe that just listening to those words and example sentences on my mp3 player would help me improve my vocabulary.
So, I’d rather have them all extracted somehow automatically than having to do it manually one by one.
Please advise…
after two year,…
looking for the same with the same purpose.
when I do ‘inspect element in ldoce viewer it says:
audio:/exa_pron/p008-001800721.mp3
(this file is for a sentence example)
but don’t know how to extract it!
any idea?
Hi Chris,
did you find out how to extract these voices? I am badly in need of these voices and examples too.
None of the patches of blog.cina.com existing anymore, can anyone provide the download link for all 29 patches of ldoce5?
Dude, this “Unofficial LDOCE patch” is to be found nowhere…
BUT… I finally found the “Official” patch for fixing all the “Scrolling” issues within any Longman Dictionary!! I’ve tested this PATCH on several “Longman Apps” and now the Scrolling is much much better! :))
This is solely targeted at fixing the “Scrolling” issues and nothing more.
http://www.pearsonintlsupport.com/support247/local/uk/downloads/ldoce5scroll.zip
Just replace the new “plugs.jar” file with its old stupid version inside this folder:
“C:\Program Files\Longman\LDOCE5\chrome”
and say hello to true scrolling with your mouse and keyboard!
PS: If any one’s got the thread title “Unofficial LDOCE patch”, please upload it to 4shared.com or something as permanent, and not sina.com.cn!
PPS: I totally appreciate what you guys have accomplished with “Taku’s LDOCE5 Viewer”; I just wanted something to fix Longman’s ridiculous “Scrolling” system.
PPPS: Here you can check the info and the links for all LDOCE5 patches released so far (3 patches):
1.
How do I stop the mouse wheel scrolling too fast in the dictionary?
http://pearsonsupport.helpserve.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/171/47/how-do-i-stop-the-mouse-wheel-scrolling-too-fast-in-the-dictionary
http://www.pearsonintlsupport.com/support247/local/uk/downloads/ldoce5scroll.zip
2.
How do I add scrollbars to the user notes section?
http://pearsonsupport.helpserve.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/82/47/how-do-i-add-scrollbars-to-the-user-notes-section
http://www.pearsonlongman.com/dictionaries/support-downloads/ldoce5-notepatch.zip
3.
Every time I load LDOCE 5 it requests the disc to be inserted!
http://pearsonsupport.helpserve.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/38/47/everytime-i-load-ldoce-5-it-requests-the-disc-to-be-inserted
http://www.pearsonlongman.com/dictionaries/support-downloads/ldoce5patch.zip