How to listen to the words from other applications

[Ahmet Aksoy]

I want to listen to the words which were selected in third party programs.
I only want to know which words were selected; then I will find the description of those words from a dictionary. I'm trying to make an easy to use dictionary.
This is what the dictionary program "babylon" does.
Is it possible to make such a java listener?
Thanks.
Ahmet Aksoy

[KArol Muszynski]

I think You will need access to windows api in C to do this.
Maybe easier will be to use Clipboard Listener. User of your application will be useing Ctrl+C to send selected phrase to your application

Best Regards,
KArol Muszynski

[Ahmet Aksoy]

Originally posted by KArol Muszynski:
I think You will need access to windows api in C to do this.
Maybe easier will be to use Clipboard Listener. User of your application will be useing Ctrl+C to send selected phrase to your application

Best Regards,
KArol Muszynski

Hi Karol,
I had used your suggestion in a Delphi project previously. I know it works very well.
But now, I want to obtain an easier method in my case.
I have an open source project named as "belletmen" at http://belletmen.dev.java.net . In this project, user loads a text document. Program selects words in it automatically by mouse clicks or by mouse movements. Word selection is made automatically. I hope that my application will be used by children, or second language learners. So, I want them to be comfortable. They must be focused completeley on the reading. If I force them to select the words and send it to the clipboard with a pop-up menu, or Ctrl-C, they will lose their focus.
So, I want to obtain a better solution.
Maybe a kind of OCR from the screen will be nice.
Thank you for your suggestion.
Ahmet Aksoy