Fantasdic is a DICT

DICT

DICT is a dictionary network protocol created by the DICT Development Group. It is described by RFC 2229. Its goal is to surpass the Webster protocol and to allow clients to access more dictionaries during use...

 client

Client (computing)

A client is an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server. The server is often on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network....

. It is multiplatform although it is with the GNOME

GNOME

GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...

 desktop that it will be the most visually consistent. It is written in the Ruby programming language.

By default, and unlike Stardict

StarDict

StarDict, developed by Hu Zheng , is a free GUI released under the GPL for accessing StarDict dictionary files . It is the successor of the program StarDic, developed by Ma Su'an...

, it retrieves definitions from the network (e.g. internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

) via the DICT protocol instead of a file on the hard drive. Therefore, users don't have to download and install dictionaries. Instead, in the settings, they can define the address of the DICT servers and databases that Fantasdic will query. It is possible, however, to have dictd (a DICT server) and various dictionaries installed locally, and set fantasdic to use localhost as the dictionary server.

Fantasdic can also be configured to read various dictionary formats directly, without the aid of a DICT server.