set Spotlight to give Dictionary Definitions after the Top Hit Entry?

This is something I have also found disappointing. I have found it so useful in the past to jump quickly to the dictionary or thesaurus from spotlight.

The best way I have found in Lion is to type "dic" into spotlight, ironic I know, which will bring up the dictionary.

This way the key combination is: command-space -> dic -> (word to lookup).

The one advantage of this way over the old way is that by typing into the Dictionary app it does a lookup while you type which is very useful if you are a little unsure of the spelling.

Cheers.

Can't help with the spotlight issue, but if you three-finger double-tap a word, it will bring up the dictionary.

But, that only works in apps that support it.

This is a huge regression for me too. I am so used to typing a word in spotlight, now I have to scroll down all the way to find the dictionary entry. If Apple choses to put this at the bottom of the list by default, fine, but why not let me change the order? Why can I choose the order of everything bu dictionary??

I second all the complaints. I'll try to get used to command-space -> dic -> (word to lookup), but the other way was more natural.

I'll third the complaint. There's a whole bunch of things in Lion like this that feel like a backward step compared to Snow Leopard which make you wonder what is happening...

majorly annoying and genuine frustration.

I hate to be one of those people who complains about new things but this is one that really bugs me. I'm a poor spelled (that was one of the reasons I bought my first Mac in 1984) so having to scroll down to the bottom of the list to get to the dictionary is a pain. I'm sure someone will come up with a workaround.

To make it worse, if you have too many as a result of a search, it will not even show up which is what I run into most of the time since I have so many ;-(

I don't know why Dictionary can't be the first item in the list or at least provide the option.

Apple, please fix this! Huge pain. Can't think of any possible reason not to include dictionary in custom prioritizing options even if it's really that important to make it last by default.

Agreed! I LOVED how it was in Snow Leopard.

I used this feature for a THESAURUS dozens of times a day, for I'm a writer.

It was beautiful - Command-Space, type in word, then hit "down arrow" and dictionary would open.

Now, I have to lift up my hand and use the mouse to find my thesaurus result ALL the way at the bottom.

( I know - big problem, right?)

Yet I don't understand the trade-off. What are we gaining by putting the dictionary at the bottom?

Well, I have a temporary solution: after you've typed the word in question using an Apple program such as Mail or TextEdit, hit the arrow key back twice so the cursor is inside the word. Hit "Command-Control-D" then let go quickly. The dictionary/thesaurus pops up right there.

Want to jump in and say I agree with everyone here about the Spotlight dictionary.

It seems to me that Apple went kind of nuts with the changes for change's sake in Lion. There's just a whole heap of silly little things like this.

I know that one of the things Apple deliberately built into the user experience in the past was to include all sorts of unannounced tweaks that you would quietly discover as you worked and suddenly feel a moment of joy about the OS. However, Apple seems to have reveresed this policy with Lion, since I've had none of that this time, but I have had a whole slew of "why the !@#* is it doing that?!" I feel like I'm back using Windows trying to work around the OS.

+1 on behalf of people annoyed with the new order in which Dictionary results show up at the bottom of a Spotlight search. Doesn't seem like it would be that hard to just include the Dictionary in the list of types of results in the Spotlight Preference Pane, so we could at least customize the location of the dictionary results.

I'm looking into a way to modify Spotlight's item order by messing with its preferences file, but in the meantime I found one helpful shortcut:

Type one Control-DownArrow to go to the bottom, then three UpArrows to get to "Look Up."

I'll post more if I can find an effective .plist or defaults entry, otherwise assume it's not that simple to change.

I agree. Another step BACK in the Lion OS. I hope they read these posts...but you have to wonder, when some tech person comes up with an "improvement" like this and they put it on the table, what IS the decision process? It just seems like a little customer check in would have avoided this. Using Spotlight for quick Dictionary access is (was) my most frequent and useful shortcut.