CPO
24.4.2026
It will soon be a year since Miðeind acquired Snara, so it is fitting to put pen to paper and review what has happened during this period.
The acquisition may have come as a surprise to some, but when you look at the reasoning behind it, it didn't come out of the blue. Miðeind has always been committed to supporting the Icelandic language and developing solutions that make Icelandic accessible and usable in a digital context. Málstaður, Miðeind's main product, combines all the key solutions for this purpose, and Málstaður is very useful as a writing aid, which aligns very well with Snara.
The arrival of Snara at the time was a major revolution when it came to the dissemination of digital dictionaries for the Icelandic language environment. Times are changing, and now very few Icelandic dictionaries are published in print. Snara and similar online resources are therefore one of the main ways to access information about our language. If we want our children to learn Icelandic, we need to meet them where they are, i.e. online.
The digitisation of dictionaries also brings with it much better access to information, for example through search functionality and filtering of results. There are also countless ways to use the information as part of other solutions to provide even better support for those who write texts.
You can read more about the acquisition in a post on our website.
The acquisition has brought about many changes, both for data and users, but the first step was to make Snara's dictionaries accessible in their own interface on Málstaður. Snara's original interface was getting old and there were various opportunities to provide a better user experience.
The emphasis was on not changing too much from the previous interface, but still making it consistent with the overall look of Málstaður. The search was made faster and we added the option to search for different word forms. This functionality is very important, for example, for children, teenagers and second-language speakers, who might be reading a text and come across a word form they don't know and can't figure out what the headword should be, e.g. orðmörgum. Sidebars then make it easy to browse back and forth through the results.
Snara's interface on Málstaður was a major milestone, and since then, the transition from the older interface has been mostly smooth for users. Users, whether from Snara or new, then have the choice of subscribing to all of Málstaður or just to Snara. For the time being, existing users still have access to the old interface.
You can read more about the first version of Snara and other changes that were introduced at the same time in a post on our website.
Dictionaries are worth their weight in gold, and there is every reason to integrate them even better into the text editors in Málstaður. The next step was therefore to make Snara's dictionaries directly accessible in the text editor in Málfríður. We created a sidebar in Málfríður that contains all the main functions for the text, including lookups. We have been very pleased with the sidebar and the possibilities it opens up, and we are constantly adding new functionality to it.
With the sidebar and its lookups, it is much simpler for second-language speakers, children, teenagers and others who have not fully acquired the Icelandic vocabulary to look up word forms they do not know. The user can select a single word or several and get entries from Snara's dictionaries in the sidebar. The lookups are also useful in general when writing for finding synonyms, translations or more precise wording.
You can read more about the sidebar and the lookups in a post on our website.
During this period, we have also fixed various issues that have arisen, both in the interface and in the transfer process. It is a huge task to successfully migrate such a large and loyal user base to a new location, and we would like to thank everyone who has sent us suggestions and requests during this time. The feedback has been invaluable and has helped immensely in the development process.
We have regularly fixed issues as they arise, but we recently used more significant points from user feedback for a major overhaul and simplified the interface. Dictionaries contain a huge amount of information in concise text, so it is crucial that other elements in the interface do not distract too much from the entries. We therefore streamlined the interface in line with a redesign of Málstaður as a whole, which took place at the same time. In addition, support for wildcards (? and *) was added to the search, which now allows even more varied search queries.
As you can see, the tools on Málstaður were given new icons during the redesign, which better distinguish them from each other and are more descriptive of the functionality that each tool offers. Snara has thus become even more tightly integrated into Málstaður and is an indispensable part of it.
Alongside other projects, we have been working on improving the underlying data, i.e. the dictionaries themselves. It is, of course, crucial that the information presented there is correct and true. We have both corrected errors, whether from user feedback or things we have noticed ourselves, and worked on making the dictionaries even more accessible. We are by no means finished and will continue on this path.
We are delighted to have brought Snara to Málstaður, and users have generally been very pleased that it is getting the attention it deserves.
The time has now come for Snara's old interface at snara.is to be closed at the end of the year, and all remaining users will be moved over to Málstaður. The website is getting on in years, so there is much to be gained by moving users to a much more stable and well-maintained environment.
We are always excited about adding more dictionaries, reference works or other diverse data to Málstaður and finding new ways to utilise them, and we are currently exploring several options in that regard.
New solutions are regularly added to Málstaður, opening up new possibilities for use, and you never know, something new and exciting might be coming soon.
If you would like to follow future projects at Miðeind, we can let you know when there is news.
