The online dictionary is organized by stroke order (of character or of first character in phrase), then in pinyin order. There are more completedownloadable dictionaries in Chinese pinyin order and in English order.
To navigate within the dictionary, use the link in the page heading to get back to this page when you need to look up another character with a different stroke order from the page you are on. If you want to stay within the same stroke order, then just go to the 'photo album index' on the page that you're on. Got that? Give it a try, it is actually pretty intuitive once you figure it out.
The definitions are in order: International rules code, English, French, German, soon to come Spanish.
I have to use number indicators for tone. 1 is first tone, high level. 2 is second tone, rising. 3 is third tone, dipping. 4 is fourth tone, falling. no marker is a neutral tone.
