Pleco for Android 3.1 Beta 5
- Thread starter mikelove
- Start date
Scoox
举人
When I launched the OCR module for the first time it gave me an option to enable something which would do something else to do with buggy camera drivers on many phones. I blindly clicked OK and now the camera seems to have swapped the X and Y axes, I can't seem to find an option to undo this.
Scoox
举人
Tapping the back button on the settings page exits Pleco rather than returning to the Search Screen.
In addition, the menu button is sitting there looking pretty! Just because Apple phones don't have a menu button or a back button does not mean it should go unused on Android devices, so let's put these two to work.
In addition, the menu button is sitting there looking pretty! Just because Apple phones don't have a menu button or a back button does not mean it should go unused on Android devices, so let's put these two to work.
Last edited:
Scoox
举人
Aploogies:
Typos:
Ideas:
- I just realised there is an option to control the behaviour of the back button, cool!
Typos:
- There is a typo here: Settings > Search Engine > Dictionary Switching section > Integrate C-E fulltext: "On an Chinese search, cycle through..."
Ideas:
- Add a speaker icon to each entry in the search results view, to pronounce the headword directly. A lot of times learners look up words they already know just to confirm the pronunciation.
- The dict slider at the bottom of the page is too small. Would it be possible to show a magnifiedv image of the item currently being touched, as seen in various on-screen keyboards such as the iPhone keyboard?
- What is the advantage of using Pleco's own autofocus system over the built-in Android one? Is it more battery friendly? I've tried both and I can't tell the difference.
- Can we have the big speaker icon back to pronounce the headword? The new speaker icons are tiny, and they are always in different places. When I play the pronunciation I often turn down my phone so people don't look at me when I play seemingly random words on my phone. Some times it could even be embarrassing depending on what I am looking up. Then I turn the phone around and put the speaker to my ear. Finally I hit the speaker icon. But now the speaker icon is tiny, and always in a different place depending on the length of the word being looked up, so it's very difficult to tap consistently with the phone flipped over (most phones have a rear-facing speaker). On my Palm device I configured the side button to play the pronunciation, perhaps now that the menu button is not used for anything could we configure it to play the headword audio?
@HW60 - there should be a category option at the bottom of the New Card screen, is that not appearing for you?
@Scoox - you can disable that Compatibility Mode in Settings / OCR / Live. Opening the navigation drawer with the menu button doesn't really make it any easier (since you can swipe anyway) and is nonstandard behavior in the screens that have spillover menu.
@ckatt - this seems to be working correctly here; could you send me a backup of your flashcard database and let me know which profile you see this behavior in?
@Scoox again - if you tap-hold on an item in the search results you'll see a lot of options including one to play audio.
For the dictionary slider, the selected dictionary should have its icon at the top right corner of the screen (since we jump to it 'live' as you drag the bar) - is that not working correctly, or do you prefer not to have to move your eyes away from the slider bar?
Pleco autofocus works better on some phones and not others - OCR is far and away the area of Pleco where we spend the most time dealing with hardware fragmentation hassles, and unless we start to keep a couple of hundred phones in stock we're not going to be able to automatically come up with the best set of settings for every one.
For audio, we actually had fewer complaints than we expected about that same button move in 3.0 on iOS, so I'm reluctant to add an option for a larger audio button (which would be quite a bit of work to code / maintain) unless we get a lot of other complaints about it after we release 3.1 officially on Android. Having finally started to dig our way out from under the crushing number of options offered in our previous version (which you complained about yourself in your earlier post) we're really treading carefully in adding new ones unless there's a lot of demand for them.
@Scoox - you can disable that Compatibility Mode in Settings / OCR / Live. Opening the navigation drawer with the menu button doesn't really make it any easier (since you can swipe anyway) and is nonstandard behavior in the screens that have spillover menu.
@ckatt - this seems to be working correctly here; could you send me a backup of your flashcard database and let me know which profile you see this behavior in?
@Scoox again - if you tap-hold on an item in the search results you'll see a lot of options including one to play audio.
For the dictionary slider, the selected dictionary should have its icon at the top right corner of the screen (since we jump to it 'live' as you drag the bar) - is that not working correctly, or do you prefer not to have to move your eyes away from the slider bar?
Pleco autofocus works better on some phones and not others - OCR is far and away the area of Pleco where we spend the most time dealing with hardware fragmentation hassles, and unless we start to keep a couple of hundred phones in stock we're not going to be able to automatically come up with the best set of settings for every one.
For audio, we actually had fewer complaints than we expected about that same button move in 3.0 on iOS, so I'm reluctant to add an option for a larger audio button (which would be quite a bit of work to code / maintain) unless we get a lot of other complaints about it after we release 3.1 officially on Android. Having finally started to dig our way out from under the crushing number of options offered in our previous version (which you complained about yourself in your earlier post) we're really treading carefully in adding new ones unless there's a lot of demand for them.
Scoox
举人
I am finding a lot of things that used to take a single tap now take two.
For example, to access the history now we need to open the slide-out menu and tap History. Before there was a button right next to the search box. But all that valuable screen real estate that was previously available for the history button has now been taken up by a large blue pleco that, to speak freely, should not be there at all, since the slide-out menu can be pulled out by swiping inwards from the screen edge and potentially by tapping the device's existing Menu button (if you guys decide to add that back), as most android users would expect.
Apart from the obvious killer features including OCR and the crisp display current smartphones provide, I still find the Palm OS version of Pleco far quicker to operate, partly because of the stylus, but also because I could cram more functionality on the screen, in spite of the considerably lower resolution, and the ability to interact with the software by means of hardware buttons.
For example, to access the history now we need to open the slide-out menu and tap History. Before there was a button right next to the search box. But all that valuable screen real estate that was previously available for the history button has now been taken up by a large blue pleco that, to speak freely, should not be there at all, since the slide-out menu can be pulled out by swiping inwards from the screen edge and potentially by tapping the device's existing Menu button (if you guys decide to add that back), as most android users would expect.
Apart from the obvious killer features including OCR and the crisp display current smartphones provide, I still find the Palm OS version of Pleco far quicker to operate, partly because of the stylus, but also because I could cram more functionality on the screen, in spite of the considerably lower resolution, and the ability to interact with the software by means of hardware buttons.
We've actually added an optional history button back for Beta 6 - this one's even more efficient than before since it lists your recent searches (and only those) in a popup menu rather than having a separate screen.
App icon/logo at the top left corner to open sidebar menu is standard Android design practice now, used in virtually all of Google's apps (Play, Gmail, etc) in exactly the same way we use it. So not offering that option in order to have extra space for another button would be confusing and inconsistent. (we are considering shrinking the logo a bit, though)
Capacitive touchscreens necessarily offer far fewer interaction options than resistive (stylus-based ones) did - not much we can do about that. To be honest, most of the people buying Pleco now are people who never owned Palm or Windows Mobile devices - the expectations for mobile apps now are very different than they were pre-2007, and if we want to remain an appealing option for new users then we have to shed the UI clutter of the Palm days.
App icon/logo at the top left corner to open sidebar menu is standard Android design practice now, used in virtually all of Google's apps (Play, Gmail, etc) in exactly the same way we use it. So not offering that option in order to have extra space for another button would be confusing and inconsistent. (we are considering shrinking the logo a bit, though)
Capacitive touchscreens necessarily offer far fewer interaction options than resistive (stylus-based ones) did - not much we can do about that. To be honest, most of the people buying Pleco now are people who never owned Palm or Windows Mobile devices - the expectations for mobile apps now are very different than they were pre-2007, and if we want to remain an appealing option for new users then we have to shed the UI clutter of the Palm days.
HW60
状元
At the bottom of the New Card screen is the keyboard or - as in the screenshot - nothing.
Attachments
I'm not personally interested in the OCR module, but since there are so many different cameras in the Android ecosystem (and seem to be a lot of complaints), wouldn't it make sense to have some sort of wizard when you first open it up? Say, it asks you to point at a character and asks you if it can identify it. If yes, then tap some button (popup comes up to say you can change the settings wherever), if it doesn't then tap no and try next most common settings etc?
Scoox
举人
By the way I am just posting all the things I don't like. There are many thins I like about the new version, it's just that it would take forever to list them all 
That's good news! So where is it going to be? Which leads me to the next point...
Standards are good but every app is different. I think Pleco can make more efficient use of screen real estate. I realise many users have massive screens, but there are also many users like myself who prefer smaller devices that can be operated with one hand.
For example, in the Play Store app when you tap the Search button, the width of the app logo button in the top-left corner is reduced to about 40% of its original size to make room for the search box. I know everyone likes to put their own logo where everyone can see it, but expensive suit tailors always put their logo on the inside. I still propose using the menu button instead of the logo button, perhaps as an option.
Also, here is another idea, you could consider adding swipe left/right motion support to navigate back/forward between the various Pleco pages. When I tap a search result the definition page slides in from the right which sort of lends itself to swipe gestures. AnkiDroid supports this and it works well.
Thank you
That's good news! So where is it going to be? Which leads me to the next point...
Standards are good but every app is different. I think Pleco can make more efficient use of screen real estate. I realise many users have massive screens, but there are also many users like myself who prefer smaller devices that can be operated with one hand.
For example, in the Play Store app when you tap the Search button, the width of the app logo button in the top-left corner is reduced to about 40% of its original size to make room for the search box. I know everyone likes to put their own logo where everyone can see it, but expensive suit tailors always put their logo on the inside. I still propose using the menu button instead of the logo button, perhaps as an option.
Also, here is another idea, you could consider adding swipe left/right motion support to navigate back/forward between the various Pleco pages. When I tap a search result the definition page slides in from the right which sort of lends itself to swipe gestures. AnkiDroid supports this and it works well.
Thank you
@skripp - it might, but developing that would be almost as much work as testing all of these devices - not clear without a lot of testing which settings to try / in which order / etc. I'd rather spend our time optimizing other parts of the system - the vast majority of OCR buyers are using one of a relatively small number of devices, most of which we already own / test on anyway.
@Scoox - thanks! History button will be between the clear and dictionary switch buttons.
Not sure what you mean about the Play Store - the icon seems to be the same size, they just get rid of the "Play Store" text. We are making the icon a bit smaller but we actually want it to be decent-sized to make that button easy to hit; honestly, the only screen where we're actually using the entire width of the action bar is the dictionary search screen, and even on a smaller Android device you should be able to fit 6 characters or 2-3 Pinyin syllables in the search box (and more than that if you turn on the option to shrink text in it).
Slide-to-go-back is actually how everything works on iOS - on that, we only pop out the sidebar with a swipe gesture from a top-level screen - but the Android convention is for swipe gestures to bring out the sidebar everywhere and we're sticking with that for now. We are considering an alternate transition animation, though, since sliding transitions in general aren't very Android-like.
@Scoox - thanks! History button will be between the clear and dictionary switch buttons.
Not sure what you mean about the Play Store - the icon seems to be the same size, they just get rid of the "Play Store" text. We are making the icon a bit smaller but we actually want it to be decent-sized to make that button easy to hit; honestly, the only screen where we're actually using the entire width of the action bar is the dictionary search screen, and even on a smaller Android device you should be able to fit 6 characters or 2-3 Pinyin syllables in the search box (and more than that if you turn on the option to shrink text in it).
Slide-to-go-back is actually how everything works on iOS - on that, we only pop out the sidebar with a swipe gesture from a top-level screen - but the Android convention is for swipe gestures to bring out the sidebar everywhere and we're sticking with that for now. We are considering an alternate transition animation, though, since sliding transitions in general aren't very Android-like.