2.0 Status Update
- Thread starter mikelove
- Start date
Have you tried the "instant access" feature, which allows you use Pleco for lookup when you are in another program like a doc reader. To use it, you would highlight the word with your stylus and activate "instant access." A small pop-up plecodict would appear with the definition. At that point you have the option of clicking on the "plus" icon to add the word to your flashcard list.
At least that's how it works on the Palm. It's described in the manual. PocketPC may be different.
See this thread:
viewtopic.php?t=755&highlight=instant+access
instant access on pocket pc
Thanks Gato. Though that is not quite was I was talking about.
I cannot say for sure what Shadowdh is thinking, but I was more interested in a list of words that I had previously set aside (put into a list) so that I could later review them. This would be just like I currently do by hand with my little memo pad, but instead it would be on Plecodict. Currently at the end of the day, not only do I go through my paper and Plecodict flashcards, but I also go over my wordlist of words that I thought were important enough to put into a separate list for review.
Darrol
I cannot say for sure what Shadowdh is thinking, but I was more interested in a list of words that I had previously set aside (put into a list) so that I could later review them. This would be just like I currently do by hand with my little memo pad, but instead it would be on Plecodict. Currently at the end of the day, not only do I go through my paper and Plecodict flashcards, but I also go over my wordlist of words that I thought were important enough to put into a separate list for review.
Darrol
Hi!
I still don't know how to "hover" on a Pocket PC. On the desktop I think hovering is to move your mouse over the word.
I know about instant access - even I do not use.
I also think that hairywhatever (SCNR) could get what he wants by setting up a Flashcard list for the day. Then you can just add the words that you would be interested in later.
Everything else would be like the same thing but a different list which sounds confusing to me (maybe you do not even get how I mean that
). Maybe it should be easier to add words to a chosen list instead of default - meaning the "default" list could be changed easier and quickly temporarily.
And I think the solution of adding all words that you ever lookup was discussed earlier and as I remember was promised to be put in PD 2.0 (?) even though I thinnk only really sofisticated chinese learners will really profit from that ...
regards
Daniel
I still don't know how to "hover" on a Pocket PC. On the desktop I think hovering is to move your mouse over the word.
I know about instant access - even I do not use.
I also think that hairywhatever (SCNR) could get what he wants by setting up a Flashcard list for the day. Then you can just add the words that you would be interested in later.
Everything else would be like the same thing but a different list which sounds confusing to me (maybe you do not even get how I mean that
). Maybe it should be easier to add words to a chosen list instead of default - meaning the "default" list could be changed easier and quickly temporarily.And I think the solution of adding all words that you ever lookup was discussed earlier and as I remember was promised to be put in PD 2.0 (?) even though I thinnk only really sofisticated chinese learners will really profit from that ...
regards
Daniel
Yeah, we dropped the add-every-word-you-look-up-to-a-flashcard-list idea when we realized that 1) it would slow things way down and 2) it could potentially burn up tons of storage space.
Interesting discussion, but in general I think we have this pretty well covered with the Add to Flash toolbar button. It actually is already pretty easy to add to a list other than Default, just tap-hold the stylus on that button for a second or two and a little pop-up list will come up that lets you choose which flashcard list to add the word to.
As far as hovering over characters, in 2.0 simply tapping on a character will (optionally) bring it up in a pop-up window allowing you to add it to flashcards or view more details on it (stroke order, etc) in the new Character Info screen. There's also an add to flash button in the on-screen definition/reader window that will let you add easily add a selected multi-character word to flashcards.
Interesting discussion, but in general I think we have this pretty well covered with the Add to Flash toolbar button. It actually is already pretty easy to add to a list other than Default, just tap-hold the stylus on that button for a second or two and a little pop-up list will come up that lets you choose which flashcard list to add the word to.
As far as hovering over characters, in 2.0 simply tapping on a character will (optionally) bring it up in a pop-up window allowing you to add it to flashcards or view more details on it (stroke order, etc) in the new Character Info screen. There's also an add to flash button in the on-screen definition/reader window that will let you add easily add a selected multi-character word to flashcards.
mikelove said:
YES! This is a great idea. I would like to have some form of setting or toggle for this behavior.
1) pops it up so I can read it and if I tap anywhere else or press any buttons, the pop-up disappears.
2) when I tap on a character, it'll follow it like a web browser follows links. (Would be nice to step back and forward), but if I could just go to a word and then back to what I was looking at easy enough that would be fine.
gato - actually it is mentioned in the tutorial, 3rd paragraph under "Flashcards" on page 22 in the Palm version and first paragraph on page 32 in the Pocket PC version. The biggest support problem we get with that button is actually people finding it but not being able to find any other part of the flashcard system, since the rest of it is only accessible through the menu bar, and that's something which should be fixed by the new Menu button in 2.0.
Smoodo - interesting idea to let tapping on characters optionally invoke a Copy to Input instead of just popping up the definition in a separate window; not sure if this is something we'll put in the first beta but I'll add it to the (very long) list of glitches/ideas/things-to-think-about.
goulniky - actually we're planning to release the new dictionaries along with the first beta, which is at least a small part of the reason why it's taking so long to go from almost-finished to finished. They may get held up for approval from the publishers, in which case we'd still have to release the beta without them, but hopefully they'd be OK'ed to release within a few weeks after that, so there's at least a decent shot they'd be out in early October even if there was an issue with publisher approval.
Smoodo - interesting idea to let tapping on characters optionally invoke a Copy to Input instead of just popping up the definition in a separate window; not sure if this is something we'll put in the first beta but I'll add it to the (very long) list of glitches/ideas/things-to-think-about.
goulniky - actually we're planning to release the new dictionaries along with the first beta, which is at least a small part of the reason why it's taking so long to go from almost-finished to finished. They may get held up for approval from the publishers, in which case we'd still have to release the beta without them, but hopefully they'd be OK'ed to release within a few weeks after that, so there's at least a decent shot they'd be out in early October even if there was an issue with publisher approval.
thanks Mike, brilliant. I'll be leaving for 上海 on Oct.4 but I'll take my laptop so I'll still be able to download stuff (also going to CeBit-Asia) I was also thinking, if haven't sold my UX50 by then, I guess I could run both versions in parallel as I still have this dual license :lol: bad news is I'm gonna loose it when I get rid of this Palm device but then it's been gathering dust and for almost a year, fully hardware reset by now.
I read the manual pretty thoroughly and I missed that feature as well. Guess it was just too much all at once when first learning how to use the product.
I must say, I too would love to see the pop up context menu for highlighted characters/words having a copy to input field button in it.
Cheers Mike, you have nearly reached the top of your hill on this current phase of the PlecoDict 2.0 project, and what better way to celebrate it then your upcoming return trip to Asia . . .
Darrol
I must say, I too would love to see the pop up context menu for highlighted characters/words having a copy to input field button in it.
Cheers Mike, you have nearly reached the top of your hill on this current phase of the PlecoDict 2.0 project, and what better way to celebrate it then your upcoming return trip to Asia . . .
Darrol
goulniky - Well the UX50 does have its benefits, it's unlikely we'll see any other legacy Palms in that UMPC-like form factor since nowadays people would want a more powerful OS in a device like that.
hairyleprechaun - Thanks! It's been pretty grueling, yeah - after this ground-up rewrite I don't think we're going to be doing anything else this dramatic for a while. Particularly on Palm OS I'm really not sure if it was worth the effort; the Pocket PC version has enough serious flaws that it probably needed to be done over anyway, but if we'd stuck with the old code base on Palm we could have still done 90% of the new features we're about to release but they would have been ready 6 months ago.
There actually isn't a context menu for words at all, just one for single characters; basically a couple of buttons show up next to the zoomed-in character that let you pull up the character info screen or add the character to flashcards. I suppose it might make sense to add a pop-up menu for highlighted text on Pocket PC, since they're built in to the OS, but I don't really like those menus in general and I'm not sure I want to inflict them on Palm users.
hairyleprechaun - Thanks! It's been pretty grueling, yeah - after this ground-up rewrite I don't think we're going to be doing anything else this dramatic for a while. Particularly on Palm OS I'm really not sure if it was worth the effort; the Pocket PC version has enough serious flaws that it probably needed to be done over anyway, but if we'd stuck with the old code base on Palm we could have still done 90% of the new features we're about to release but they would have been ready 6 months ago.
There actually isn't a context menu for words at all, just one for single characters; basically a couple of buttons show up next to the zoomed-in character that let you pull up the character info screen or add the character to flashcards. I suppose it might make sense to add a pop-up menu for highlighted text on Pocket PC, since they're built in to the OS, but I don't really like those menus in general and I'm not sure I want to inflict them on Palm users.
Ah . . .
Well, I am sure glad that you made the decision to put out the extra effort. Being that I am a Pocket PC user of your product, I will seriously appreciate the performance/stability improvements.
As for the "add to flashcards", "copy to input field", and other buttons you are adding, when zooming in on a character, I had just assumed that it would be for highlighted characters or words, and by using context menus, as is standard with the pocket PC's.
The feature would be extremely convienent, especially for us advanced users who will be using the Chinese - Chinese dictionary most of the time but will still be needing to copy to the input field a lot to check words against the ABC dictionary.
Though I would prefer to use the context menu on highlighted text, out of curiosity, would it be possible to do the same thing with the buttons when zoomed in on a multi-character word as well as when zoomed in on a single character word?
Well, I am sure glad that you made the decision to put out the extra effort. Being that I am a Pocket PC user of your product, I will seriously appreciate the performance/stability improvements.
As for the "add to flashcards", "copy to input field", and other buttons you are adding, when zooming in on a character, I had just assumed that it would be for highlighted characters or words, and by using context menus, as is standard with the pocket PC's.
The feature would be extremely convienent, especially for us advanced users who will be using the Chinese - Chinese dictionary most of the time but will still be needing to copy to the input field a lot to check words against the ABC dictionary.
Though I would prefer to use the context menu on highlighted text, out of curiosity, would it be possible to do the same thing with the buttons when zoomed in on a multi-character word as well as when zoomed in on a single character word?
Well yes, a rewrite on Pocket PC was pretty much always in the cards, it was just a question of whether or not to carry all of those changes over to Palm as well - the flashcard database system alone took several weeks to get working on Palm, so there's an argument to be made that since the old system was actually pretty darn stable on Palm at least it might not have been worth the effort to roll out the new one.
Good point about the C-C dictionary, that's a pretty strong argument for a context menu. Multi-character zoom is actually going away on Pocket PC; you can get the same functionality with the pop-up entry toolbar button (so you highlight a piece of text and bring up the corresponding dictionary entry in a popup window with the headword magnified), but since we're now using our own text field control, we've been able to implement the same tap-on-a-character-to-magnify-it functionality on Pocket PC that we're already using on Palm.
Incidentally, a re-check of the license agreements for the two new dictionaries has established that we don't actually need either publisher's approval before we release them publicly, so it's pretty much certain that they'll both be included in the first beta.
Good point about the C-C dictionary, that's a pretty strong argument for a context menu. Multi-character zoom is actually going away on Pocket PC; you can get the same functionality with the pop-up entry toolbar button (so you highlight a piece of text and bring up the corresponding dictionary entry in a popup window with the headword magnified), but since we're now using our own text field control, we've been able to implement the same tap-on-a-character-to-magnify-it functionality on Pocket PC that we're already using on Palm.
Incidentally, a re-check of the license agreements for the two new dictionaries has established that we don't actually need either publisher's approval before we release them publicly, so it's pretty much certain that they'll both be included in the first beta.