Beta 3b Released

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
After 3 months of hard work, we're finally ready to release Pleco for Android Beta 3.

With this release, our Android software now includes pretty much every major feature from our Palm/WM/iOS software; however, we're still in the process of coming up with a nifty new interface skin and making some other interface refinements, and there are still lots of bugs to fix / awkward areas to clean up, so while functionality-wise this should be pretty close to our finished app, there are likely to be a couple more minor beta releases ahead as we work out some of those other items.


HOW TO GET IT:

Download the latest APK file by entering:

pleco.com/getandroid

into your device's web browser.


NOTES FOR UPDATERS:

1) Data file locations have changed in this version, which should greatly improve startup times but also means that Pleco will lose track of your previously installed files.

It'll download updated data files automatically from our server, so you don't need to do anything with those. (and probably shouldn't) However, if you've created flashcards, you'll want to move them to somewhere where Pleco can find them. The default directory for flashcards now is:

Code:
(external SD card)/Android/data/com.pleco.chinesesystem/files/databases

The easiest way to do this is probably to install the new version, let it create a new blank flashcard database in that location, exit it, kill it running in the background (via Settings / Applications), then copy your old database into that location to replace the new one; that way you can be sure it's in the correct location.

If the internet connection on your phone is spotty or slow or you find that add-on data files come down at an unacceptable speed, you can download the entire 600 MB collection of add-ons at:

http://www.pleco.com/plecodroid-datafiles-110910.zip
http://www.pulike.com/plecodroid-datafiles-110910.zip (Hong Kong mirror, faster for China)

Unzip that file, and copy it into the root directory of your external SD card (or mimic that folder structure) - that'll put the files where Pleco expects them. You can delete any files you don't actually want via the Pleco "Add-ons" screen.


2) The registration system changed slightly, so you'll get a prompt on startup telling you your registration is invalid and offering to re-fetch it from our server; say "Yes" and it'll do that for you. (we've reset everyone's license to allow you to do that even if you've changed devices recently)


Beta 3 Changes

Marquee Features

  • Added a full-fledged flashcard system; we've implemented pretty much every feature from our Palm/WM/iOS versions of it now, with the exception of a couple of minor user interface items we're still trying to sort out a good strategy for.
  • Added support for user dictionaries; create them via Settings / Dictionary / Manage Dictionaries and add / edit / delete entries from the main dictionary search screen (a button will appear at the bottom to let you add them when you're viewing a user dictionary, and you can tap-hold on existing user dictionary entries to edit / delete them).
  • Fleshed out the document reader module to support large text files (which it now opens extremely quickly) and bookmarks. Bookmarks should persist even when files are moved around.
  • Switched to downloading all of our data files in-app, greatly simplifying installation; you'll be prompted to download a few on launch, and others can be downloaded through the "Add-ons" menu item. (this also brings a dramatic improvement in startup time since now our data files are all in one consistent place)
  • Added a preliminary version of our new "merged multi-dict" search system for Chinese-English dictionary searches; this can be enabled via Settings / Dictionary / Search settings / Result display. The interface is very temporary (primary development is happening on iOS and we're still tweaking it on that) but for now it basically acts like an extra dictionary; you switch to it like any other C-E dictionary, after which typing in a character or Pinyin search (mixed is fine and user dicts are supported, but no wildcards) will give you a merged list of results from every dictionary, *sorted by frequency*; you can switch between specific dictionaries' entries on the separate dictionary entry display screen. There's no good UI for this in our combined results + definition screen yet (though it's in the works), so for now it's only recommended on smartphones in portrait mode.

Other Interesting Changes

  • Added a "Quick Input Bar" option, which puts HWR/Rad/Key/Vox/OCR buttons at the bottom of the screen when the keyboard is closed to let you very quickly jump into looking up a new word using your desired input method. Settings / Dictionary / Main screen interface.
  • Added an experimental "Clipboard Monitor" option which (if Pleco is left open in the background) continuously monitors the system clipboard for changes and, when it does change, pops up Pleco with a definition of the selected text. This is useful when you plan to look up a lot of text in another app and can't easily get it all into our document reader (either because it's too long or because it's distributed between too many little files); just copy the text and you'll get a Pleco definition for it. Enable this via Settings / General.
  • The history screen now includes a "Flashcards" tab, showing a list of the most recent few hundred added or modified (new category, changed text, etc) flashcards.
  • The flashcard icon now changes to indicate that a word is in flashcards; you can also get these icons to appear in the results list via Settings / Dictionary / Main screen interface / Show flash status.
  • OCR now includes a "Scroll rec area" command for still images, which locks the recognition area to the page rather than floating above it, useful for recognizing big blocks of documents at once and then zooming in to view individual characters. It also includes a "Send to reader" command which sends the currently recognized text to the document reader (which has a "save" menu command to let you save it).
  • Added support for custom Chinese font files; put a Chinese font file (TTF) in:

    Code:
    (external SD card)/Android/data/com.pleco.chinesesystem/files/fonts/chinese

    and restart Pleco and it'll use that font to render Chinese characters, except in few areas of the UI where variations in font style / rendering size cause too many problems.
  • Added support for storing Pleco's data files in an internal SD card or an arbitrary location instead of an external SD card. Go to Settings / General / Startup / File storage location, and set it to either:

    /mnt/sdcard: it'll put them in /mnt/sdcard/Android/data/com.pleco.chinesesystem/files/, which should mean the internal SD card on most Android devices.

    Custom: it'll put them in the exact directory you specify in "custom location."

    After setting it how you want it, exit Pleco (kill it in the background), move the entire directory structure from (external SD card)/Android/data/com.pleco.chinesesystem/files/ to that new location, then reopen Pleco. We've been pretty careful about designing this to avoid startup failure errors, so if you put them in the wrong place or you accidentally set the directory to somewhere Pleco can't access then it should revert to the default storage location so that you can move your files back there and try again.
  • Added "Unknown Word Handling" options for flashcard creation in the document reader and OCR screens; changing the setting for this will let you tell Pleco to automatically create a new custom flashcard or custom dictionary entry (brings up the form for doing so with the characters pre-filled) when you tap on the + button with an OCR'ed or highlighted word that isn't in any installed dictionary.
  • Added a live OCR "Pulse Mode" option; with this on, instead of recognizing continuously it'll only recognize when you tap on a button at the bottom of the screen (not while it's held down, just one frame after it's tapped), useful if you find that OCR is too jittery / changes too often for your tastes.
  • Added live OCR options to hide the green candidate characters and to default to macro focus mode.
  • Made the document reader a "send to" recipient for textual data, and the OCR system a "send to" recipient for images.
  • Made handwriting input significantly smoother (we think) and made the default stroke size narrower.
  • Added an option to lock the popup reader "bubble" to the bottom of the screen in the document reader.
  • Popup reader is now dismissed when you press the back button.
  • Character Info Details fields can now be removed by tapping on them (instead of the awkward swiping gesture they used before).
  • Search button brings you back to the main dictionary search screen from the definition screen.
  • Tap-holding the add-to-flash button in the popup reader now pops up a category selection list just as in other screens.
  • OCR should (hopefully) work better on devices with wacky camera orientations.
  • You should no longer need to re-register Pleco when changing SIM cards.
  • The default font sizes on small tablets should no longer be quite so comically large.
  • Full-text search words are now highlighted in results, but for performance reasons this currently only works if the word appears in the first few lines of the entry.
  • Moved the Character Set command to Settings to reduce the odds of it being triggered by accident (a surprisingly common occurrence both on Android and iOS).

Bug Fixes

Too many to type up in user-friendly form, but we fixed almost every bug reported so far, except that we're still not sure about one specific OCR bug (causing the system to fail to recognize anything until you go into and out of Settings) and there are are a couple of handwriting-related ones we couldn't reproduce either.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Re: Beta 3 Released

We've just updated this to Beta 3b with some urgent bug fixes, so if you downloaded it before this message was posted please download it again. (same link)
 

leynux

举人
hi,

any ongoing manual/guide on how to use this Beta, or is it almost the same with other platform so we can refer to?
 

tbnews2

Member
Hi Mike:

Is 21 Century E-C still included in the $99 Android bundle? For me it remains in the paid column on the app. (I remember seeing it listed as part of the professional bundle here: http://www.pleco.com/store/product.php? ... t=4&page=1 )

I have the latest release (2.3b3b) and am using a Thunderbolt. I tried going to "Manage Registration" and checking for new purchases -- no luck.

Thanks.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
tbnews2 said:
Is 21 Century E-C still included in the $99 Android bundle? For me it remains in the paid column on the app. (I remember seeing it listed as part of the professional bundle here: http://www.pleco.com/store/product.php? ... t=4&page=1 )

I have the latest release (2.3b3b) and am using a Thunderbolt. I tried going to "Manage Registration" and checking for new purchases -- no luck.

Yes, it's still included - PM or email me with your Registration ID and I can investigate further.
 

jamesquek

举人
After upgrading to Beta 3b, the field for Cangjie becomes blank while others seemed in tact. Is it a matter of copying an existing data file into the right directory to solve the problem. Please advise.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
jamesquek said:
After upgrading to Beta 3b, the field for Cangjie becomes blank while others seemed in tact. Is it a matter of copying an existing data file into the right directory to solve the problem. Please advise.

This is a bug which should be fixed in Beta 4. In the meantime, download the extended Unihan database from:

http://d26r4pfa6wznjb.cloudfront.net/pa2unihan-extended-110801.zip

Unzip that file, then copy the two files inside of it into the /Android/data/com.pleco.chinesesystem/bmodules/1/50554E49 folder on your SD card, deleting the two files that are already in that folder. (make sure Pleco isn't running in the background when you do this)
 
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