Beta 4 Feedback Thread

ldolse

状元
Here are a few items of feedback, but I still need to really check out flashcards and the reader. And before you start reading a long list of negatives below I must say that Beta 4 is looking really good. I'm finally starting to feel ok going to it instead of Pleco 1 for definitions. It was really nice the other day to use the 21st century dictionary to look up a word for Chinese colleague that they could read in their language.

  • There is still no white space in the text box left margins of pocketpc - in the text input field you can't see the cursor until you've typed one character, and in the definition field characters run straight into the edge of the screen. I notice that the palm edition has very nice margins in the 2.0 preview page.. :(
  • I was hoping for the smart paste we discussed - i.e. look at how many bytes are in the clipboard and if it's a bunch just go straight into the reader. Right now if it's some large number of bytes nothing at all happens when you paste, which I don't consider a good thing.
  • I don't see any quick way to dump entries from the new chinese only dictionaries straight into the reader. I'm a beginner, but I definitely find these dictionaries valuable as there are som many entries and lengthy definitions. However without a simple way to dump them into the reader they're not particularly convenient for a beginner.
  • The english search doesn't seem to support whitespace characters or punctuation - hence it's impossible to look up many proper names and many other entries which include multiple english words. The 2.0 preview page mentions that most of the simpson's cast of characters are in there - So far this doesn't appear to be true, but this may be because there simply isn't enough flexibility in the search system to find them. This is exacerbated by the next issue, below.
  • The dictionary autoswitches from english to chinese ABC automatically all the time. As soon as you type in something that doesn't match any english entry in the current dictionary - whitespace issue above included, the dictionary autoswitches to ABC, and you can't switch back to english until you've deleted whatever characters offended it. I really don't like autoswitching dictionaries, and auto-switching languages is even worse. In 1.0 there were preferences to control this, 2.0 seems to have fewer options in this department, and the ones which seem applicable are already turned off. Try searching for Bart or Homer Simpson by any way you might order those names, and you'll see the issue pretty quickly.
  • On the subject of preferences - the current dropdown to change panels is really unintuitive to a first time user. The first time I saw this in Beta 1 I thought this was just alpha layout, but I see it hasn't changed. At a minum the drop down needs text next to it that tells you that the purpose of the drop down is panel selection. I'd also recommend doing something else that isolates it more and shows that it's a separate function from the rest of the panel - either move it to the very bottom or very top of the screen, and then perhaps put a line or something which separates it even further from the actual preferences options.
  • The reader does seem really cool now that I've actually been able to use the clipboard with it, also very good idea to include the sample file in the installer. However it still has too many bugs to be easily usable for many text sources - the issue that's blocking me now is that it doesn't seem to support any non-chinese text - I started trying to translate some SMS, which is the biggest reason I want the reader, and it immediately choked on the first comma in the message, and wouldn't allow any further testing.
  • The numbers in the stroke order section really need an alpha channel if you're planning to stick with circles around the numbers - not sure if this is an option, but most fonts have circled numbers in the font, I believe zysong does as well
  • Still don't see a separate way to search Unihan that doesn't require finding the character in another dictionary. I can imagine the unihan definition will also be required for the reader as a definition of last resort for rare characters - not sure if that's supported, though I guess the character info screen can be pulled up from the reader.
  • Going to chime in with the others asking for alternate font support. I've gotten used to using sun-extA in V1 as it's far more complete than ZYSong. It doesn't need to be in the initial 2.0 release, but hope it's not put off forever.
  • Flashcard bug - I tweaked the preferences somehow and the flashcards became completely unusable. I can change preferences and manage cards, but I can't start a session. I deleted everything in the registry except registration, and they still don't work - what do I need to do to make them work? I didn't see a specific registry entry for flashcards stored in the registry, are they stored somewhere else?

Some of these items may be nits - but some of these nits are the types of things that could turn a potential buyer off on purchasing.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
ipsi - unfortunately that converter probably won't be out until 2.0 is done, as with flashcards etc there's still the possibility of a small schema change and we don't want to be locked down to a particular file format until we absolutely have to be.

TroiOi - definitely sounds like a bug then. With bookmarks, we've just killed a couple of bugs in those that between them explain most of the problems people are having (one of them basically made the software think all text files were actually clipboard data and therefore not bookmarkable) so hopefully that should all work well in the next beta.

ldolse - thanks for the detailed bug list. The margins on Palm are actually Palm OS' doing, I believe, but we definitely still need to add something similar on WM. Smart paste I completely forgot about but that definitely is coming - looks like we're going to need another preference panel or two to accommodate all of these missing features. A command to directly dump entries to the reader is a good idea, might have to be punted to 2.1 but we'll see if it can easily be squeezed into the toolbar command list - there was originally going to be an embedded reader palette but we got rid of that since it made the main dictionary interface even more ludicrously complicated than it is now.

The auto-switch feature is very buggy at the moment but if you disable language auto-detect in Preferences that should stop it from bothering you at least - right now it switches to Chinese whenever the query you entered is valid Pinyin but we're going to change it so it only happens if it's Chinese characters or Pinyin with tone numbers. Good point about the preferences switch, but it actually worked that way in 1.0 too on Palm - we switched to it on WM in this version because there were too many panels to easily tab between. There should be some way to make it a little more sensible at least. The stroke numbers we're actually planning to take out altogether since we don't have a good way to position them - just forgot to do this with Beta 4. Unihan-as-dictionary support is definitely coming, it just hasn't yet. Alternate font support probably will have to wait for 2.1.

With the flashcard issue, flashcard profile settings are actually stored in the flashcard database so there's no way to fix them with a registry change. But you don't need to, just create a new profile, switch to it, delete the old profile and then you're back to the default settings - all flashcard settings are tied to a specific profile, the only universal flashcard preferences are the ones set in the Preferences screen (and those are reset with all of the others when you tap on the the Reset to Default Prefs button).
 

ldolse

状元
Thanks, glad to hear it's all under control.

Regarding the command to dump entries straight to the reader - that would be the proper consolation price for losing the built in reader, as you wrote that I realized I'm not getting the original promised ability to easily read all the Chinese only usage examples strewn throughout many dictionaries. Hope you can squeeze that in.

On a related note to that - you may want to update the 2.0 preview page - I was just referencing it and realized it's still promising a number of functions you have since decided to drop.

So I've tested out the searching some more now that language detection is disabled. I see that space is supported, that's a good thing. The one thing I don't see is any sort of fuzzy update of the search for nearest match. Example, if I search for simple, I get results on sim, and simp, but when I type simpl, I get nothing. I'd expect the fuzzy search to go to the first word spelled with simpl, but it doesn't, it just says there aren't any matching results or close matches - but since simpl is a prefix of simple, I think it should show it. That's an overly simplistic example - but I think there are plenty of scenarios where a bit fuzzier search would be useful.

Also, I still can't find any of the Simpson's entries that the 2.0 preview page mentions - where are they??
 

sfrrr

状元
Now that I've finally gotten PD 2b4 working, here are a few of many observations. (Oh, due stay tuned for more. I know you all can't wait.)

I can't get either of the flashcard notifications to work (warn about duplicates and flash an alert or show a dialog when a new flashcard is added). And, yes, I save all changes to the program by using the program's exit command, not by tapping the X in the upper right-hand corner.

I can't figure out how to see each of my flashcard Profiles in list form so I can see which words I've added, which words I/ve added by mistake and want to remove, and... well, I don't know what else. But I would really like to be able to see the entire flashcard set, hence the need for a list as in the Edit function of PD 1's flashcards.

I also can't figure out how to get the popup definition and char info toolbar buttons to work.

And I'd like to see as category button for the toolbar so that I can assign categories as I add flashcards. Otherwise, I'll never use the category function, which is too bad because it adds a whole other layer to searching and makes another way of seeing data.

It appears to me that I can't just make a new user dictionary definition by using the edit tool. When I try to do it that way, it doesn't register in the user dictionary. Or at least, a search fails to turn it up. I must go into custom flashcards and do if from that screen? (If I can ever find it again.)

Also, will the Adso dictionary be updated for PD 2? I miss the vernacular and technical vocab that, in version 1, only Adso has.

As I said somewhere else in this forum, I have a four-inch VGA screen and so have room for two or three more icon-buttons on the toolbar. Any chance of making the scaling a little more flexible?

I'm not sure what the search menu/search function does. Almost everything the program does is a search. Does the separate search function search across all dictionaries? Or across all flashcards? That would be nice. Whatever it's purpose, I can't figure out how to make it work--the interface is a bit too sparse for my imagination, I guess.

Oops. Have to go. More to come.

Sandra
 

ssaito

探花
Glad to see a few of the things I found have already been discussed - save me some keystrokes :)

I haven't seen anyone discuss the buttons yet. I have a joystick on my HTC 8525. The original Plecodict allowed me to use the left-right joystick motions to control the cursor in the character input area (where stuff is typed in). The up-down joystick motions were for going to the next or previous dictionary entries. Currently Beta4 is set so that up-down and left-right both go to next or prev dictionary entry. I'd like to get the left-right control of the cursor back.

Checked into preferences->buttons and tried a few settings, but nothing seemed to work.

Has anyone found a way to get buttons/joystick to control the cursor?

Sandra, what kind of device to you have that has a 4" vga?

Thanks
Steve
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
ldolse - the Simpsons reference isn't to Simpsons characters but to Simpsons guest stars, i.e. famous people like Tony Blair and Stephen Jay Gould who've done guest voices in Simpsons episodes. There were 16 of those when we counted though I think there may even be a few more now.

Aside from the built-in reader reference I think the preview page is pretty accurate at this point; I've been trimming stuff out regularly when it gets cut. Checking it now that's the only thing I see that won't be in the finished 2.0. And I just noticed that fuzzy search bug the other day - I think one of the changes we made for the sake of word matching in the document reader has somehow creeped into regular searches now.

sfrrr - hoo, long list. Flashcard notifications don't work yet, and dictionary switching ones don't work very well - there's a whole complicated thing involving full-screen handwriting recognition and popup list boxes that we have to work out before we can fix those. Flashcard profiles are just sets of flashcard test settings, they share the same pool of cards. To look at / edit all of your cards, just bring up the Manage Flashcards screen and do a search for something generic like a creation date greater than 1/1/00 - we probably should add an "All Cards" search option to that screen for the sake of simplicity though.

The popup definition / char info buttons require you to highlight a character or word to look up; do they still not work if you do that? With the user dictionary, are you sure you're creating the entry in the correct language (ying or zhong character at the bottom of the screen)? Custom flashcards are actually separate from user dictionaries now - we were getting a lot of complaints from people who didn't like having to deal with that "USR" icon and didn't want to keep having their obscure flashcard words / phrases / etc coming up in search results. You can still create a flashcard based on a user dictionary entry, but if you create a custom definition through the flashcard system or an import that definition will be stored with your flashcards rather than in the user dictionary.

Adso will indeed be updated for 2.0. I suppose since the icons don't take up the whole space anyway we might be able to allow more than 10 buttons on a portrait Pocket PC display - not sure how many people would use it that way, though, we're already about at the limit of what most people can reliably hit with a stylus. The search button function is for people whose Palms are slow enough that they don't want to have the software search automatically at all, but only search when they tap that button - probably not that important now that we're requiring Palm OS 5 anyway, but I know if I take the option out a dozen people will immediately write me to ask why. Maybe we could at least bury it a bit more deeply in the preferences panel so people don't put it in accidentally without knowing what it does.

ssaito - we couldn't get the navigation button preferences screen working in time for Beta 4, so we threw in some temporary controls that at least allow you to page between entries, but in Beta 5 you'll be able to select exactly what each button direction does and will be able to use it to control the cursor as you could in 1.0.
 

sfrrr

状元
Shoot--I thought I had put my PDAs in my sig. Sorry. I have an Axim x51v running WM5, which is now a backup, and an iPAQ 211, which is running WM6 and has, among other things, a 4" VGA screen. To understate the obvious, I'm quite taken with it.

Sandra
 

chinacry

Member
Great release! Its fast and stable!
Couple thoughts:

1.Can the d-pad (left, right, up, down) be used to scroll the cursor through the text input. Maybe use left/right for input, up/down to scroll through
definitions. Right now, all four directions go through definitions and my clumsy thumbs get in the way when I need to edit my pinyin input. The same would be nice if we could use left/right to scroll the reader as well.

2. Can u put a link on Pop up definition to bring up character info for the current selection? You know how its easy to look up a definition and want to see the definition of a definition. :) That might be asking a lot, but it would basically allow lookups to continually move forward in seamless fashion without going back and remembering what you wanting to lookup and re-entering it into the main screen.

3. I set Pleco to grab the clipboard info and copy it to the input field on startup. Once it grabbed about 1000 characters that i planned on copying into the reader and that crashed pleco. I couldn't delete/clear them from the clipboard and it eventually just locked. Maybe this could add an string check and only grab the first 5-10 characters? I can't imagine more being needed for a lookup. This is minor, but one line of code should do it. The issue is that the reader will make copying large texts more likely.

4. When Pleco loaded my keyfile, it gave a message saying that 'not all the dictionaries purchased by my license were available.' Or something like that. Is there anything out there that I might have purchased that didn't come in beta release?

5. Changing up Landscape and Portrait toolbars didn't work at all. The toolbar buttons disappear, except for one. I'm sure this has already been discussed and probably never fully implemented.

Thanks for the hard work!
 

ipsi

状元
1) This is addressed two posts up (and probably several times before) - it's just not implemented yet.

3) I imagine this will be addressed. I think Mike's said he will, but not so far.

5) Yeah, I think they have a few issues with that, but it should be tidied up by (hopefully) B5, or at least when the finished version comes out.
 

chinacry

Member
Zhuangyuan,

I was busy today and didn't read all the posts thoroughly before commenting. I appreciate you relieving of some of the tedious replies. That guy works too hard. This community has a lot of good ideas.
 

ipsi

状元
My user name is ipsi - Zhuangyuan is just the title you get for having over, I think, 225 posts. You'll get the title Xiucai when you reach 10 posts. Look them up in Pleco to see what they mean :).

EDIT: There's also 4 or 5 other zhuangyuans around, so I was confused there for a second :).

Anyway, fair enough. There's not enough time for everything. And Mike works very hard. Though as I think I said, he's in China at the moment. Not sure when he gets back. Despite that, he still checks in once a day or so. :D
 
I also miss the icon to toggle font size; if it were to come back, it would be good if it could, through a drop-down menu, toggle the size of Headwords, words Lists etc.
The main thing is that it is fast enough now to be usable.
Would it be too much to ask if, as in the Reader, one could select one/two characters, to get the beginning of a definition in any other dictionary, without losing the main page/screen. This would be very useful for advanced learners, trying to use the Chinese Monolingual dictionary.

Also, could the last prefs be saved so that in case of a crash (soft reset) the time spent on choosing favourite icons would not be wasted; with every soft reset, all the prefs are lost, I have given up trying to customize icons. :p
 
Chinacry,
I had the same problem (reply posted in the bug thread report). Basically, you must use the keyfile from the Webpage not the one in the email. You also have to delete all the prefs files with a utility such as FileZ (google it). You'll find it easy with FileZ, the creator of the prefs is listed (PlecoEngine)
 

sfrrr

状元
Mike-- thanks for the explanations and reassurances. A couple of more:

With the PD's input set-up, there is no back space. The little eraser with the arrow (on the keyboard) does nothing at all on the iPAQ 211 with WM6, and the big eraser erases one character or one letter (rather than the whole input box) only if you highlight the target/s before tapping the eraser icon. I don't know about anyone else, but I need a functioning backspace.

Also, I find that PD 2b4 tires easily and starts giving me empty pages, usually with the interface but no content, but occasionally just completely blank pages. Not troublesome. I just exit, give it a minute and then launch PD again. Just wanted you to know that your program may have the speed of a fourteen-year-old runner, but the stamina and endurance of my 94-year-old mother.

Still more to come.

I don't think I've ever told you: I love this version. I love it. I love it. Such power, such flexibility, such Chinese!

Sandra
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
chinacry - good idea on #2, I do worry a bit about interface clutter but given how cluttered the rest of the interface is it's probably a little too late to start fretting about that. #3 definitely needs to be fixed, and should indeed be a 1-line type thing. With #4, I'm not quite sure but maybe you forgot the audio files? Or one of the dictionaries didn't install due to lack of memory?

ipsi - thanks for answering all of these. I'm still working in China, actually, it's not so much a vacation as a change of scenery - still writing code and I just sent off updated drafts for three new license agreements. The actual vacation won't come until after 2.0 and the inevitable 2.0.1 are out the door and will probably be in a place where (most of) the local population doesn't speak Chinese.

hleperlier - good idea, but I don't know if even I can justify putting a built-in document reader *in* the built-in document reader - I do, however, have a note to add an "Include in Reader" option in the dictionary management screen so that people can disable the C-C dictionary in the reader but still have it in the main dictionary screen. The preferences should be saved if you exit and then reopen PlecoDict after changing them.

sfrrr - thanks! Not sure what's going on with the backspace, this is another one of those bugs-which-was-fixed-the-day-before-Beta-4-came-out but I'm pretty sure I checked it on WM6. I've seen a little of that empty page problem here too, it looks like the font system isn't correctly reopening its files after Windows randomly closes them (which it has a habit of doing - it used to only happen when you put the device to sleep but now it can happen almost anytime) - should be easy to fix since the rest of Pleco already handles these file problems correctly.
 

roddy

秀才
Has anyone done much flashcard work with Beta 4? I gave flashcards a shot with B3, but at some point it just stopped working, couldn't start a new session. It's flashcard issues more than anything else that has stopped me using the betas. I'm on an HTC Touch if it makes any odds . . .
 

TroiOi

秀才
I don't know if anyone here can use flashcard features? I can do review mode flashcard but I cannot do flashcard in Stroke Order mode neither Speaking mode. Every time I try it, it will crash and ResetDoctor show error in Emu68K....

My device is Treo 650.
 
Palm TX / 4GB card

1. the colour for tones does not work in Guifan, not really sure why.

2. big sqare sticks used to draw TC characters in the Character stroke pop-up. Upsetting for non-Pleco addict in view of the instant comparison with the SC (or the TC that have no SC form), which so much nicer

3. far form obvious how to make the character results (from a whole screen character writing) appear at the bottom with the green button for on/off whole screen drawing. Sometimes it disappears and the only way to make it appear again is to tap the Palm lower right for general menu buttons on and off. An arrow (up or down) toggle to switch between full screen or boxes character drawing would seem to me to be essential as in 1.3.

4. Can't make the characters bigger in definitions even in prefs (as mentioned before a size toggle as in 1.3 would be nice)

5. Many new features are really useful, but why get rid of many buttons etc from 1.3. Was there a choice to be made in memory and programming.

6. More a bug report. If only 15% battery power remain, you can still work in 1.3 but in 2.0beta4 you get an instant automatic (wished some things would not be automatic :mrgreen: ) soft reset. No way around it, It did it every single time.

7 the search function in English needs full words for many words to appear:it seems it will make the word appear only if the word partly types exists as a full word: e.g. if I type Dubl, it does not show me Dublin, but gets hung at "Dubayy;" if I countinue with "Dubli," i still get "Dubayy" as the last word on the list of words I have to type the full "Dublin" for a translation. I have tried to change prefs with no success. Maybe I missed something

Wait! it IS a very good dictionary, the dictionaries such as Guifan, 21st are way beyond anything I have used. Especially seeing how easy it can search in all the dictionaries, Other electronic dictionaries are left behind in biting their electronic static. I don't use much the recordings but they are so clear compared to any electronically generated voice.

Last but not least, Under Dublin I also find the translation for Baile Atha Cliath into Chinese (the Irish language word for Dublin); being an Irish speaker I can't express how happy it makes me (well it should be "Átha" with a sineadh fada on the Á, but I won't be a begrudger. :wink:
 

ldolse

状元
Some more feedback:

Character Info
  • All three tabs seem to have a hardcoded layout for landscape and square screens. I can't claim I know this for certain, but I have a strong suspicion that the majority of users are using portrait. A portrait specific view would be particularly nice for 'show all details' and compounds.
  • Most of the info from Unihan is not particularly useful for the vast majority of users. Having three separate dropdowns allowing choices of all of these options confuses the interface and appears to be buggy, not remembering the selection. If I look through the list of options, there are only a handful that I see useful to all users all the time: Definition, Mandarin, Radical, and Strokes. A significant minority of users may want access to the alternate pronunciations for other languages and Grade Level. The other details are not ever useful for nearly all users. My thinking is that the all the time options can be handled by hardcoded fields instead of dropdowns. Then just leave a single dropdown for the user to select a separate field that is of interest to their studies. This would clean up the interface significantly.
  • Would rather see radical on the main tab instead of the stroke order tab - stroke count could be removed as an option from this tab as it's included as a necessary part of stroke order.
  • Minor, Would prefer if Stroke order begins playing as soon as I click the tab.
  • The 'slow' option is too fast for stroke order playback, also seems to me to be just extra interface clutter to allow users to select a speed.
  • Minor, would prefer outline as default option
  • When accessing char info from the flashcards writing test would prefer if it launched the Stroke order tab as the primary item.
  • Definition as it currently functions can't handle line wrapping. There is a single line of space, the second line wraps right over top of the first line.
  • Would like to see Unicode code point for completeness, and it's something I sometimes need to find a character in Windows that I don't know how to type in the Windows IME.

Context Menu
A Tap and Hold context menu specifically to bring up a cut/copy/paste menu was one of the promised features of 2.0, noticed it wasn't there yet the other day. Since there are some other features discussed recently that have yet to be implemented, this could be a way to implement them, discussed below.

Pop up Defs and Char info, stylus handling
I just discovered Pop Up definitions, very cool! However getting this to work with Char Info and highlighting/tapping is difficult. There may be some bugs in this area yet, not sure. I also see several options in the preferences for coming up with ways to handle this, but I think one of the best options might be to enhance the context menu mentioned for copy/paste above.
  • In preferences, under stylus actions, 'Definition Tap' only covers tapping a single, unhighlighted character. It doesn't work for tapping either single or multiple highlighted characters. The only thing covering highlighted characters is 'tap and hold'. Ideally I'd like to highlight a set of characters, and just tap once to bring up a pop up def. Tap and hold would bring up a context menu. In the case of a single character whether I highlighted or not shouldn't matter - but right now it appears to need to be NOT highlighted in order for a single tap to work.
  • A context sensitive option to send a whole entry to the reader would be cool - this could eliminate the need to create yet another button as discussed before. Probably makes more sense to do this on the list view or headword from a context perspective
  • Chinese Pop Up definitions always default to the same dictionary that you're currently in - I think I'd prefer something like remember the last dictionary used. Basically I don't ever want GuiFan to pop up more GuiFan definitions. I don't think more preferences are required here - but if it alwas remembers the last dict used across all dictionaries there shouldn't be a problem.

Flash Cards, User Dict
I still need to work with this system some more, just a couple points here
  • This is a bug, but 2.0 added all sorts of crazy pinyin into my flashcard entries from an import text file that I've used many times in 1.0. One example: 今天's pinyin became junatinga.
  • The definitions from imported flashcards in 1.0 used to go into the user dictionary. This doesn't seem to be the case in 2.0. This was a great way to add entries into the user dictionary, as well as archive them. I don't see a good way to do this in 2.0, and even if the new SQL lite option is more stable I'd like to have the ability to have a text export of the user dict.
  • I'd like to see a preferences option (better yet default setting) to move the flashcards (and user dict) to the storage card for 2.0. The one time I tried this in the undocumented method on 1.0 my flashcards were corrupted, and I've since lost my flashcards and user dict because of a variety of hard resets (non pleco related). If the default location was the storage card this all would have been avoided.
 

sfrrr

状元
Sorry I haven't cited the author of each paragraph.

7. the search function in English needs full words for many words to appear:it seems it will make the word appear only if the word partly types exists as a full word: e.g. if I type Dubl, it does not show me Dublin, but gets hung at "Dubayy;" if I countinue with "Dubli," i still get "Dubayy" as the last word on the list of words I have to type the full "Dublin" for a translation. I have tried to change prefs with no success. Maybe I missed something.

Happens to me too.

*Most of the info from Unihan is not particularly useful for the vast majority of users. Having three separate dropdowns allowing choices of all of these options confuses the interface and appears to be buggy, not # Minor, Would prefer if Stroke order begins playing as soon as I click the tab.

Me too.

# The 'slow' option is too fast for stroke order playback, also seems to me to be just extra interface clutter to allow users to select a speed.

I find the slow option slooow.

#Minor, would prefer outline as default option

Oh, god, no.

Sandra
 
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