I've been playing around with the different Cantonese search options (I currently use Pleco for both Mandarin and Cantonese).
In Pleco 3, my solution was to have a "Cantonese" dictionary group which included the following dictionaries:
- Works.hk Cantonese
- ABC Cantonese
- CCCanto
- Guangzhouhua-Putonghua
- Guangzhouhua Fangyan Cidian
I turned off the default Cantonese search group as I didn't want the Mandarin dictionaries included.
I then controlled my search by clicking on the convenient "dictionary group switcher".
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In Pleco 4 (trying to use only the non-advanced settings), I setup a Cantonese dictionary group, but don't see any way to use it in the search.
I discovered that I had the "Legacy search screen interface" setting on, which I didn't intend to (though I may have switched it on at one point)? I like this off because of the large dictionary switchers visible when it's off. I noticed that while my iPhone has 4 search types (Chinese, English, All Mand..., Cantonese), iPad only has 2 (Chinese, English). Not sure if this is due to my settings.
Ideally I'd love to see: "Chinese | English | Mandarin | Cantonese" (where Cantonese is Cantonese only dictionaries). Perhaps the default could be "Chinese | English", and then if a user downloads at least one Cantonese dictionary, it could split out to the 4 options?
With the current settings (ordering the dictionary results intelligently based on if the input is detected as Mandarin or Cantonese), I find it's a bit of a mixed bag. For example, entering "fuk" will show Mandarin results, but I was hoping for Cantonese (though I get that mind-reading is hard!). But this could be a non-issue if it was easy to switch/filter out the results as per the previous paragraph.
As an idea for the Search settings, I'd personally find it super useful to have a "Ignore a/aa Cantonese differences" (mainly because I find these super tough to hear the difference). But that might be silly; it could be I just need to train my ear better.
Would it be possible to know what the "Detect patterns" search option does?