Early Access to Early Access Dictionaries
- Thread starter mikelove
- Start date
Tried those before I asked the first time. I just don't see how it works for the android device after GHYDCD has been purchased on iOS. I've registered my android device (it shows up on the 'orders.php' page), and like I said, the other purchased items were downloaded to the android device just fine; GHYDCD, however, doesn't show up in the 'Purchased Add-ons:' list (but I guess I expected that). But when I download GHYDCD, and install it from the zip file on the android device what I get is just the demo version. Sorry for being dense.
tianma81 said:
Thanks! (though this is just an appetizer, the main course is still coming...)
We're going to decide about other specialized dictionaries once we see how things go with the few we've already licensed - in general it's something we'd like to do, but it's expensive / complicated enough to license and convert a new dictionary that we need to be reasonably confident that it will sell well.
Updated version of GHYDCD with much more carefully checked headwords / Pinyin and (after numerous disappointed emails on this subject) automatically-generated but apparently-better-than-nothing traditional character support in definitions is available here (also available in your Updates tab on iOS) - please let us know if you encounter any problems with this one.
goldyn chyld
状元
Hi Mike, I'd like to inquire a couple of things.
I currently own the "complete bunde". Knowing me, I'd probably like to get another 'complete bundle' once 2.3 and all those new dictionaries get released. However, I read on Fb that early-access dicts are supposedly getting an official release really soon, so I'm itching to get those first, since I'm afraid the rest of the new dicts still might not see the light of day for months to come.
1. Will there be a discounted 'bundle price' for those early-access dicts?
2. Would I lose any money by purchasing them first, as opposed to waiting and purchasing a complete bundle of *all* new dicts later on?
The only dict I probably wouldn't be interested in is the Canto dict.
I currently own the "complete bunde". Knowing me, I'd probably like to get another 'complete bundle' once 2.3 and all those new dictionaries get released. However, I read on Fb that early-access dicts are supposedly getting an official release really soon, so I'm itching to get those first, since I'm afraid the rest of the new dicts still might not see the light of day for months to come.
1. Will there be a discounted 'bundle price' for those early-access dicts?
2. Would I lose any money by purchasing them first, as opposed to waiting and purchasing a complete bundle of *all* new dicts later on?
The only dict I probably wouldn't be interested in is the Canto dict.
goldyn chyld said:
A couple of months, but hopefully not too much longer than that. There's not going to be one big dictionary release, though, there's going to be a big app release that adds the features we need for our various new dictionaries (probably including Cantonese search support, embedded images for rare characters, etc) and then a steady trickle of new dictionaries as we get them ready. We'll probably only introduce new bundles / packs once we know that they'll be reasonably complete / that we aren't just about to release another dictionary that somebody buying that pack would probably want.
goldyn chyld said:
No, we don't really expect most people to want them all - the Chinese Medicine dictionary is quite expensive / specialized (it's great that some people are willing to pay $50 for a dictionary for cultural literacy purposes, but we don't think enough will be to justify bundling it), the Pocket Oxford is primarily useful for beginning / early intermediate users, and while I suppose there is some overlap between the Longman and Classical dictionaries, since the Longman is traditional-character-only and hence not very good for simplified character users, and there are other Classical dictionaries coming that are much better for traditional character users, it doesn't seem like a great idea to start pushing them as a bundled purchase.
goldyn chyld said:
We're actually moving away from that idea in general, mainly because of the cost / complexity of some of those new dicts - a bundle of "all new dictionaries except for these four" doesn't sound good, and an actual all-new-dicts bundle would be so expensive that hardly anybody would want to buy it. So the "themed dictionary packs" are probably the way we're going to go.
As far as whether you'd lose any money by buying now, that depends on which other dictionaries you'd like to purchase - it's very unlikely that there will ever be a bundle that includes all of the dictionaries in this particular batch, but there might be a bundle that has some of the dictionaries in it and some other future new dictionaries that you'd like. We could also eventually lower our prices for some of these individual dictionaries. But we could just as easily decide to raise them - both Classical and LMACD are going for perhaps a little less than they ought to given the labor involved in converting them - in which case you'd lose money for having waited.
So I'm afraid I don't have a good answer for you on this right now - if you don't mind waiting a year or so to buy any new dictionaries there might be a slightly clearer picture then, but until then I don't even know myself when the best time to buy a Classical dictionary will be.
Just updated GHYDCD again (check Updates tab) with slightly better automated traditional character conversion - we defaulted to not converting a few common characters like 干 and 台 so that they'll reliably come up in the popup reader (which can juggle simplified and traditional in the same word but can't deal with incorrect traditional), and we added some code to force the correct conversion for a particular headword when it appears in its own definition. Still not perfect, but hopefully close enough that we can release it this way instead of going back to simplified-only.
goldyn chyld
状元
Thanks for your reply, Mike. Are you at liberty to say when these early-access dicts are getting officially released? (I.e., if it's next week so, I'll rather wait and then download them, as opposed to being "adventurous" and get them now 
)
Could you, by chance, post a couple of screenshots of each one of them? Would probably make my purchase decision easier...
)Could you, by chance, post a couple of screenshots of each one of them? Would probably make my purchase decision easier...
goldyn chyld said:
Definitely next week or so, I think - really just double-checking a few things now, plus fixing a few annoyances in our iOS order processing script. But as with most such releases (even the Big App Update), we'll do this very quietly at first and announce it officially a week or two later once we're confident there aren't any major undiscovered bugs.
goldyn chyld said:
You can download demo versions of them with a generous number of entries right now if you register using the top link, or later if you wait until they're released - much nicer to try them out that way (see lots of entries and scroll through the entire dictionary to get a sense of its word coverage) than to just look at a couple of screenshots.
goldyn chyld
状元
goldyn chyld said:
You can download demo versions of them with a generous number of entries right now if you register using the top link, or later if you wait until they're released - much nicer to try them out that way (see lots of entries and scroll through the entire dictionary to get a sense of its word coverage) than to just look at a couple of screenshots.[/quote]
Thanks, I went ahead and installed the demo dictionaries. I have yet to figure out whether they really offer anything more than my existing complete-bundle dictionaries.. I didn't get the feeling that they are more abundant in entries than, say, the default PLC dictionary, or GF?
Btw, the X in "OX" tag of the Oxford dictionary looks rather jagged.
Alexis said:
Thanks!
goldyn chyld said:
No, it's more the depth than the breadth - we do have two upcoming dictionaries that will break new ground for us number-of-entries-wise, but this isn't one of them. GH is useful because it's a Classical Chinese dictionary and so covers a lot of meanings that nobody else bothers with - particularly useful with single characters.
LMA actually includes quite a few entries (and meanings) that aren't in any other dictionary too, but from our perspective the best argument for it was as an answer to the people who feel like GF isn't sufficiently 繁体-friendly. Prior to this, the least 简体-biased dictionary in our entire collection was CC-CEDICT; ABC may be theoretically neutral / not-developed-in-the-mainland, but there's a tremendous amount of grousing about its treatment of traditional variants like 遊 and 週.
goldyn chyld said:
Thanks - that font is due to be replaced shortly (we replaced it with this one on Android, but we're not liking the look of it as as much with iOS' font renderer so we may end up with a different one on that).
goldyn chyld
状元
goldyn chyld
I see, thanks.
Is this classical Chinese dictionary the most extensive one you will be releasing, or may the other one have even more entries?
I see, thanks.
Is this classical Chinese dictionary the most extensive one you will be releasing, or may the other one have even more entries?