If there was a Pleco desktop version, what would you ACTUALLY use it for?

[mikelove]

Not a licensing problem, I don't trust Apple to keep Catalyst working and I don't want to be in the position of spending a lot of time/money supporting a free Mac version if and when they break it. (this has been an issue for a bunch of people who cheerfully enabled their iPad apps on visionOS e.g.) Also, I am absolutely, fanatically opposed to the idea of centralized app stores, and would never consider distributing Pleco through one on a platform like macOS where it's viable for us to distribute our app directly.

As far as the immediate problem, I've been pretty consistent that we planned to do a Mac beta once we had this big easier-to-use revamp of 4.0 done, the main hold-up is that that's taking a long time. (partly for technical reasons, partly personal ones) But I'm glad that iPhone mirroring is proving a satisfying solution in the meantime, and it has the notable advantage over a dedicated Mac app of not requiring any sort of data sync; I could well imagine that even post-Mac-app, at least until we have a sync service a lot of people will prefer that over an actual desktop app.

 

[Shun]

Thanks for these points! I also wouldn't trust Catalyst because one hardly ever hears of it anymore. I'm very much looking forward to the first "quick" Mac beta you have firm plans for, and then, a lot later, one making full use of the desktop environment.

 

[k4100x]

There has been some discussion lately about the possibility of a desktop version. Nowadays we use our mobile devices all the time and a lot of people don't even own desktop computers anymore. Therefore, I'm curious about what Pleco features YOU would ACTUALLY USE in an hypothetical desktop version. Since you already own one or more than one mobile device, what features of Pleco would you actually NEED in a desktop version? Or, said in another way, what Pleco features are currently painful to use in your mobile devices? What are your pain points?

-I'm just a curious user.

I have a smartphone but I prefer to use a desktop PC with a large monitor. That's just a matter of personal preference.

The top four features in the poll would be of most interest to me.

If there were a Pleco for desktop, I would hope for something like the interlinear word-for-word translation feature offered by MDBG Reader (aka Loqu8 iCE).

In a practical but maybe limited sense, Pleco for the desktop is already here if one uses an Android-ARM emulator.