iPhone Feature Requests

[mikelove]

But when you use reader, for me and I think many others the use case is different. The main thing you want to do is READ, so when you hit a phrase you don't know, you just add it to flashcards with a quick tap and try to get back to the text. Sometimes that quick tap which puts an entry in from the default dictionary, isn't actually the best definition. It's only when you review the cards later that you can know that, and it's rather clunky and time consuming to start editing the cards at that point. So my suggestion was simply to allow an aggregation of all the defintions, to make this whole process quicker. From my point of view, it's far less time-consuming to just have ALL the definitions on the card, than to have to pick and choose and edit among them.

That's a fair point, but I'm still not seeing why a switch dictionary button wouldn't help in that case; if that dictionary switch applied to the card permanently, wouldn't that be an easier way to get your cards optimized? Test yourself on the card, see that you're not happy with the definition, then switch dictionaries until you find one that you like better? You can still see all of the definitions on every card, and you can change to the one that you like best incredibly easily, but this way you're not left with a giant mass of text to read through for wide-ranging words like 打. (which has 27 different definitions in PLC and 17 even in CC-CEDICT)

 

[mikeo]

But when you use reader, for me and I think many others the use case is different. The main thing you want to do is READ, so when you hit a phrase you don't know, you just add it to flashcards with a quick tap and try to get back to the text. Sometimes that quick tap which puts an entry in from the default dictionary, isn't actually the best definition. It's only when you review the cards later that you can know that, and it's rather clunky and time consuming to start editing the cards at that point. So my suggestion was simply to allow an aggregation of all the defintions, to make this whole process quicker. From my point of view, it's far less time-consuming to just have ALL the definitions on the card, than to have to pick and choose and edit among them.

That's a fair point, but I'm still not seeing why a switch dictionary button wouldn't help in that case; if that dictionary switch applied to the card permanently, wouldn't that be an easier way to get your cards optimized? Test yourself on the card, see that you're not happy with the definition, then switch dictionaries until you find one that you like better? You can still see all of the definitions on every card, and you can change to the one that you like best incredibly easily, but this way you're not left with a giant mass of text to read through for wide-ranging words like 打. (which has 27 different definitions in PLC and 17 even in CC-CEDICT)

Certainly a switch dictionary button WOULD help in that case, especially if it applied to the card permanently and there was an easy way (like the popup selection now of which category to which to add a card) to select a dictionary other than the default one. This is desirable because there's almost no way to predict which of the dictionaries will have the definition/examples most appropriate to the context in which the characters occur.

Hmm, that suggests Yet Another Feature. This YAF would be, to write into the card the surrounding context of the occurance of the word (maybe the entire sentence in which it occurs. This leads of course to the question of how you'd handle repeated occurrences over time). But, putting that aside for now to finish the thought-thread....

My suggestion to aggregate all the dictionaries would, as you point out, result in some really long entries, though IMHO it wouldn't be a problem to have an arbitrary cutoff. The aggregation accomplishes two things:

a) it addresses the cases - which are rather too frequent -- where you have one dictionary, often PLC, which has good usage examples for some of the meanings (if not the meaning it has in this instance), but another dictionary which has more concise or up-to-date definition. In these cases there's no one dictionary choice which is optimal.

b) it obviates the need to make the dictionary choice, which saves time.

There's already a dictionary switch button in flashcards, but I think you're suggesting it could be extended to Reader. Yes - with or without the aggregation, that would be a big help.

 

[anchan42]

This must be already asked some where but I could not find it. Is A Chinese-English Dictionary available on iphone? or would it be?

 

[mikelove]

My suggestion to aggregate all the dictionaries would, as you point out, result in some really long entries, though IMHO it wouldn't be a problem to have an arbitrary cutoff. The aggregation accomplishes two things:

a) it addresses the cases - which are rather too frequent -- where you have one dictionary, often PLC, which has good usage examples for some of the meanings (if not the meaning it has in this instance), but another dictionary which has more concise or up-to-date definition. In these cases there's no one dictionary choice which is optimal.

b) it obviates the need to make the dictionary choice, which saves time.

Understood. This would be considerably more work than a switch dictionary button, though - have to attach multiple dictionary entries to the same card, store them in the database, provide an easy user interface to change / remove / add / reorder them... it would make more sense added in conjunction with our long-awaited annotation feature, so that you could add arbitrary notes to your card as well.

There's already a dictionary switch button in flashcards, but I think you're suggesting it could be extended to Reader. Yes - with or without the aggregation, that would be a big help.

What do you mean? You can already switch dictionaries in the reader... in 2.2 we've added an option to make the selection "sticky" so it'll persist as you move forward / backward through texts (rather than resetting to the highest-ranked Manage Dicts item whenever you change to a new word) if that's what you're looking for.

This must be already asked some where but I could not find it. Is A Chinese-English Dictionary available on iphone? or would it be?

It is, modified a bit and re-branded as the "Pleco Basic Chinese-English Dictionary" and built into our free basic iPhone app; the license situation for it on iPhone is a bit different than on Palm/WM, hence the name change / free-ness.

 

[mikeo]

There's already a dictionary switch button in flashcards, but I think you're suggesting it could be extended to Reader. Yes - with or without the aggregation, that would be a big help.

What do you mean? You can already switch dictionaries in the reader... in 2.2 we've added an option to make the selection "sticky" so it'll persist as you move forward / backward through texts (rather than resetting to the highest-ranked Manage Dicts item whenever you change to a new word) if that's what you're looking for.

Sorry for lack of clarity -- yes, you can already switch dictionaries in reader. But you can't quickly switch the default dictionary -- the 2.2. addition of "stickiness" will help address that.

 

[anchan42]

This must be already asked some where but I could not find it. Is A Chinese-English Dictionary available on iphone? or would it be?

It is, modified a bit and re-branded as the "Pleco Basic Chinese-English Dictionary" and built into our free basic iPhone app; the license situation for it on iPhone is a bit different than on Palm/WM, hence the name change / free-ness.

[/quote]

Strange, I could not find it on iphone. It is not list under free addon anywhere. Pictures attached.

 

[numble]

Strange, I could not find it on iphone. It is not list under free addon anywhere. Pictures attached.

It is the built-in Pleco [PLC] dictionary.

 

[anchan42]

Strange, I could not find it on iphone. It is not list under free addon anywhere. Pictures attached.

It is the built-in Pleco [PLC] dictionary.

Thank you . I am so stupid. Pictures ware too big and have been removed.

 

[mikeo]

My suggestion to aggregate all the dictionaries would, as you point out, result in some really long entries, though IMHO it wouldn't be a problem to have an arbitrary cutoff. The aggregation accomplishes two things:

a) it addresses the cases - which are rather too frequent -- where you have one dictionary, often PLC, which has good usage examples for some of the meanings (if not the meaning it has in this instance), but another dictionary which has more concise or up-to-date definition. In these cases there's no one dictionary choice which is optimal.

b) it obviates the need to make the dictionary choice, which saves time.

Understood. This would be considerably more work than a switch dictionary button, though - have to attach multiple dictionary entries to the same card, store them in the database, provide an easy user interface to change / remove / add / reorder them... it would make more sense added in conjunction with our long-awaited annotation feature, so that you could add arbitrary notes to your card as well.

It might help to provide an example of the kind of situation where concatenation of dictionary entries would be useful - where the completely useful definition doesn't exist in any one of the dictionaries, but does exist when they are appended together. Look up 政协 and you'll see these entries:

in PLC: short for 政治协商会议
in CC: Chinese People's Consultative Conference (CPPCC)

since you'll probably need both the Chinese expansion and the English acronym, the two definitions complete each other. There are many other examples of this kind of thing. Of course, it would be even better to have a single, comprehensive dictionary, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[mikelove]

It might help to provide an example of the kind of situation where concatenation of dictionary entries would be useful - where the completely useful definition doesn't exist in any one of the dictionaries, but does exist when they are appended together. Look up 政协 and you'll see these entries:

in PLC: short for 政治协商会议
in CC: Chinese People's Consultative Conference (CPPCC)

Well that's just a case where we need to fix our database and expand on all of those "short for"s - already on our to-do list for PLC and ABC, there's no reason for us to have Chinese words defined only by other Chinese words in a Chinese-English dictionary. A few fixes like this would take a lot less time than an entry concatenation feature. That doesn't mean entry concatenation won't ever happen, but I'm having trouble attaching much urgency to it - I think it's one of those features that would be better done comprehensively if we did it at all, i.e. by combining search results from multiple dictionaries too, and it's worth holding off on implementing it until we have the time to do it properly.

 

[mikeo]

Well that's just a case where we need to fix our database and expand on all of those "short for"s - already on our to-do list for PLC and ABC, there's no reason for us to have Chinese words defined only by other Chinese words in a Chinese-English dictionary. A few fixes like this would take a lot less time than an entry concatenation feature. That doesn't mean entry concatenation won't ever happen, but I'm having trouble attaching much urgency to it - I think it's one of those features that would be better done comprehensively if we did it at all, i.e. by combining search results from multiple dictionaries too, and it's worth holding off on implementing it until we have the time to do it properly.

I agree that modifying the dictionaries themselves is preferable, but still suspect that won't happen quickly. ANything to reduce unnecessary taps would be welcome.

The PLC "short for" can (and IMHO should) contain the Chinese longer form -- it just needs to contain as well the English translation and the English corresponding acronymn.

WRT the dictionaries, I've also noticed that in the Reader, at least one PLC entry popup doesn't include any useful information (i.e., it does not include the english definition) : that's 闭门羹。 All the definition is there, and displayed in a normal dictionary lookup - but in Reader, only the "(usu. used in)" displays. I've not found any setting for Reader that can force a display of more of the entry -- am I missing something?

 

[YoshiCookie]

Also, I have already mentioned thar online user content sharing and q&a builds and other online things built-in would be cool.

How about this? FaceBook/Twitter integration! For a China nerd like me, I'd love to tweet or status update a dictionary entry about a cool word, or a txt document of a cool poem I have from the reader, etc.!

 

[mikelove]

I agree that modifying the dictionaries themselves is preferable, but still suspect that won't happen quickly. ANything to reduce unnecessary taps would be welcome.

It would be, yes - I'm hoping we can make some major improvements to PLC very soon, but we're trying to get an updated version of that data set (based on the new 3rd edition of ACED) first; if that doesn't come together, though, we'll make them to the current edition.

WRT the dictionaries, I've also noticed that in the Reader, at least one PLC entry popup doesn't include any useful information (i.e., it does not include the english definition) : that's 闭门羹。 All the definition is there, and displayed in a normal dictionary lookup - but in Reader, only the "(usu. used in)" displays. I've not found any setting for Reader that can force a display of more of the entry -- am I missing something?

Well that's odd... there's not currently an option to show more of the entry, but if there are other entries like this we probably need to add one as a workaround until we get the database sorted out. (which I guess entry concatenation would also be, but as I've said that would be quite a bit of work in its own right)

Also, I have already mentioned thar online user content sharing and q&a builds and other online things built-in would be cool.

First step towards that will be online flashcard sync / backup, which I'm hoping will make it into 2.3; I have a feeling Apple's going to release a cheaper iPad next spring and sell even greater quantities of them, meaning more people creating Pleco flashcards on one device and testing them on another, on top of which we've got the Android version to consider (for which online flashcard transfer would be a heck of a lot easier than downloading / uploading / etc), so it's getting higher and higher on our priority list.

 

[numble]

Okay, if you can't get lyrics read while music is playing in the reader, how about an option to import lyrics from a MP3 file into the reader?

 

[dcarpent]

I think this has been touched on in the past, but I want to bring it up again. When using the dictionary and looking up a lot of words it would be nice to have an easier way to clear the search field each time for the next search. Having to hit the small icon at the far right of the search field each time slows things down. Plus I sometimes hit the histoy button by mistake, which is right next to it. Would it be possible to create an option that when you have searched a word, hitting the "Done" button not only hides the keyboard but also clears the search field? (A "Clear input on Done" option?) This would save a step for each search and would really speed things up.

 

[radioman]

Just some thoughts with regard to OCR and rapid access of various Pleco functions.

Sorry if this has already been articulated with regard to OCR as a separate module, but I believe my comments here extend to the various Pleco modules in general.

With Apple's ability to multitasking, I believe there is real value in being able have these things at the ready and sitting as separate entities ... OCR, flashcards, reader, and (obviously) dictionary - basically near zero bootup time as they would already be running.

So assuming I have enough memory I could leave flashcards running, or the reader, and then without interruption get the OCR looking up words. To use OCR now, I need to keystroke out of the flashcards, and get into Reader and then OCR module. A similar situation occurs when I then want to use the dictionary, and then go back to flashcards.

I understand that there is some very tight integration within Pleco on that provides real value, and maybe this all would come at a price in that regard - not to mention how things would be packaged, sold, issues with maintenance, licensing, etc. But maybe there are some APIs that could aid in keeping some level of module integration.

 

[numble]

Just some thoughts with regard to OCR and rapid access of various Pleco functions.

Sorry if this has already been articulated with regard to OCR as a separate module, but I believe my comments here extend to the various Pleco modules in general.

With Apple's ability to multitasking, I believe there is real value in being able have these things at the ready and sitting as separate entities ... OCR, flashcards, reader, and (obviously) dictionary - basically near zero bootup time as they would already be running.

So assuming I have enough memory I could leave flashcards running, or the reader, and then without interruption get the OCR looking up words. To use OCR now, I need to keystroke out of the flashcards, and get into Reader and then OCR module. A similar situation occurs when I then want to use the dictionary, and then go back to flashcards.

I understand that there is some very tight integration within Pleco on that provides real value, and maybe this all would come at a price in that regard - not to mention how things would be packaged, sold, issues with maintenance, licensing, etc. But maybe there are some APIs that could aid in keeping some level of module integration.

I second the need to have a better "rapid access" function in Pleco. Might not necessarily be separated into different apps, but maybe a splash screen of different Pleco modules, like in the Google App:

Or something that pops up and mimics the iPhone "wall of apps" interface, like in Reeder:

As it stands, it's easier for me to double-click the home button and pop into Anki and start reviewing my flashcards immediately, but everytime I pop into Pleco, I feel like I need to push a bunch of buttons to get where I want to go.

 

[radioman]

My issue with a single multipurpose launch screen is that each program still has to boot. In the scenario I envision, after starting the first time, they would already be up and running. Today if I run Pleco and other applications (e.g., email), I can move back and forth REALLY smoothly, with no "load" time.

 

[radioman]

General comment on two finger delete. Is there some standards committee to submit this? In just about every other application I use I am wishing I did not have to reach for some delete button and I like the way Pleco does it.

Or have it programmable like bettertouchtool for the MacBooks. Maybe this is a Cydia/jailbreak thing that might have to be customized for individual applications.

It would be nice to have some standard gestures across various programs - maybe some of it will shake out over time as all of this stuff is pretty new.

 

[mikelove]

Okay, if you can't get lyrics read while music is playing in the reader, how about an option to import lyrics from a MP3 file into the reader?

The problem has never been the music, it's been that the performance loading the device's music catalog is so slow that it usually almost seems like the device has frozen - if Apple fixes that (or we decide not to be bothered by it) it would be quite easy to let you play music along with viewing lyrics in the reader, we've already got 90% of the code for that.

I think this has been touched on in the past, but I want to bring it up again. When using the dictionary and looking up a lot of words it would be nice to have an easier way to clear the search field each time for the next search. Having to hit the small icon at the far right of the search field each time slows things down. Plus I sometimes hit the histoy button by mistake, which is right next to it. Would it be possible to create an option that when you have searched a word, hitting the "Done" button not only hides the keyboard but also clears the search field? (A "Clear input on Done" option?) This would save a step for each search and would really speed things up.

There actually used to be a command similar to that on Palm/WM - not sure why it never made it over to iPhone but it probably should come back. As far as making the clear button easier to access, the problem there is that I'm not sure where we'd put it - if we just made the tappable area for that button bigger would that help matters any, or do we really need some sort of gesture? Maybe we could have a two finger hold gesture of some kind - tap with two fingers quickly to backspace, tap-and-hold them to clear.

I understand that there is some very tight integration within Pleco on that provides real value, and maybe this all would come at a price in that regard - not to mention how things would be packaged, sold, issues with maintenance, licensing, etc. But maybe there are some APIs that could aid in keeping some level of module integration.

It's really not feasible even on OS 4 to spin the functions into separate apps, but we can certainly make it easier to jump between them - see below.

Or something that pops up and mimics the iPhone "wall of apps" interface, like in Reeder:

That one I'm actually liking quite a bit - maybe we could add an option to have the fan button pop up a customizable box filled with different launch icons instead of just revealing the tab bar? We already have to add the ability to define arbitrary buttons to launch things with our new custom toolbar feature, so this would just be taking that a bit farther (and would actually be a nice place to stick additional mode-specific buttons you didn't want in the main UI too).

Or could we even just drop the tab bar altogether and switch to that UI exclusively? I'd worry that some people might be confused by this, though, or might like having the rest of the UI stay visible while switching tabs - any other UI gurus want to weigh in on this?

It would be nice to have some standard gestures across various programs - maybe some of it will shake out over time as all of this stuff is pretty new.

Indeed - I don't think two-finger clear would work everywhere, though, it's an easy / natural enough gesture that people are going to want it to do other more common functions in other apps.