iPhone Feature Requests

[mikelove]

Ahh, well I guess it's a no go then...

Not necessarily, we just need to come up with a good way to work it into the UI - we're already juggling the equally-thorny question of how we might seamlessly switch between Cantonese and Mandarin search, so one way or another there are going to be some significant changes to the search interface soon and if we work this into it it's certainly something we'd like to try.

Do you think it would be possible to implement a modification to Pleco which would allow me to see the Hanzi + definition of more than one character on the screen simultaneously?

Have you tried simply entering multiple characters in the search field? The last few versions of Pleco have included a feature that breaks down search results into multiple entries when there's no single entry that covers the search term you entered, so if you just enter "问间门" you should see a list of results with the characters / definitions for all three; if you tap on one to view its definition you can scroll to the other two with the up / down buttons.

 

[goldyn chyld]

I see. If you really plan to add the Cantonese search, it would be great if you added an option to completely disable it in the menu (for us who do not need it), so to avoid any input inconveniences...

 

[mikelove]

I see. If you really plan to add the Cantonese search, it would be great if you added an option to completely disable it in the menu (for us who do not need it), so to avoid any input inconveniences...

Oh definitely, and anyway it would only be offered if you'd downloaded a Cantonese dictionary.

 

[mpwilson]

Have you tried simply entering multiple characters in the search field? The last few versions of Pleco have included a feature that breaks down search results into multiple entries when there's no single entry that covers the search term you entered, so if you just enter "问间门" you should see a list of results with the characters / definitions for all three; if you tap on one to view its definition you can scroll to the other two with the up / down buttons.

Thanks Mike. I didn't know you could do that. Typical newbie, asking questions that are most likely covered in the manual. My apologies.

 

[keyclick]

When I use the flashcard system, I often mistake one Hanzi character for a different one, due to very slight variations between the characters - for example: 问 wen (ask), 间 jian (room), 门 men (door). So I switch out of Flashcard mode into Dictionary mode to look up the word I got confused with. However, I find it very difficult to remember the slight differences between the characters, as I can't see both characters on the screen at the same time.

After just reading this request, I saw a posting on Chineseforums (http://www.chinese-forums.com) that you might find useful. Someone (not me!) posted an online site that allows you to type or paste chinese characters into a form, and it annotates the results in various ways. By clicking on any character, it displays a group of close matches of similar looking characters. (clicking on them gives the pinyin and definition). It is pretty bare-bones feature-wise, but its an interesting idea, and mpwilson may find it helpful.

The website is http://trevorschinesereader.com/

 

[johnh113]

When I use the flashcard system, I often mistake one Hanzi character for a different one, due to very slight variations between the characters - for example: 问 wen (ask), 间 jian (room), 门 men (door). So I switch out of Flashcard mode into Dictionary mode to look up the word I got confused with. However, I find it very difficult to remember the slight differences between the characters, as I can't see both characters on the screen at the same time.

Do you think it would be possible to implement a modification to Pleco which would allow me to see the Hanzi + definition of more than one character on the screen simultaneously?

Thanks, and keep up the good work.

Dear Mike,

I have the same problem distinguishing characters that to my brain seem similar. And often, I can't even remember the pinyin or strokes of the other character that I am confusing it with. It would be nice if there were a feature (button) that when I look at a character it would enable bringing up similar characters. Probably too much to ask for as sometimes I'm confused because I'm thinking of another word with the same or almost the same pronunciation and sometimes it's because the hanzi itself is very similar to another hanzi. Two different problems.

John

 

[yong_li]

WOW: Studied the list of new features http://www.pleco.com/ipmanual/vershist.html
It’s astonishing, you did it again: implementing so many useful features I never even thought of

Thanks! Updating the App Store every 10 minutes

 

[mikelove]

Thanks Mike. I didn't know you could do that. Typical newbie, asking questions that are most likely covered in the manual. My apologies.

No problem - it's actually not a feature we've drawn much attention to yet.

I have the same problem distinguishing characters that to my brain seem similar. And often, I can't even remember the pinyin or strokes of the other character that I am confusing it with. It would be nice if there were a feature (button) that when I look at a character it would enable bringing up similar characters. Probably too much to ask for as sometimes I'm confused because I'm thinking of another word with the same or almost the same pronunciation and sometimes it's because the hanzi itself is very similar to another hanzi. Two different problems.

I suppose we could try digging up an earlier idea and running characters through the handwriting recognizer + OCR systems to see what alternate matches they come up with, though a structural analysis from our stroke order data might be more accurate... interesting area to pursue anyway.

WOW: Studied the list of new features http://www.pleco.com/ipmanual/vershist.html
It’s astonishing, you did it again: implementing so many useful features I never even thought of

Thanks! Hopefully most of these will actually work well for people - the motion detection one we're particularly curious about, put a lot of time into getting that working (more than it probably looks like it took) but we're really hoping it'll take the "live" aspects of this to another level.

 

[Shun]

When working with Flashcards, I would like to be able to look at a log of which flashcard sets I have already studied, when I have studied them and with what rate of success (maybe also, which kind of test it was, as well as what was prompted for). Since I usually work with splits of flashcard categories, I find it cumbersome to keep track of those I have recently studied. It would be great as an alternative to the one-day rhythm that's suggested by the Spaced Repetition System--more freedom to learn in any desired order. What I would need to write down on a piece of paper, a Pleco flashcard log would automatically do for me.

This functionality could be placed in the "Card Statistics" menu item, for example.

Thanks!

 

[mikelove]

When working with Flashcards, I would like to be able to look at a log of which flashcard sets I have already studied, when I have studied them and with what rate of success (maybe also, which kind of test it was, as well as what was prompted for). Since I usually work with splits of flashcard categories, I find it cumbersome to keep track of those I have recently studied. It would be great as an alternative to the one-day rhythm that's suggested by the Spaced Repetition System--more freedom to learn in any desired order. What I would need to write down on a piece of paper, a Pleco flashcard log would automatically do for me.

Interesting idea... but what would we do if a particular card appeared in multiple sets? Would this be essentially just a statistics filter (show aggregated statistics from cards that would potentially come up in such-and-such set) or would we be recording the review history of each set every time you tested yourself on it?

 

[Shun]

When working with Flashcards, I would like to be able to look at a log of which flashcard sets I have already studied, when I have studied them and with what rate of success (maybe also, which kind of test it was, as well as what was prompted for). Since I usually work with splits of flashcard categories, I find it cumbersome to keep track of those I have recently studied. It would be great as an alternative to the one-day rhythm that's suggested by the Spaced Repetition System--more freedom to learn in any desired order. What I would need to write down on a piece of paper, a Pleco flashcard log would automatically do for me.

Interesting idea... but what would we do if a particular card appeared in multiple sets? Would this be essentially just a statistics filter (show aggregated statistics from cards that would potentially come up in such-and-such set) or would we be recording the review history of each set every time you tested yourself on it?

I think the latter possibility would be simpler and more useful. The log would just contain the name/path of the set that was tested (name/path at the time of reviewing--when the set's name/path changes, the log entry wouldn't need to change) as well as the relative date/time, number of cards answered correctly, "Test type", and "Prompt for". One could also make a button "Add to Test Session" to add it to the Card categories to be tested in a Test Session. Maybe there's a more standard way to implement this, or maybe it's better to just stick with the log and let the user go to the "Card categories" tree himself to choose the categories to study. It wouldn't matter then if a card appears in multiple sets.

I would rename Study > Card Statistics to Study > Statistics and put a tab bar with "Cards" (what is accessible through Study > Card Statistics now) and something like "Log" (the categories learned log) in Statistics.

If you were to implement it on the card level (that is, read from the cards' information and piece the information about test sessions together from there), then, as you say, it would be hard to decide which category was tested if the card appears in multiple categories.

 

[mikelove]

I think the latter possibility would be simpler and more useful. The log would just contain the name/path of the set that was tested (name/path at the time of reviewing--when the set's name/path changes, the log entry wouldn't need to change) as well as the relative date/time, number of cards answered correctly, "Test type", and "Prompt for". One could also make a button "Add to Test Session" to add it to the Card categories to be tested in a Test Session. Maybe there's a more standard way to implement this, or maybe it's better to just stick with the log and let the user go to the "Card categories" tree himself to choose the categories to study. It wouldn't matter then if a card appears in multiple sets.

I'm not sure if I'm quite clear on your use of the term "set" here - are we defining sets in terms of profiles or of specific card categories? With profiles, it'd be easy enough to keep a log but a lot of people don't bother creating a different profile for every set of categories they want to study... with categories, however, there'd potentially be a LOT of logging involved to go through every category that contributed cards to a session and some significant slowdowns in starting / ending sessions.

 

[Shun]

I see I'm using Flashcards in a non-standard way. I always choose only one category to test (what I meant by "set"). So indeed my suggestion doesn't make much sense if users choose a lot of categories at once.

Looking forward to Pleco 2.3 anyway.

 

[mikelove]

I see I'm using Flashcards in a non-standard way. I always choose only one category to test (what I meant by "set"). So indeed my suggestion doesn't make much sense if users choose a lot of categories at once.

I'm not sure how atypical that is, actually - just haven't seen many people here mention it before. It would be tricky with multiple categories because a card might belong to more than one - I guess we could count it against the statistics in this session for every category it belongs to, though.

 

[Shun]

I'm not sure how atypical that is, actually - just haven't seen many people here mention it before. It would be tricky with multiple categories because a card might belong to more than one - I guess we could count it against the statistics in this session for every category it belongs to, though.

What about making a "session log", a log in which the date, time, categories selected (maybe accessed through an extra button if there are many of them), test type, what was prompted for, number of cards tested, and rate of success are recorded for each session? That should be completely independent of card statistics.

 

[mikeo]

Popup "Search" command

In 2.2.2 Pleco Reader, a tap-hold brings up a menu "Copy/Search/Translate".

The utility of "Search" is a mystery -- it appears to search the dictionaries just as a tap does. Instead of this redundant function, I'd expect and wish it to do a generalized Internet search on the selected term. It's very, very common to come across a term and want to get some more info on in than could or should be contained in the dictionaries - if it's a placename, you might want a little history; if it's a slang word, you might want some usage examples, etc.

Is there a plan to add this functionality to Reader "Search"?

 

[mikelove]

What about making a "session log", a log in which the date, time, categories selected (maybe accessed through an extra button if there are many of them), test type, what was prompted for, number of cards tested, and rate of success are recorded for each session? That should be completely independent of card statistics.

That would be quite doable, yes, though we're actually considering improving statistics logging in a future release to a point where we could almost generate that data automatically from the cards.

The utility of "Search" is a mystery -- it appears to search the dictionaries just as a tap does. Instead of this redundant function, I'd expect and wish it to do a generalized Internet search on the selected term. It's very, very common to come across a term and want to get some more info on in than could or should be contained in the dictionaries - if it's a placename, you might want a little history; if it's a slang word, you might want some usage examples, etc.

It's useful because you can also search for Pinyin or English with it - that was a much-requested feature before we added it. Generalized internet searches continue to worry me because people place a lot of value on Pleco's being offline / always-available; we'll probably have to support them eventually, but it's definitely low on the priority list relative to some of the other oft-requested things we're working on.

 

[Shun]

That would be quite doable, yes, though we're actually considering improving statistics logging in a future release to a point where we could almost generate that data automatically from the cards.

Great, I'll be curious to see it. I can understand that it has to fit neatly into the rest of the app.

 

[mikeo]

The utility of "Search" is a mystery -- it appears to search the dictionaries just as a tap does. Instead of this redundant function, I'd expect and wish it to do a generalized Internet search on the selected term. It's very, very common to come across a term and want to get some more info on in than could or should be contained in the dictionaries - if it's a placename, you might want a little history; if it's a slang word, you might want some usage examples, etc.

It's useful because you can also search for Pinyin or English with it - that was a much-requested feature before we added it. Generalized internet searches continue to worry me because people place a lot of value on Pleco's being offline / always-available; we'll probably have to support them eventually, but it's definitely low on the priority list relative to some of the other oft-requested things we're working on.

OK, I can see it's useful to search English or pinyin sometimes.

Since "Translate" depends entirely already on an Internet connection, and since everyone understands very well that you can't use Internet services or access internet content without a connection (and if you forget there plenty of occasions when you'll be reminded), and since in most cities it's much more common to be connected wherever you are than NOT, and since the core functions of Pleco, dictionary and flashcard, remain functional with or without an internet connection, I don't really see the dependency for Internet lookups on an Internet connection as a problem.

 

[mikelove]

Since "Translate" depends entirely already on an Internet connection, and since everyone understands very well that you can't use Internet services or access internet content without a connection (and if you forget there plenty of occasions when you'll be reminded), and since in most cities it's much more common to be connected wherever you are than NOT, and since the core functions of Pleco, dictionary and flashcard, remain functional with or without an internet connection, I don't really see the dependency for Internet lookups on an Internet connection as a problem.

As long as it's buried in a place where you're not being bothered by it when you don't have an internet connection, I tend to agree - however there have been a lot of people pushing for online content to be directly integrated into flashcards and dictionary searches and that needs to be done with considerably more caution.

And design-wise, given that a lot of our users aren't in a situation where they have good / regular / cheap internet access on their devices, we need to try to make sure that if there's a pressing need for some sort of information we aren't providing, we offer a way to get at that information offline as well as online; that could mean creating an offline-searchable version of Chinese Wikipedia, for example. It's too easy to get into a mindset of using web-based content even when it's quite feasible to offer the same content offline, and the straightforward and easy-to-integrate network access APIs on iPhone only exacerbate the problem.