iPhone Feature Requests

[ben_gb]

Hello, I haven't dropped in to the forum for a while...sorry if this has been suggested before (but, I couldn't spot a similar request)...

I've got a suggestion for an additional way of looking up characters, for situations where OCR is not possible, or if it's being done from memory.

My suggestion is that there is a way for users to input one or more components in a character (probably using handwriting, though selecting from a list of possible components might also work, or even pinyin entry), and then when they hit search it lists those characters which contain (at least) the components they've entered. It's a bit like searching by radical, except it's not limited solely to radicals, and you can enter several of them to reduce the 'hits'.

EG say you wanted to look up 應, you could input a 广 and a 心 then hit search and it would list all chars which include both of those two components.

I find that as I have become more familiar with chinese characters, I can clearly see some or all the various (simpler) components which make up the character, so this would be a quicker way to look up the full characters without having to guess which component is the radical, and then scroll through trying to guess how many strokes there are. Also, there are often situations where I've vaguely remembered a character, and can remember one or two components (or three), but the rest is fuzzy or I'm not sure of the exact layout...this would help narrow down the choices.

I guess this would need a some kind of database of character components (not just the 'official' radicals), which might be a sticking point..?

Cheers,
Ben

 

[yoose]

Thanks Mike, but the auto score does not quite work. If i were to fill in the second box then go back to the first box then it will not autoscore after that. I have to 'fill in' the second box again instead of it automatically detecting that it is already filled in. Or I have to manually press done and then check answer.

Hmm... you're right. I'd actually forgotten that feature existed before I replied to your previous post, but I believe we added it originally on Windows Mobile because some people were finding that they were accidentally hitting the "answer" button before they were ready (it stayed visible even with the keyboard open on those). But it would make a lot of sense to have it work as you've described, so we'll add that to our list of changes for the next flashcard UI update.

thank you Mike.

 

[numble]

Requests:

Find/Find Next/Find Previous in Reader
Split screen view two documents in iPad Reader
Audio progress bar in Lyrics Reader

 

[estudiando]

Hello, ...

I've got a suggestion for an additional way of looking up characters, for situations where OCR is not possible, or if it's being done from memory.

My suggestion is that there is a way for users to input one or more components in a character (probably using handwriting, though selecting from a list of possible components might also work, or even pinyin entry), and then when they hit search it lists those characters which contain (at least) the components they've entered. It's a bit like searching by radical, except it's not limited solely to radicals, and you can enter several of them to reduce the 'hits'....

...

I second this suggestion.

In addition, I like the "writing Chinese in pinyin" that is found in the MDBG dictionary. You type in pinyin and you get the list of candidate characters plus the English translation.

 

[mikelove]

I've got a suggestion for an additional way of looking up characters, for situations where OCR is not possible, or if it's being done from memory.

My suggestion is that there is a way for users to input one or more components in a character (probably using handwriting, though selecting from a list of possible components might also work, or even pinyin entry), and then when they hit search it lists those characters which contain (at least) the components they've entered. It's a bit like searching by radical, except it's not limited solely to radicals, and you can enter several of them to reduce the 'hits'....

...

I guess this would need a some kind of database of character components (not just the 'official' radicals), which might be a sticking point..?

We actually already have such a database for the Character Info "Chars" tab - the main problem is cleaning it up so that variations on the same radical are all linked together, and coming up with a UI for this. But it's definitely on our to-do list - only question is whether we'll have the database cleanup done in time to make this a 2.3 feature.

Find/Find Next/Find Previous in Reader

Yeah, lots of requests for that... changes to the reader for the next few months are going to actually be tricky for legal reasons (why would we sign a contract agreeing not to change a particular part of our UI for a few months? you'll find out soon enough...) but as soon as that window ends this is pretty much at the top of our to-do list.

Split screen view two documents in iPad Reader

Would this be for comparison or translation? (i.e., do you want to look up things in both documents, or look them up in one and write them in the other?)

Audio progress bar in Lyrics Reader

For seeking to a particular location ,or just to tell you how far along you are?

In addition, I like the "writing Chinese in pinyin" that is found in the MDBG dictionary. You type in pinyin and you get the list of candidate characters plus the English translation.

That one's tricky on anything but an iPad, but we can consider it on those I guess... about time we started working on some iPad-specific features, they're making up a pretty big chunk of our installed devices now.

 

[numble]

Would this be for comparison or translation? (i.e., do you want to look up things in both documents, or look them up in one and write them in the other?)

I think I'd like it for both. When I made the request, I wanted to look at two documents, instead of jumping out, opening another document, looking at it, jumping out and opening the old document. It might make more sense to have a Goodreader-like tab style for having multiple documents open, and split screen for translation--one half for "reading" and the other screen for typing/editing.

For seeking to a particular location ,or just to tell you how far along you are?

For both actually--if I put a podcast on and zone out while doing something else, it's imprecise and annoying to press "rewind" (I have it set at 5 seconds) multiple times, and if I accidentally press restart, I have no way of seeking back to my previous position, short of jumping to the Music app and jumping back into Pleco.

 

[mikelove]

I think I'd like it for both. When I made the request, I wanted to look at two documents, instead of jumping out, opening another document, looking at it, jumping out and opening the old document. It might make more sense to have a Goodreader-like tab style for having multiple documents open, and split screen for translation--one half for "reading" and the other screen for typing/editing.

Understood - we'd probably just spawn two independent view controllers, then. So there wouldn't really need to be any kind of integration aside from their appearing on the screen at the same time?

For both actually--if I put a podcast on and zone out while doing something else, it's imprecise and annoying to press "rewind" (I have it set at 5 seconds) multiple times, and if I accidentally press restart, I have no way of seeking back to my previous position, short of jumping to the Music app and jumping back into Pleco.

Understood. I guess we could bring over the much-reviled slider navigation control from the Dict tab - it's disappearing there but it can find a new life somewhere at least

 

[estudiando]

Here is an idea for document writer that can be useful in iPhone/iPod format:
- Use existing dictionary layout with above settings
- Replace the input method entry button row with a text entry line (or enough space for two lines of text)
- Tapping on an entry enters the text to the text entry line
- Text is automatically entered in the clipboard, ready to be pasted elsewhere

 

[mikelove]

Here is an idea for document writer that can be useful in iPhone/iPod format:
- Use existing dictionary layout with above settings
- Replace the input method entry button row with a text entry line (or enough space for two lines of text)
- Tapping on an entry enters the text to the text entry line
- Text is automatically entered in the clipboard, ready to be pasted elsewhere

That's not bad, but I'm wary of composing text with this little space - can you really write a useful amount of stuff in a foreign language with only 2 visible lines to do it in? (bearing in mind that a good chunk of one of those lines is going to go to the current Pinyin composition text) It really seems like this would be better-suited to use on iPad.

 

[numble]

I think I'd like it for both. When I made the request, I wanted to look at two documents, instead of jumping out, opening another document, looking at it, jumping out and opening the old document. It might make more sense to have a Goodreader-like tab style for having multiple documents open, and split screen for translation--one half for "reading" and the other screen for typing/editing.

Understood - we'd probably just spawn two independent view controllers, then. So there wouldn't really need to be any kind of integration aside from their appearing on the screen at the same time?

One idea that would be neat (I wouldn't use it as I'm not a teacher) would be to allow it to create a vocab list from the source material. Left side source material, right side vocab list. When the user selects words on the left, it creates a vocab entry on the right -- word, pinyin, definition. It would allow teachers to quickly create vocabulary lists from news articles, etc.

 

[ACardiganAndAFrown]

Request: Pastboard Reader History.

 

[estudiando]

That's not bad, but I'm wary of composing text with this little space - can you really write a useful amount of stuff in a foreign language with only 2 visible lines to do it in? (bearing in mind that a good chunk of one of those lines is going to go to the current Pinyin composition text) It really seems like this would be better-suited to use on iPad.

I think 2 lines is a good compromise for the available real estate (what about 3 lines?). Certainly much better for iPad, but for email, texting and posting in bbs, and other social sites, that is sufficient IMO. All I need is to enter the right characters one to four characters at a time as they are displayed by the dictionary.

 

[mikelove]

One idea that would be neat (I wouldn't use it as I'm not a teacher) would be to allow it to create a vocab list from the source material. Left side source material, right side vocab list. When the user selects words on the left, it creates a vocab entry on the right -- word, pinyin, definition. It would allow teachers to quickly create vocabulary lists from news articles, etc.

How would this be different from creating it now using our flashcard add-on? Create a new category and then add words as you encounter them with the + symbol. (we're already adding a feature to make that symbol change to a [+] when a word is already in your flashcards, which solves the main problem with this approach now)

Request: Pastboard Reader History.

Yeah, widely-requested feature and definitely on our to-do list.

I think 2 lines is a good compromise for the available real estate (what about 3 lines?). Certainly much better for iPad, but for email, texting and posting in bbs, and other social sites, that is sufficient IMO. All I need is to enter the right characters one to four characters at a time as they are displayed by the dictionary.

Well I'm just not sure if a significant number of people would find this useful - just having to switch into a different app to compose a Chinese message is going to dissuade a lot of our potential users, and cramming it into a tiny space where they can't read more than a sentence or so at a time makes things even worse.

 

[scykei]

I've just found out about the Alpha handwriting feature. It's not bad but I would like a way to only recognize numbers because I doubt that I will use handwriting for alphabets too much.

Also, can you let it support common punctuation marks like a fullstop and a comma? It would be much easier to just tap the bottom right area of the screen for a fullstop than having needing to tap three times to access the character and back. Maybe the space characters can be supported too by drawing the classic line across.

Oh, not a feature request but a bug report but since it is related I'll mention it here. It is possible to crash Pleco by rapidly tapping the bottom right part of the handwriting area with Alpha enabled. I'm using an iPod Touch 4 if that helps.

 

[claudej]

I teach at a Chinese elementary school. And I don't speak Chinese at all (OK maybe 10 words). Pleco software is great.
But in a classroom with air conditioning and ceiling fans the volume of the words is really too low. Other software are a lot louder.
Please remaster as soon as possible the spoken words.

 

[mikelove]

I've just found out about the Alpha handwriting feature. It's not bad but I would like a way to only recognize numbers because I doubt that I will use handwriting for alphabets too much.

Sorry, I'm not quite sure if I understand this... why would you want to write numbers but not letters? What sort of text are you entering with that box? Are you composing some kind of document in the document reader that uses a combination of Chinese characters and numbers?

Also, can you let it support common punctuation marks like a fullstop and a comma? It would be much easier to just tap the bottom right area of the screen for a fullstop than having needing to tap three times to access the character and back. Maybe the space characters can be supported too by drawing the classic line across.

Certainly possible, but not something we've had much demand for; so I guess this is being used in the document reader, then. Other than a fullstop and a comma, which punctuation marks do you regularly need to access?

Oh, not a feature request but a bug report but since it is related I'll mention it here. It is possible to crash Pleco by rapidly tapping the bottom right part of the handwriting area with Alpha enabled. I'm using an iPod Touch 4 if that helps.

Hmm, I'm seeing that here too now... must be some sort of threading issue. Thanks for the bug report.

But in a classroom with air conditioning and ceiling fans the volume of the words is really too low. Other software are a lot louder.
Please remaster as soon as possible the spoken words.

That's actually surprisingly tricky without seriously screwing up the sound quality; we haven't found a good way to do it yet. We're planning to add an option to use a higher volume in a future release, but it will have to be accompanied by some kind of warning since it'll destroy a lot of the subtle details.

 

[numble]

One idea that would be neat (I wouldn't use it as I'm not a teacher) would be to allow it to create a vocab list from the source material. Left side source material, right side vocab list. When the user selects words on the left, it creates a vocab entry on the right -- word, pinyin, definition. It would allow teachers to quickly create vocabulary lists from news articles, etc.

How would this be different from creating it now using our flashcard add-on? Create a new category and then add words as you encounter them with the + symbol. (we're already adding a feature to make that symbol change to a [+] when a word is already in your flashcards, which solves the main problem with this approach now)

If it is in the context of a split screen document reader, the user can see the vocabulary list document being generated in "real time" and can edit it. I also think there are a ton of usability concerns with the whole "creating a category, making a flash card list, and exporting it to a text file and emailing it." They could just simply copy and paste the article, create a vocabulary list by tapping on key words, and then press print/email, and get a lesson created very quickly.

 

[flameproof]

ePub reading ability.

Seems Pleco can't read ePub files. Would be great if the Pleco Reader could handle that.

Apples own iBook can't change the dictionary, so no way for a while-reading-pop-up translation.

 

[mikelove]

If it is in the context of a split screen document reader, the user can see the vocabulary list document being generated in "real time" and can edit it. I also think there are a ton of usability concerns with the whole "creating a category, making a flash card list, and exporting it to a text file and emailing it." They could just simply copy and paste the article, create a vocabulary list by tapping on key words, and then press print/email, and get a lesson created very quickly.

Ah, that makes sense. And actually might be useful even for non-teachers - go through a document, add the words you don't know to it and you have a sort of "instant glossary" for your second read-through.

Seems Pleco can't read ePub files. Would be great if the Pleco Reader could handle that.

That's been on our to-do list for a while, but we actually get surprisingly little feedback about it - far more people want direct tap-lookup support for PDFs (which we'd have to do via OCR) or Word documents (which would require some sort of wacky external library to extract the text contents of a .doc file, though it might be doable if we limited it to .docx).

 

[flameproof]

.....we actually get surprisingly little feedback about it (ePub)

Strange. IMHO ePub is a wonderful format for i* devices. PDF is only OK if if designed for that page format. Otherwise you need scroll till the fingers bleed. ePub text 'floats' and will adapt to the screen.

BTW, one can convert any text PDF to ePub with 'Calibre' - and if things screw up a little - edit the ePub with 'Sigil'. Both are open source and free.