iPhone Feature Requests

[Charles]

Thanks for the feedback. However, this idea worries me a bit since it would make it easy to hit the wrong button by accident - X is rather destructive if you're several levels deep, and we don't want people hitting it by accident, which seems very likely if the buttons don't have a nice wide separation. I guess we could try squeezing it in on the left side instead of the right, so the accidental tap would only drop you back one level, but it still feels kind of crowded... might be another thing we could add as an option if we can implement it easily, though.

I understand the point about leaving enough space in the bar at the top. I often hit the wrong button by accident already. Would there be anywhere else to put "nnnnnn of NNNNNN" when you have set "Exit btn everywhere" to "On"? Or could you just not show "nnnnnn of NNNNNN" at all when it is longer than a certain length (say 10 characters including spaces)? Then, it would show nothing if the number of results would otherwise be, for example, "149228 of 197191". But if the number of results was "1 of 49" or "211 of 733" or "22 of 1351", it would show the number of results. I think that would leave enough space in the bar at the top.

 

[Charles]

Would it be possible to have an option to make the input field at the top of the screen narrower? For me, it would be helpful to have a little space between the "X" on the right side of the input field and whatever is on the top far right of the screen (either the dictionary abbreviation or the history clock). I often press the wrong key, either clearing my search entry when I mean to go to the history or going to the history when I mean to clear my search entry.

 

[Charles]

In the ABC Chinese-English dictionary, when there is an abbreviation, it shows the pinyin of the full expression for which the entry in question is an abbreviation. For example, the last meaning of the entry for 修xiū is “AB. xiūzhèngzhǔyì”. The problem is that xiūzhèngzhǔyì is not a hyperlink, so you can’t press on it to see what xiūzhèngzhǔyì means. You have to go back to the input screen and type in xiuzhengzhuyi. Would it be possible to have hyperlinks to the full expressions? I know this might not be possible for every abbreviation because there is not always an entry for the full expression. For example, 北图 is the abbreviation of Běijīng Túshūguǎn (北京图书馆), but there is no entry for 北京图书馆. However, for most of the abbreviations, there is an entry for the full expression.

This actually begs the question of why all the hyperlinks in the ABC dictionary are in pinyin in the first place. I can understand that using pinyin makes sense in the printed version of the ABC dictionary because it allows the reader to quickly look up the word in question. However, in Pleco, with hyperlinks, it doesn’t make much difference whether the hyperlink is in pinyin or in Chinese characters. If the hyperlink were in Chinese characters, you could use the pop-up definition bubble to see the pinyin and the definition, but because the hyperlink is in pinyin, you can’t see any other information about it without pressing on the hyperlink and leaving the current screen.

 

[ConfuciusTse]

Is there any way to translate very short phrases versus single words? Often times times I'll need to translate four or five characters and I don't know where a word starts or stops (ie, is it a two or three character "word"). Currently I'm using the transparent setting so I just keep entering characters until the last character doesn't get translated. Then I read the result, delete all the other characters but the last one then replace the curser to the end and enter more characters again. Kind of a kludge. Would be great if there was a Google-like "I'm Feeling Lucky" where a short series of characters could be translated into something somewhat intelligible using possibly the first dictionary entry for each word. Then I could get the gist of the short phrase's meaning.

Thanks for considering.

 

[mikelove]

Charles - there's really no way we could fit even so much as "1 of 2" in there with the up/down buttons in the middle, but if we put them off to the left we might be able to squeeze it in for smaller counts at least. We've gotten one or two other requests for a narrower input field - that should be easy to add in a future update.

The problem with those AB links is that quite a lot of them do not in fact reference separate dictionary entries - however, checking the original source data file it turns out that there's an easy way to differentiate between abbreviations that link to other dictionary entries and abbreviations that don't, so we'll try to get that fixed the next time we update the ABC database.

ConfuciusTse - not at the moment, but it's an interesting idea, particularly given how fast our search engine is anyway - it would be quite feasible for us to parse the search query into substrings and list search results for those if we couldn't find them for the whole word. Too tricky to do before the all-important flashcard release, but something we can consider on both iPhone and WM after that.

 

[挪威森林]

I've been reading Jin Yong 鹿鼎记 on my iPod all day, using Pleco, so I just wanted to list a few ideas.

Would it be possible to build in conversion between fanti and jianti in the document reader? I realize that it's impossible to do this 100%, but it's now quite feasible to do it 99,999%. For example, Wikipedia generated a very comprehensive table for their system (where you can view an article in any version), which is freely available, and we're also using it here: http://kaifangcidian.com/gongju/fanjian/fanjian.cgi. Jin Yong is hard enough for me in jianti, so right now I manually convert the text files before I upload them to the iPod, but it would be a lot smoother if it could happen in the reader.

Another thing I thought about. When I used to use Wenlin, the field at the bottom of the screen which shows the definition for what you mouse over is expandable, so if you make it five lines, you can not just see the expression, but also the first line of the definition for each of the characters... This is extremely useful, especially in a text with a lot of new characters. This is something that would definitively be easy to do on the iPad, but even on the iPod it wouldn't be impossible. For example, I just clicked on 江苏, and it shows me Jiangsu Jiangsu (Province)... let's say I didn't know what those characters meant... right now that box (even with all the whitespace) doesn't even cover half the screen. There would be lot's of room to add a new section, where it would list
江 jiang river
苏 su revive, hymn

(ie the first line of the definition for this characters - you wouldn't actually even need the pinyin strictly speaking, since it's listed above for the whole expression).

I know it's possible to click to get the entire entry, then click on each character... but even if you just want to look up one character, that's still four extra clicks (two to get the character, and two to get back to the text)... whereas with my system you would get all four at a glance... I think this can often help with remembering long chengyu for example. If I see 青楼薄幸, and it's translated as "lacking of feeling (in prostitutes)", it won't give me much idea as to what the individual characters mean, if I haven't seen them before.

(This would obviously have to be an option, as some people would find it very annoying, but to me it would be hugely useful).

Anyway, I'm looking very much forward to the flash cards (I have saved a huge array of words now) and using your own dictionaries (did you think any more about importing the English-Chinese Wikipedia dictionary?), but afterwards you could think about this.

And PS: You need to fix the history function... When you have it on zero seconds delay, and you draw characters quite slowly like me, every intermediate "hit" gets recorded... The same if you are typing slowly. You should only record a hit if I actually click on an entry to open it.

Great stuff, I love reading Jin Yong on the metro, and would never have been able to without Pleco!

Stian

 

[Charles]

Charles - there's really no way we could fit even so much as "1 of 2" in there with the up/down buttons in the middle, but if we put them off to the left we might be able to squeeze it in for smaller counts at least. We've gotten one or two other requests for a narrower input field - that should be easy to add in a future update.

The problem with those AB links is that quite a lot of them do not in fact reference separate dictionary entries - however, checking the original source data file it turns out that there's an easy way to differentiate between abbreviations that link to other dictionary entries and abbreviations that don't, so we'll try to get that fixed the next time we update the ABC database.

ConfuciusTse - not at the moment, but it's an interesting idea, particularly given how fast our search engine is anyway - it would be quite feasible for us to parse the search query into substrings and list search results for those if we couldn't find them for the whole word. Too tricky to do before the all-important flashcard release, but something we can consider on both iPhone and WM after that.

Thanks Michael. It would be great to have hyperlinks to the unabbreviated expressions. What about the idea of having a settings option to show all hyperlinks in the ABC Chinese-English dictionary in either pinyin or Chinese characters? Is that feasible?

 

[mikelove]

挪威森林 - automated simplified / traditional conversion might be doable, but it is indeed tricky - we'd be better off waiting until we add a better text segmenter too, at that point we'd at least have a decent chance of getting most of those conversions right with a dictionary-based lookup. (also good for Pinyin transliteration)

Showing character definitions inline in dictionary entries is dicey screen-space-wise on an iPhone... here's an alternative idea: what if we added an option for the |<- button to always drop back to the selected character - the character you tapped on to open the reader popup, or the first character if you then moved / resized it. That would let you get to a single character definition with just one extra button tap, and see each additional character definition with one more tap.

That history glitch is actually a surprisingly difficult thing to fix - certainly doable, but maybe not until post-flashcards. For now I'd suggest that as a workaround you enable the "only search on clear" option in Settings; that should keep it from updating until you've finished inputting and cleared the input box, tapped a character, or tapped Done.

Charles - converting all ABC hyperlinks to characters would be doable, but tricky; would require some changes on both the software and the database side of things. So again, probably not something we can do until after the flashcard version is out.

 

[dwmillerphd]

Request

I don't know if this request has been addressed already, but it would be very nice
to have a shortcut for entering tone numbers without having to switch the keyboard
to numbered input each time. Could you give this some thought?

Thanks!

 

[mikelove]

Already included, though like a lot of useful options it's kind of well hidden at the moment; go into Settings / Panels, scroll all the way down to the bottom, and enable "Show tone panel" under "Keyboard."

 

[dwmillerphd]

Thanks Mike, that's a terrific feature - now I can do one-handed dictionary lookups without effort I hadn't looked at all the available settings until now -- looks like I need to spend an hour or two with the manual!

 

[Henry]

finger swipe to move cursor in input field

I often input two or three characters at a time, then find there is only an entry for the first character. At this point I want to look up the following characters, so I have to use the 'tap and hold to bring up magnifying glass' method of moving the cursor to delete the first character.

I find this really slows me down, and was hoping kind of finger swipe could be used to move the cursor (like a three-finger swipe L or R to move the cursor L or R).

Sorry if this has been suggested already- I haven't read through this whole thread.

Regards, Henry

 

[mikelove]

We could consider a swipe gesture like that, but a better solution to this problem might just be for us to perform multiple searches - group the list of search results into results for the first character / second / third / etc if we can't find a match for the entire query.

 

[ConfuciusTse]

YES! Multiple searches would be great. I like how MDBG.net does it.

On a separate note, I would pay extra for a learning module based on a broadly available textbook. Compared to Casios, Bestas, etc out there, the Pleco on iPhone (or iPod Touch in my case) is clearly the best form factor and software combination. But the learning module is the biggest tripping point when I show it around to others. Most other high end devices include something and the best we are currently waiting for are flashcards. Now that is very useful and I'm eagerly awaiting them, but they only teach individual words, not sentence structure and grammar. Plus a huge vote for writing practice based on the current hand writing recognition system as well.

 

[mikelove]

Writing practice based on our handwriting recognizer should definitely be in our iPhone flashcard module, since we already do it on Palm/WM. Though at least initially it'll only use that same interface - draw a character, see the results, tap on the correct one - rather than giving you stroke-by-stroke feedback.

As far as introducing a proper textbook series, that's certainly something we'd consider if we could make a good deal with a textbook publisher - we could sell an electronic version of a good set of Chinese textbooks as an add-on download just as we do now with our various dictionaries. The problem is finding a series that's widely available enough - seems like there's very little overlap between what's available in China and what's available outside of China, aside from PCR / NPCR which a lot of people seem to consider "dated" now.

Personally I'm kind of a fan of Integrated Chinese, both because Pleco has a longstanding relationship with Cheng & Tsui and because its lead editor is a former Chinese teacher of mine, but is that something you can find in China or is it mainly only used in American classrooms?

 

[ConfuciusTse]

Flashcards: That seems to be a good solution. A quick button to pull up the stroke order animation would be useful too. I hope there is a way to flip between PinYin, English, and Character prompts/questions and corresponding answers. Also, would it be free response or multiple choice...or both? All options would be fantastic!

Textbooks: I also have the feeling that there is no "dominant" textbook. However, I think it's safe to say most Chinese learners in China are from another country. So I would lean towards books that are available outside of China as it would be "easier" to purchase overall, maybe something available on Amazon?

Integrated Chinese sounds like a good option as you have a good relationship with the author and familiarity with the textbook. I would think that would lead to a better learning module. Don't underestimate what Pleco's support would do for sales of the textbook too! I don't believe there is anything similar on the market so maybe they should be paying you!

 

[mikelove]

The full Char Info screen should be readily accessible in flashcards just as it is in dictionary entries, so yes, it should be easy to pull up a stroke order diagram.

Free-answer and multi-choice are both supported along with self-scored; multi-choice isn't quite as intelligent as we'd like it to be in some areas yet, though, it does avoid most of the big pitfalls (matches up number of syllables between characters / Pinyin, e.g., and tries to avoid randomly picking an incorrect choice that's pronounced the same way as the correct one), but we'd really like to make it more devious about Pinyin, showing you Pinyin that's almost the correct answer (off by a tone or two, or maybe adding / removing an n or ng from one syllable) rather than randomly drawing length-matched Pinyin from all cards as it does now. That should come in a future update, though - definitely an area we want to explore further, since one of the key advantages we can offer over a general-purpose flashcard system is that we're so carefully optimized around Chinese.

And you can indeed choose whatever fields you want to be visible / revealed; with self-scored we even let you do it at multiple levels, so if for example you want to start with the headword, then reveal the Pinyin but no definition, then reveal the definition, you can do that, and in multi-choice you can show just one part of the card and have to pick both of the others. Free-answer currently only lets you fill in one part per card, you can't show a definition and then have to enter both the characters and Pinyin, though this should change in a future update.

I do agree that availability outside of China is probably more important than availability inside of China - much easier for someone to order a printed textbook from an online store in their home country and have it shipped to China than it is for them to order a book from China and have it shipped to their home country. Plus, foreign textbooks are more likely to be available in simplified- and traditional-character editions, which is an important consideration since we don't want to alienate our Taiwan-based users. (many of whom are already none too happy about the mainland bent of our dictionary licenses, but since the only major dictionary publisher in Taiwan has been completely and utterly uninterested in doing business with us, there's not much we can do about that)

 

[character]

I would also recommend seeing if you can work with the Integrated Chinese folks. However, they already have an online workbook: http://www.cheng-tsui.com/store/product ... _book_ke_0

"View the demo at http://books.quia.com/books. User name is chengtsui and the password is quia."

 

[julienne]

the Chinese Made Easier textbook is still pretty popular among students in China, but it's available outside of China as well.
http://www.chinesemadeeasier.com/textbooks.html

 

[mikelove]

We actually already inquired about CME a while ago - lovely books, but they've got some sort of exclusive electronic-version deal going with a Chinese company, unfortunately. I didn't know about C&T's online workbook but that seems to make a partnership with them unlikely too... lots of other titles out there, though, and new ones come on the market all the time.