iPhone Feature Requests

[gato]

1. In "night mode", the handwriting recognition is writing black foreground on black foreground instead white foreground, though I only need a "night mode" for the reader. 8)

2. Is it possible to add the Heiti Medium font as an option for the reader. The reader currently uses the Heiti Light font. I think the thicker medium font is easier to read, particularly at smaller font sizes.

 

[mikelove]

1. In "night mode", the handwriting recognition is writing black foreground on black foreground instead white foreground, though I only need a "night mode" for the reader.

Yeah, we really need to add separately-configurable background / foreground colors for the reader; those should arrive in 2.2, along with possibly an option to customize the reader toolbar color as well. (though we really need an option to hide the toolbars altogether)

2. Is it possible to add the Heiti Medium font as an option for the reader. The reader currently uses the Heiti Light font. I think the thicker medium font is easier to read, particularly at smaller font sizes.

I don't think anybody's actually suggested that one before - it would be very easy to implement, just need to see if there's time to squeeze it in. Thanks.

 

[gato]

I stumbled across Heiti Medium because Goodreader allows one to choose from any one of the fonts available. All my other readers (e.g. Stanza, InstantPaper) use Heiti Light to display Chinese. Maybe it's an iOS default font for Chinese. I actually think Heiti Medium is substantially easier to read. I used to wonder if there was something wrong with the Chinese font on the iPhone because the Heiti Light font was so faint compared with the latin fonts. You might consider making Heiti Medium the default if you think it looks better, too. It would be one less thing for users to set up.

 

[mikelove]

You might consider making Heiti Medium the default if you think it looks better, too. It would be one less thing for users to set up.

Possibly, but I tend to think that changes like that need to be rolled out very delicately - even if it does look better to a lot of people it won't look better to everyone - though at the same time if we're adding a size control to the reader UI anyway it might make sense to add a font face one at the same time (do the whole thing in a little popup).

 

[taijidan]

Mike, I think I remember you saying that ios4 was expected to have the ability to easily swap fonts for applications. Did it turn out like that? Is that a possibiltiy in a future release for user selected fonts?

 

[mikelove]

Mike, I think I remember you saying that ios4 was expected to have the ability to easily swap fonts for applications. Did it turn out like that? Is that a possibiltiy in a future release for user selected fonts?

It didn't, unfortunately - you can only use custom fonts if you build them into your application, there's no support for user-installed fonts. We could still add them ourselves using FreeType, but it would be rather complicated...

 

[Pampuk]

a proposition :

can you make a link to google image by pressing on an english or chinese word. I found out that it's often easier to understand what kind of fish, tree, fruit, place, garnment it is with an image rather that with a translation (often inacurate when things exist only in a country).

you can do the same presentation that the one in safari for iphone : 4 images on a line (you can try looking for "invalides" in google for an example).

 

[Entropy]

can you make a link to google image by pressing on an english or chinese word. I found out that it's often easier to understand what kind of fish, tree, fruit, place, garnment it is with an image rather that with a translation (often inacurate when things exist only in a country).

That's a REALLY good idea.

A Wikipedia search option would also be nice. That often gets a scientific name, which is helpful when trying to track down a particular plant or fish. (Mammals and avians are easy.)

~ Kiran <entropy@io.com>

 

[gato]

You can default the search to the built-in browser if the user's device can handle it, so that they can take advantage of the "live" browser function.

 

[dcarpent]

I've had an idea for a feature that I don't recall being mentioned before. This would be a feature of limited usefulness but perhaps rather easy to implement. Would it be possible to have an "auto-play" feature added to the "review only" setting in flashcards so that one could have Pleco go through a stack of cards at a given interval automatically (say 3-5 seconds per card, or better yet, user customizable), a kind of "slide show" effect. This could be useful for reviewing when on doesn't have one's hands free. Admittedly it might be getting a bit obsessive to want to run through flashcards when both hands are busy doing something else (like eating), but I have occasionally found myself wishing that such a feature existed.

 

[mikelove]

can you make a link to google image by pressing on an english or chinese word. I found out that it's often easier to understand what kind of fish, tree, fruit, place, garnment it is with an image rather that with a translation (often inacurate when things exist only in a country).

Interesting idea - I'm a bit worried that Apple might make us kick our rating from 12+ back to 17+ if we incorporate image search, but I suppose Google's SafeSearch option could help limit the damage. I'm also a little wary of spending lots of time on internet-connection-dependent features but I guess if we make it an optional / hide-able option it wouldn't really bother people.

A Wikipedia search option would also be nice. That often gets a scientific name, which is helpful when trying to track down a particular plant or fish. (Mammals and avians are easy.)

Actually I'm increasingly feeling like an offline Chinese Wikipedia database in Pleco might make sense - format conversion is a bit dicey but it would be a really fantastic thing to have ready at hand when "in the field" in China.

You can default the search to the built-in browser if the user's device can handle it, so that they can take advantage of the "live" browser function.

Right, that would be logical with Wikipedia at least if we didn't just offer it as an offline database.

I've had an idea for a feature that I don't recall being mentioned before. This would be a feature of limited usefulness but perhaps rather easy to implement. Would it be possible to have an "auto-play" feature added to the "review only" setting in flashcards so that one could have Pleco go through a stack of cards at a given interval automatically (say 3-5 seconds per card, or better yet, user customizable), a kind of "slide show" effect. This could be useful for reviewing when on doesn't have one's hands free. Admittedly it might be getting a bit obsessive to want to run through flashcards when both hands are busy doing something else (like eating), but I have occasionally found myself wishing that such a feature existed.

There've actually been quite a few requests for this now - some people also want it with Self-graded but without the grading, i.e., show part of the card, wait a bit, show the rest of the card, wait a bit, and so on. Very likely to show up in 2.3.

 

[singlung]

when a flashcard category is open and i switch to the dictionary to add another flashcard to it, the new card won't be shown unless i reopen that category again. would be nice if it automatically refreshed.

 

[mikelove]

when a flashcard category is open and i switch to the dictionary to add another flashcard to it, the new card won't be shown unless i reopen that category again. would be nice if it automatically refreshed.

Very good point - thanks!

 

[thph2006]

Re: iPhone Feature Requests - PictureFlow

Feature: Flashcards with sound and pictures that can be run in a slide show mode. This feature's utility is it's a rapid-fire way of reinforcing a lot of words/phrases by prompting you aurally. If you don't recall the word you hear just look down at the screen and see a full screen picture representing it's meaning. This would allow you to use Pleco in a sort of iTunes mode where you could be out jogging or even at your desk at work passively listening in the same way you would a song playlist. After a few plays you'd probably only rarely have to look down to check the picture for meaning. You could also have a mode where any mix of the characters, pinyin or English are displayed.

I kludged this technique in iTunes on my laptop by embedding pictures in the ID3 tags of my Chinese phrase audio clips and now I can review literally thousands of phrases in short order. I use it when I want to passively reinforce a large number of words I've already been exposed to without having to always be staring at flash cards. It works really well. I showed the kludge to the Apple store Genius Bar folks and they said they'd never seen iTunes used that way and they all loved it. They even downloaded my playlist to an iPhone 4 to see how it would work and it was amazing. Both the sound and the pictures were great and it worked exactly as I had imagined. It even attracted a little crowd to watch the action!

This is pure speculation but I'm guessing it wouldn't be that hard for Pleco to do. Open a flashcard list, play it in a slide show mode by playing the audio and displaying a user imported picture.

 

[numble]

I think the Kingsoft software does some kind of Wikipedia or Baidu Baike lookup, have you thought about anything along those lines? My Chinese teacher had me lookup 北漂 and 蚁族, words that Pleco couldn't find, but Powerword 3.0 (Kingsoft) could find with Internet search.

 

[mikelove]

Feature: Flashcards with sound and pictures that can be run in a slide show mode. This feature's utility is it's a rapid-fire way of reinforcing a lot of words/phrases by prompting you aurally. If you don't recall the word you hear just look down at the screen and see a full screen picture representing it's meaning. This would allow you to use Pleco in a sort of iTunes mode where you could be out jogging or even at your desk at work passively listening in the same way you would a song playlist. After a few plays you'd probably only rarely have to look down to check the picture for meaning. You could also have a mode where any mix of the characters, pinyin or English are displayed.

Makes sense that we'd support using both of those functions (timed auto-advance and custom audio / pictures) together, and both could come as soon as 2.3 if things go well - thanks!

I think the Kingsoft software does some kind of Wikipedia or Baidu Baike lookup, have you thought about anything along those lines? My Chinese teacher had me lookup 北漂 and 蚁族, words that Pleco couldn't find, but Powerword 3.0 (Kingsoft) could find with Internet search.

I really hate that sort of integration, to be honest - I'd rather just put an offline version of Wikipedia in Pleco. If people want an offline dictionary then people want an offline dictionary - if people would be happy with a dictionary that required an internet connection then we wouldn't need to tear our hair out supporting iPhone and Android, we'd develop once nice clean web-based app and let every smartphone OS with a decent web browser access it.

 

[Entropy]

if people would be happy with a dictionary that required an internet connection then we wouldn't need to tear our hair out supporting iPhone and Android, we'd develop once nice clean web-based app and let every smartphone OS with a decent web browser access it.

No, you wouldn't, because that would be so dreadfully slow and clunky that people would download a free dictionary instead. Never mind not being able to support the features that distinguish one platform from another, thus producing lowest-common-denominator crud. Even HTML5 isn't going to make all of these problems magically go away.

And, while a complete copy of Wikipedia (both English and Chinese) would be helpful, there's a lot more on the Web than just Wikipedia.

~ Kiran <entropy@io.com>

 

[numble]

I really hate that sort of integration, to be honest - I'd rather just put an offline version of Wikipedia in Pleco. If people want an offline dictionary then people want an offline dictionary - if people would be happy with a dictionary that required an internet connection then we wouldn't need to tear our hair out supporting iPhone and Android, we'd develop once nice clean web-based app and let every smartphone OS with a decent web browser access it.

But Pleco is not about just one dictionary but multiple dictionaries, and all the extra features in the software that let you look up entries, read documents, and study words better. People prefer the offline dictionaries for the speed, and the fact that it's near instantaneous amongst many dictionaries--an online dictionary is slowed by the connection and then the web tech behind it.

As learners get more advanced, they run into more and more words that those dictionaries don't have definitions for, and the annoyance of switching to other dictionary apps or Safari to look it up, just to paste it into Pleco (and some Apps might not support copy/paste), is inefficient. It's not about liking online versus offline, but liking the ability to find definitions for words that you look up. A lot of web resources are great for new words, slang and phenemonon--I don't think relying strictly on CC-CEDICT is enough; last time I was working as an editor there, it was starting to get dominated by conservative linguists who were always too overly cautious about including newer terms, phenemena and slang.

Wikipedia's also probably third behind Baidu Baike and Hudong in Chinese web encyclopedias anyway (maybe even behind Google dictionary nowadays, but at least with those resources, I don't think they try to do a "best guess" at the definition--it's either there or not), and those non-Wikipedia pages can only be accessed through some sort of web integration.

 

[mikeo]

I've been using Reader a lot lately, and there's one possible additional feature that would be useful. Haven't seen it mentioned yet but can't claim to have read all the posts, so sorry if this is a repetition.

Often there are phrases one or more of whose component parts may or may not be in any of the dictionaries (or the dictionary entry is offbase, incorrect, or out of date), but whose complete phrasal meaning or connotation isn't quite clear. I'd like to be able to copy-paste these phrases into a file or flashcard for future reference ( checking with a native speaker about their connotations, etc.), so that when I'm done reading the document I have batched them all into one place.

Bookmarks are pretty crude for this purpose because they only get me to the page, not to the phrase itself. And there's no way to select characters in Reader outside of dictionary lookup (is there?)

Of course I can also just write them down (what I'm doing now), but if there was a way to send any selected text to a file or (not quite as good) to a flashcard category, that would save time.

I'm thinking a button (appearing optionally based on a setting) which would take text selected by the "extension arrows" and simply copy it to a file of my choosing.

 

[mikelove]

But Pleco is not about just one dictionary but multiple dictionaries, and all the extra features in the software that let you look up entries, read documents, and study words better. People prefer the offline dictionaries for the speed, and the fact that it's near instantaneous amongst many dictionaries--an online dictionary is slowed by the connection and then the web tech behind it.

That's part of the issue right there, actually - web-based dictionaries can't be integrated into other parts of the software like the document reader, nor we can we really use them as an automated fallback. All we'd really be doing is adding a command to automate the process of copying out your search query and forwarding it to something via a web browser... I suppose that might be worth doing with customizable toolbars, though; let someone define a URL and then assign a toolbar command to insert the current search query into a particular place in that URL and pop up a web browser window with the results. But I really wouldn't want to integrate it into the UI much more tightly than that.

I'm thinking a button (appearing optionally based on a setting) which would take text selected by the "extension arrows" and simply copy it to a file of my choosing.

Interesting idea... we actually have added iPhone-style text selection for 2.2, so you can tap-hold / select an arbitrary segment of text (not just a particular Chinese word) and copy-and-paste that to another document, but there's still some mode switching to get you from "Copy" to "Paste." I think something integrated with the bookmark system might be better, though - it may turn out that the previous sentence / context is essential to understanding the meaning of the confusing phrase (looking back for a character's name / description, e.g.) - so I'd be more inclined to try to solve this problem by allowing the selection / marking of specific text ranges in documents with bookmarks / flags.