Memory requirements

[George Herzog]

Hi,
I am just trying to get started with my new PlecoDict and I am wondering exactly how much memory in requires as a total. And, how much memory must be in the Palm [not on a SDcard]?

My first attempt at installing came up with an Out of Memory notification. So I have to start to budget and move things around.

 

[mikelove]

The requirement in the manual is 10 MB for Oxford only, 30 MB for everything, and at least 3 MB of free space in RAM if you're putting the data files on a flash memory card.

 

[kevin mogg]

Can't install due to memory error

I am also getting an error trying to install Plecodict. Says I have insufficient memory.
I have 13.1 mb free (out of 21 mb on my Treo 600).
I have hundreds of MB free on my card.

I am installing everything at once.
Am I missing how to tell the installation program to put it all on the card instead of main memory?

Kevin

 

[goulniky]

I have somewhat limited memory on my US50 and I had to make room yesterday to run the (Pleco) unlocker : it's about 1.3Mb if I remember correctly. It can be run from VFS, but that doesn't help much because it still needs that amount in main memory, plus whatever files it creates or modifies. Not sure exactly how much in total but I'd say at least 2Mb.

 

[kevin mogg]

Do we have to manual install

Do we have to use Manual install then? May be that will give the option to put on the card. I don't see where the automated install gives me a choice to do that and that may be the reason why it won't install.

Kevin

 

[mikelove]

The installation program should auto-detect that your Treo has an expansion card and automatically copy some of the files to that. But it's not perfect, which is why we have that note on the download page about using the manual installer on some models of Palm. Perhaps we should expand that to cover the Treo 600 as well. Anyway, if you try the manual install it should definitely work, though before you do that you might want to go into your Palm Desktop user folder (c:\program files\palm (or handspring or palm desktop)\your username) and delete the "CardInst", "Install", and "Quick Install" folders - that should get rid of any files that are still queued up to install from the Automated system.

We seriously considered getting rid of the automated install option altogether with PlecoDict 1.0, but we know some people really like it so in the end we thought it best to leave it in but warn people about using it.

And while we didn't specifically choose to make the unlocker that big (it had to be to accommodate the handwriting recognizer data file, which we were contractually obligated not to bundle with the demo version) it actually seemed like a pretty good idea, since it forces everyone to have at least a MB or so of free memory on their Palm after they install PlecoDict, which is about the minimum amount we would recommend if you've stored the dictionary databases on an SD card or Memory Stick.

 

[dom]

unlocker is too huge

I have 1.6 MB free, and have the unlocker on my SD card. The unlocker refuses to run because there isn't enough memory. I don't even care about having the new HR, I just want to run PlecoDict, which I can't now. I used to be able to run with 800K or so free, and now I can't even unlock the dictionary. Mike, is there any way to reduce this space requirement?

 

[mikelove]

Could you temporarily move some other programs to your SD card? If you can't do this with the built-in Copy utility then try using Filez (http://www.nosleep.net/).

We're working on adding a "no handwriting recognition" option to the My Orders page, but it'll be several days before that's ready. This would leave you without any recognizer, though, so it might not be the ideal option.

 

[goulniky]

When I came across that problem I started by shuffling lots of little apps to card, then I realized I had the smaller Pleco fonts in ram and moved a couple of those instead. That worked fine, moved them back after installation.

 

[dom]

Filez is great

Thanks Mike, I used Filez to move over my larger (24pt) font file.

Question re recognizer: if someone doesn't install the Hanwang, wouldn't the original recognizer still be there? or is that gone from the final version? if so, can i delete the old HWR files?

By the way, I miss the HTML docs... any plans to bring those back?

 

[herve]

I understood that the unlock prc file contains the HWR code, and that this code is "left" in RAM. This implies that the available RAM shall be the size of unlock prc + the size of HWR prc.

Wouldn't it be possible not to include the HWR code in the unlock prc itself, but have it in a separate pdb that would be expanded and put into RAM by a more light unlock application? The required available RAM would be reduced.
This unlock appli would do nothing about HWR if the pdb file is not available.

 

[mikelove]

dom - the old and new recognizers are embedded in two different "library" files - PlecoDict can only work with one of them at a time, and which one depends on which one your keyfile is coded for. But if you've installed the new recognizer then you can delete the data files for the old one.

And yes, we are planning to offer a wider variety of documentation soon - HTML and/or Word Doc. (the original file is in Word, but we can easily convert that to HTML and use Dreamweaver to clean it up)

herve - a few other people have asked for this, so we're planning to add it as an option to the My Orders page soon. Though in general we would rather people used the PDUnlock application, since getting it to work ensures that they've got plenty of extra memory once PlecoDict is unlocked.