Official iPad Thread

[mikelove]

Unfortunately other parts of the interface go away, for example the history button. I think getting every button to be on screen at all times would be a big win.

Any buttons other than history that you miss? We've got acres of room on iPad, so there's not really any reason we couldn't keep that and the back / forward / etc buttons visible, but gratuitous button-adding is just going to make the interface cluttered - history at least I think there may be a lot of interest in.

 

[panamajack]

Mike,

When time permits, could you post an iPad demo video? I was extolling the virtues of Pleco for a would-be iPad buyer but it's hard to get a sense of how the app performs on an iPad just with screenshots or the iPhone video.

 

[mikelove]

When time permits, could you post an iPad demo video? I was extolling the virtues of Pleco for a would-be iPad buyer but it's hard to get a sense of how the app performs on an iPad just with screenshots or the iPhone video.

Sure - just waiting to finish some interface tweaks for Pleco on iPad in 2.2 first. (though I'm not sure how dramatic a difference those will actually make - the basic design in the main dictionary tab at least seems pretty solid)

 

[Entropy]

When time permits, could you post an iPad demo video? I was extolling the virtues of Pleco for a would-be iPad buyer but it's hard to get a sense of how the app performs on an iPad just with screenshots or the iPhone video.

Even better, get it placed on iProds at the Apple store for people to try for themselves.

 

[Entropy]

Any buttons other than history that you miss? We've got acres of room on iPad, so there's not really any reason we couldn't keep that and the back / forward / etc buttons visible, but gratuitous button-adding is just going to make the interface cluttered - history at least I think there may be a lot of interest in.

Well, I personally would like all of them, including the ones hidden by the cryptic icon that purports to be a fan. One in particular I woild like to see is the character info icon, which only appears when I first select a character and get a popup. (I'm using Pleco to decipher characters, not words, and frankly the words I want to decipher are often not in the dictionary.)

 

[character]

Just wanted to eat my words about the current iPad not getting multitasking. :lol:

 

[mikelove]

Well, I personally would like all of them, including the ones hidden by the cryptic icon that purports to be a fan. One in particular I woild like to see is the character info icon, which only appears when I first select a character and get a popup. (I'm using Pleco to decipher characters, not words, and frankly the words I want to decipher are often not in the dictionary.)

Those "fan buttons" are problematic because vertically stacking rows of buttons on a capacitive-screen device is very dicey, especially at the bottom of the screen - it's incredibly easy to hit a button on one row when you meant to hit another, and very annoying when you do since you end up jumping to a tab you didn't want to go to. Good point on Character Info, though - maybe an extra 字 button that automatically shows up whenever you're viewing a single-character entry? I suppose we could even redesign the UI for it a bit to support jumping between characters in a multi-character word without going back to the dictionary entry.

Just wanted to eat my words about the current iPad not getting multitasking.

Yeah, this may not turn out to be a great day for iPod fans (at least not ones who want OCR) but some very promising news for iPad users - still remains to be seen how well iPad multitasking will work in practice, though.

 

[Entropy]

Those "fan buttons" are problematic because vertically stacking rows of buttons on a capacitive-screen device is very dicey, especially at the bottom of the screen - it's incredibly easy to hit a button on one row when you meant to hit another, and very annoying when you do since you end up jumping to a tab you didn't want to go to.

Hmm, on the iPad I'd assume there's plenty of space.

Good point on Character Info, though - maybe an extra 字 button that automatically shows up whenever you're viewing a single-character entry? I suppose we could even redesign the UI for it a bit to support jumping between characters in a multi-character word without going back to the dictionary entry.

What I'd really like is a live multiple-character stroke order panel. And i keep forgetting to suggest that to the eStroke people. Again, I'd assume there's plenty of space, but since I'm typing this on my iPad, I can't actually go look it up while typing. I'd expect, though, that iPad multitasking works at least as well as iPhone 4, since it has the same processor (but only 256M of RAM). I wouldn't know how well that is, because I'm still waiting for the white iPhone. BTW, Jon Singer takes pretty good closeups with a hand-held magnifier lens, so you might be able to find a stick-on lens that would adjust the focus point, or maybe a case with lens. I've been planning to do that for my 3G but I am lame.

I want Pleco to be able to talk to Pleco over Bluetooth, so I can use my iPhone camera to send images to my iPad for translation. There's a feature request for you. In fact, I should also be able to do full-screen (literally) HWR on the phone and have the characters for what I want to eat appear on my iPad where the waiters can read them.

Just wanted to eat my words about the current iPad not getting multitasking.

Yeah, this may not turn out to be a great day for iPod fans (at least not ones who want OCR) but some very promising news for iPad users - still remains to be seen how well iPad multitasking will work in practice, though.[/quote]

 

[mikelove]

Hmm, on the iPad I'd assume there's plenty of space.

It's not a question of space, really, it's of one button being located right above another one; we need some empty, non-button space in between them or else it's too easy to tap on one when you meant to tap on the other. If we were willing to use space completely shamelessly I suppose we could create a big black bar between the top of the tab bar and the bottom of the bottom row of buttons and leave that on the screen all the time, but even with that you're losing some ground ergonomics-wise because the toolbar buttons are no longer abutting the bottom of the screen and hence require more thought / effort to hit accurately.

What I'd really like is a live multiple-character stroke order panel. And i keep forgetting to suggest that to the eStroke people.

Multiple-character? Would you want them to all animate simultaneously or one-after-the-other? Not quite getting how that would work...

I'd expect, though, that iPad multitasking works at least as well as iPhone 4, since it has the same processor (but only 256M of RAM).

It's almost entirely a RAM issue, actually, programs don't really use up any processor time when they're in the background unless they're completing a specific background task.

I want Pleco to be able to talk to Pleco over Bluetooth, so I can use my iPhone camera to send images to my iPad for translation. There's a feature request for you. In fact, I should also be able to do full-screen (literally) HWR on the phone and have the characters for what I want to eat appear on my iPad where the waiters can read them.

Once 4.2 comes out for the iPad we can look into that - right now inter-device Bluetooth communication is way too buggy / unreliable to build a major feature around, which is why the very useful "Share Files" screen is buried in Settings and hasn't gotten much promotion from us.

 

[Entropy]

It's not a question of space, really, it's of one button being located right above another one; we need some empty, non-button space in between them or else it's too easy to tap on one when you meant to tap on the other.

On the iPad I see 6 buttons, and 5 empty spaces each of which could easily hold a button. If you give the settings &c a "done" or "back" button, then you don't need a dictionary button. The fan goes away, so you only have to add two buttons to the bottom, though I'd also put the history there. Are there more buttons that would appear if I had flashcards installed? That's a strong argument for including some basic functionality for every module in the default app configuration (at least for people who post to the forums!)

If we were willing to use space completely shamelessly I suppose we could create a big black bar between the top of the tab bar and the bottom of the bottom row of buttons and leave that on the screen all the time, but even with that you're losing some ground ergonomics-wise because the toolbar buttons are no longer abutting the bottom of the screen and hence require more thought / effort to hit accurately.

Multiple-character? Would you want them to all animate simultaneously or one-after-the-other? Not quite getting how that would work...

Sequentially, as if you were writing. I'd also like to see better breakdown of the parts of a character than eStroke has (because AFAICT the *parts* of a character also follow the stroke order rules) and some kind of breakdown into words might also be nice. (Is it really the case that Chinese people don't use spaces between words? That was such a huge win for (i believe) the ancient Greeks.) As you can probably tell, I'm really happy with eStroke, but would be even happier to have an even better stroke order module in Pleco, since it does many other things better.

I'd expect, though, that iPad multitasking works at least as well as iPhone 4, since it has the same processor (but only 256M of RAM).

It's almost entirely a RAM issue, actually, programs don't really use up any processor time when they're in the background unless they're completing a specific background task.

right now inter-device Bluetooth communication is way too buggy / unreliable to build a major feature around, which is why the very useful "Share Files" screen is buried in Settings and hasn't gotten much promotion from us.

Hmm... well, one thing I'd like sooner rather than later is the ability to move at least my history from one device to the other. That could be done over the internet, if you wanted to set up servers for it. For that matter, a lot of what I want from IAC could be done that way--a few seconds of lag isn't going to be as big a problem as (for example) trying to write something while also positioning my iPad so others can see it.

~ Kiran <entropy@io.com>

 

[mikelove]

On the iPad I see 6 buttons, and 5 empty spaces each of which could easily hold a button. If you give the settings &c a "done" or "back" button, then you don't need a dictionary button. The fan goes away, so you only have to add two buttons to the bottom, though I'd also put the history there. Are there more buttons that would appear if I had flashcards installed? That's a strong argument for including some basic functionality for every module in the default app configuration (at least for people who post to the forums!)

There are more buttons with flashcards, yes - goes from 6 to 8. We're planning to add rudimentary flashcard support to the free version eventually but we've got a lot of other items on our to-do list.

I'm not wild about switching to a different tab-switching interface on iPad, because it makes the learning curve steeper for people switching between iPhone / iPad and means a lot more programming work for us maintaining both interfaces. I also like using a different UI style for switching between the dictionary / reader / flashcards / etc in general, since there's a clear difference between that and the more active commands on the regular toolbar. Plus, the tab bar gives us room for some interesting new additions in the future - for example, a more web-browser-like UI which lets you launch multiple dictionary / reader / flashcard tabs simultaneously. And honestly I just don't see the current two-tap interface to switch between tabs as that problematic - the only reason I can think of why people might want to more quickly switch back and forth between tabs would be to look up a word in the dictionary while they were in the middle of a flashcard / document reading session, and for that I'd rather develop an alternate solution like a popup "quick search box."

Sequentially, as if you were writing. I'd also like to see better breakdown of the parts of a character than eStroke has (because AFAICT the *parts* of a character also follow the stroke order rules) and some kind of breakdown into words might also be nice. (Is it really the case that Chinese people don't use spaces between words? That was such a huge win for (i believe) the ancient Greeks.) As you can probably tell, I'm really happy with eStroke, but would be even happier to have an even better stroke order module in Pleco, since it does many other things better.

I see. And you want that parts breakdown right on the stroke order diagram, as opposed to the separate Chars tab where it is now? Aside from the fact that it highlights the radical, what major advantages do you see in eStroke's system over ours?

Hmm... well, one thing I'd like sooner rather than later is the ability to move at least my history from one device to the other. That could be done over the internet, if you wanted to set up servers for it. For that matter, a lot of what I want from IAC could be done that way--a few seconds of lag isn't going to be as big a problem as (for example) trying to write something while also positioning my iPad so others can see it.

That's still about 50% of the work of a full flashcard sync system, though I suppose it might be a good thing to roll out first for testing our server setup; not sure if shared history would be enough by itself to convince a critical mass of users to sign up for our online sync system, though.

 

[Entropy]

And you want that parts breakdown right on the stroke order diagram, as opposed to the separate Chars tab where it is now?

Huh? There's another place where that information appears? (on iPad) I'm highlighting a character, a popup appears, a new set of toolbar icons appears, the rightmost one brings me to a giant diagram with a truly horrid font, which I can color in shades of grey--which is useful, but I think colors would work better than greys. Is there some other place where a different diagram appears?

I've also managed to squash your HWR input section down to an inch at the bottom of the screen. (popup, >, choose a character from the body, popup, >, back, search.) I'm assuming that's a bug, since the character entry area is about the size of a stick of gum. (What else is the size of an old-fashioned stick of gum anyway? Younguns only have those short squat lumps.)

Aside from the fact that it highlights the radical, what major advantages do you see in eStroke's system over ours?

For character drawing? The big one is the font. I'm reading real-world characters (not just printed ones, but signs and HW.) I'd like to see eStroke (and therefore Pleco) give me both trad and simplfied in one screen (though it's easy enough to switch) and also strings (so i can write something, then show it to the person I'm trying to communicate with.)

As for highlighting *the* radical... I'm not particularly knowledgeable, but when a character includes subparts that I've seen before on their own, it's not clear what is *the* radical even though I *believe* (for example) that the thing in the middle of 'jiao' is a lot like 'small' and probably gets written as a piece, at the time when the stroke order rules bring you to that point, in the same order that 'small' gets written if it stood alone. This *belief* comes from watching dozens of stroke order diagrams in eStroke, and being told by my friend who's learning Japanese that thinking this way will help me with writingaccurately. If my belief reflects something helpful when learning to write, I'd like to see each of those sub-parts highlighted, not just *the* radical. It's not clear that anyone else thinks this way, though, so how would you actually get or write the code?

~ Kiran <entropy@io.com>

 

[mikelove]

Huh? There's another place where that information appears? (on iPad) I'm highlighting a character, a popup appears, a new set of toolbar icons appears, the rightmost one brings me to a giant diagram with a truly horrid font, which I can color in shades of grey--which is useful, but I think colors would work better than greys. Is there some other place where a different diagram appears?

Yes, tap on "Chars" at the top of the screen with that stroke order diagram and you'll see a list of its component parts. (experimental feature but reasonably usable at least) The "Bold Font" option in Settings / Panels / Stroke Order might make the font a bit prettier.

I've also managed to squash your HWR input section down to an inch at the bottom of the screen. (popup, >, choose a character from the body, popup, >, back, search.) I'm assuming that's a bug, since the character entry area is about the size of a stick of gum. (What else is the size of an old-fashioned stick of gum anyway? Younguns only have those short squat lumps.)

Yep, already fixed that one for 2.2. (we think - if it's still around in that on your system then let me know)

For character drawing? The big one is the font. I'm reading real-world characters (not just printed ones, but signs and HW.) I'd like to see eStroke (and therefore Pleco) give me both trad and simplfied in one screen (though it's easy enough to switch) and also strings (so i can write something, then show it to the person I'm trying to communicate with.)

Trad/simplified are a bit tricky since out-of-context it's not always clear what the correct traditional character for a given simplified one is - there are a lot of different ways to bring up Char Info. As far as strings, if we simply extended the current character-zooming function to work with arbitrary strings too (say with a simple handwriting-input "scratch pad"), wouldn't that be enough?

As for highlighting *the* radical... I'm not particularly knowledgeable, but when a character includes subparts that I've seen before on their own, it's not clear what is *the* radical even though I *believe* (for example) that the thing in the middle of 'jiao' is a lot like 'small' and probably gets written as a piece, at the time when the stroke order rules bring you to that point, in the same order that 'small' gets written if it stood alone. This *belief* comes from watching dozens of stroke order diagrams in eStroke, and being told by my friend who's learning Japanese that thinking this way will help me with writingaccurately. If my belief reflects something helpful when learning to write, I'd like to see each of those sub-parts highlighted, not just *the* radical. It's not clear that anyone else thinks this way, though, so how would you actually get or write the code?

Let me know what you think about that Chars tab - we certainly might be able to color each component in that differently, though I'm not sure how many more people would find that useful.

 

[Entropy]

Yes, tap on "Chars" at the top of the screen with that stroke order diagram and you'll see a list of its component parts. (experimental feature but reasonably usable at least) The "Bold Font" option in Settings / Panels / Stroke Order might make the font a bit prettier.

Man. You really need to clean up this interface. = Maybe it should say "parts" or "components" instead. Or "Component characters" since you have loads of room up there. Or "Character breakdown" I think would make the most sense to me. Of course the user has to *know* that the *idea* exists, and I only learned that when my Japanese writing friend pointed it out; until then I had only a vague idea that there might be sub-parts and it's useful to know what they are. Maybe "Character sub-characger decomposition." 8-D

But that is exactly what I want, but in a single character, instead of a list, and I do think it should just appear with the stroke order diagram. (It doesn't have to be animated, you could have a smaller SOD and colored Component View side by side. But I think it would be most educational if the sub-characters were drawn and colored as they were being drawn, so you see them being laid down, most just after the fact.

Trad/simplified are a bit tricky since out-of-context it's not always clear what the correct traditional character for a given simplified one is - there are a lot of different ways to bring up Char Info.

Huh? I was under the impression that there was basically a 1-1 correspondence between trad and simplified, except in weird cases like chicken (where the trad as used in restaurants doesn't even have the typical bird radical.)

As far as strings, if we simply extended the current character-zooming function to work with arbitrary strings too (say with a simple handwriting-input "scratch pad"), wouldn't that be enough?

I'm not sure what you mean by character-zooming function. I still haven't figured out the official names for all the panes and views and popups and icons. :-/

And I'm not even sure what *I* meant anymore. A persistent scratch pad that would save its state and allow large characters would be plenty--that doesn't actually need to be animated. It should store both simplified and trad, and generate one from the other--because, for example, the iPad doesn't recognise trad, so I have to write simplified (except maybe using Pleco's full-screen HWR, I haven't figured that out yet.)

(This turns out to be extremely confusing, if you write something in trad and get simplified back, or vice versa.)

Let me know what you think about that Chars tab - we certainly might be able to color each component in that differently, though I'm not sure how many more people would find that useful.

Well, if I saw both the entire character and the parts list, that would probably do for the moment (meaning until I have more time to think about it. )

~ Kiran <entropy@io.com>

 

[radioman]

Not a big deal... just a comment that when looking at the character screen where you can view components, words, etc.

If you are in night mode, all the various buttons that are used to select components, words, etc., they look like they are grayed out rather than active.

My own view is that they should presented like the other active buttons on the page. And the button that is actually pressed and in use should be highlighted in some other way.

 

[mikelove]

If you are in night mode, all the various buttons that are used to select components, words, etc., they look like they are grayed out rather than active.

My own view is that they should presented like the other active buttons on the page. And the button that is actually pressed and in use should be highlighted in some other way.

Quite right - the top and bottom bars should look the same in Night Mode. (the bars at the bottom of Chars / Words look correct, right?) Thanks.

 

[s85]

I don't know whay it's happening, but Pleco won't start on my iPad. Firmware version is 3.2.2, I'm downloading pleco from the AppStore. I've just returned to factory settings, but I still have this problem.

 

[mikelove]

I don't know whay it's happening, but Pleco won't start on my iPad. Firmware version is 3.2.2, I'm downloading pleco from the AppStore. I've just returned to factory settings, but I still have this problem.

Hmm... haven't had any other reports of this. Delete Pleco from your iPad, delete it in iTunes on your desktop as well, then re-download / reinstall it from your desktop; does that make any difference?

 

[radioman]

Yeah, I believe that to be correct.

If you are in night mode, all the various buttons that are used to select components, words, etc., they look like they are grayed out rather than active.

My own view is that they should presented like the other active buttons on the page. And the button that is actually pressed and in use should be highlighted in some other way.

Quite right - the top and bottom bars should look the same in Night Mode. (the bars at the bottom of Chars / Words look correct, right?) Thanks.

 

[mikelove]

Yeah, I believe that to be correct.

Good, should be pretty easy to fix then. Thanks.