Pleco for Android 2.4.5 Bug Report Thread
- Thread starter mikelove
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HW60
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Re: Pleco for Android 2.4.4 Bug Report Thread
Full-text search in my user dictionary now seems to work like in other chinese dictionaries and finds matches when only part of a word is entered. So Pleco almost does what I would expect, but I do not really understand the way Pleco stops searching. I tried entering "anders" (=different) in my German user dictionary: With "a" Pleco finds "a" and "a)" and "(A)" and ".u.a." and others. With "an" I get "an" and "an-" and "(an)" and others. With "and" Pleco finds "and". With "ande" Pleco finds "Andenken" (!) (first partial match), with "ander" Pleco finds "andere" but not "anders".
Searching in "Full-text, Chn Dicts" is similar, but I probably would not use it: Complete words like "a", "an" or "and" are found like in my user dictionary. With "ande" Pleco finds "Andean" in ADS, but no other partial matches (like "Andenken" from above), with "ander" Pleco finds "Ander" (complete word) in ADS, but no partial matches elsewhere.
So if you do not plan to extend Pleco's full-text search to partial matching within words (finding "mai" in "email"), the actual version is very good! But maybe you can explain the way Pleco stops searching, because now it is not obvious that user dictionaries are included in chinese dictionary groups (they are!).
Full-text search in my user dictionary now seems to work like in other chinese dictionaries and finds matches when only part of a word is entered. So Pleco almost does what I would expect, but I do not really understand the way Pleco stops searching. I tried entering "anders" (=different) in my German user dictionary: With "a" Pleco finds "a" and "a)" and "(A)" and ".u.a." and others. With "an" I get "an" and "an-" and "(an)" and others. With "and" Pleco finds "and". With "ande" Pleco finds "Andenken" (!) (first partial match), with "ander" Pleco finds "andere" but not "anders".
Searching in "Full-text, Chn Dicts" is similar, but I probably would not use it: Complete words like "a", "an" or "and" are found like in my user dictionary. With "ande" Pleco finds "Andean" in ADS, but no other partial matches (like "Andenken" from above), with "ander" Pleco finds "Ander" (complete word) in ADS, but no partial matches elsewhere.
So if you do not plan to extend Pleco's full-text search to partial matching within words (finding "mai" in "email"), the actual version is very good! But maybe you can explain the way Pleco stops searching, because now it is not obvious that user dictionaries are included in chinese dictionary groups (they are!).
Re: Pleco for Android 2.4.4 Bug Report Thread
First of all thanks for this awesome release. I'm so happy to finally have jyutping.
Is it possible to have the Flashcard, Reader and OCR "launchers" be regular apps, so that they can be added to SwypePad ? This is particularly important for the reader, as I frequently need to switch tasks (from whatsapp or SMS to the Pleco Reader to check my spelling), and the best way to do that is using SwypePad. This used to work, when the launchers were available as a separate package on the market.
First of all thanks for this awesome release. I'm so happy to finally have jyutping.
Is it possible to have the Flashcard, Reader and OCR "launchers" be regular apps, so that they can be added to SwypePad ? This is particularly important for the reader, as I frequently need to switch tasks (from whatsapp or SMS to the Pleco Reader to check my spelling), and the best way to do that is using SwypePad. This used to work, when the launchers were available as a separate package on the market.
Re: Pleco for Android 2.4.4 Bug Report Thread
That's by design, though the UI could be better - basically, in order to avoid giving you an utterly befuddling / useless list of search results when searching multiple dictionaries at once, we take whichever word is alphabetically earliest across all dictionaries and "auto-complete" your query to that. (we were doing this for single dictionaries in our old non-merged app) We should / plan to reflect this in the search field in some way, showing you the missing letters of what it thinks you're trying to type, but it doesn't make sense to display multiple matches at once unless we switch to a two-step system (i.e., if there's no exact match for what you entered we show a list of possible matches and you pick one), which might be a bit jarring UI wise to have pop up / disappear again if you continue typing the word. We could also consider auto-completing by word frequency, but I'm not sure if that makes sense either when users are just as likely to be looking for less common words.
We could update the APKs, but we were actually hoping that this could be made to work with our new shortcuts, particularly now that we've updated them to work in other gesture launchers like GMD - is there no option in SwypePad to open an app shortcut?
HW60 said:
That's by design, though the UI could be better - basically, in order to avoid giving you an utterly befuddling / useless list of search results when searching multiple dictionaries at once, we take whichever word is alphabetically earliest across all dictionaries and "auto-complete" your query to that. (we were doing this for single dictionaries in our old non-merged app) We should / plan to reflect this in the search field in some way, showing you the missing letters of what it thinks you're trying to type, but it doesn't make sense to display multiple matches at once unless we switch to a two-step system (i.e., if there's no exact match for what you entered we show a list of possible matches and you pick one), which might be a bit jarring UI wise to have pop up / disappear again if you continue typing the word. We could also consider auto-completing by word frequency, but I'm not sure if that makes sense either when users are just as likely to be looking for less common words.
dustpuppy said:
We could update the APKs, but we were actually hoping that this could be made to work with our new shortcuts, particularly now that we've updated them to work in other gesture launchers like GMD - is there no option in SwypePad to open an app shortcut?
HW60
状元
Re: Pleco for Android 2.4.4 Bug Report Thread
Maybe it is even easier to exactly compare the search string of the input field with the string in Definition than searching with auto-complete.
For me a search list which has only one result even in my own user dictionary only ("ande" only finds "Andenken", while I am searching vor "anders") seems to be a little bit useless. Even one letter before the complete input ("ander" when I am searching for "anders") I do not find the word, but get a list of 9 results with "andere". And actually I do not see the problem with long lists - there is only room for about 6 results on one screen, and if I do not like what I see on this screen I enter the next letter and still know that there are several results. But - in the example - having entered "ande" I am sure that a get a comparatively short list including the result I wanted to see. If I am looking for the word "Andersartigkeit", I have to enter almost the whole word and probably get the auto-completed word "andersartig" as soon as I entered "andersa", but only after entering "andersartigk" the result is finally presented.mikelove said:
Maybe it is even easier to exactly compare the search string of the input field with the string in Definition than searching with auto-complete.
Re: Pleco for Android 2.4.4 Bug Report Thread
But then what order do we present the results in? There could be a lot of scrolling involved if we alphabetize them by the matching word, for example. Also, in a merged search at least there's a considerable performance cost to loading / sorting / merging every entry that contains a word that starts with "ande," and since merged search is now the default / is likely to be the only type of search that most users use, making those searches slower for the sake of not having to type quite so much of an ambiguous search query seems like a poor tradeoff.
We could add auto-complete lists as an option, though - wouldn't be too difficult: it would be jarring enough that I don't think we'd want to make it a default, but for users who didn't mind the interface flickering back and forth between a list of exactly matching results and a list of possible matches that start with what you typed, it might save a few extra letters.
HW60 said:
But then what order do we present the results in? There could be a lot of scrolling involved if we alphabetize them by the matching word, for example. Also, in a merged search at least there's a considerable performance cost to loading / sorting / merging every entry that contains a word that starts with "ande," and since merged search is now the default / is likely to be the only type of search that most users use, making those searches slower for the sake of not having to type quite so much of an ambiguous search query seems like a poor tradeoff.
We could add auto-complete lists as an option, though - wouldn't be too difficult: it would be jarring enough that I don't think we'd want to make it a default, but for users who didn't mind the interface flickering back and forth between a list of exactly matching results and a list of possible matches that start with what you typed, it might save a few extra letters.
ckatt
状元
Re: Pleco for Android 2.4.4 Bug Report Thread
I'm having an Ocr problem in both .3 and .4. Other Oct will give me the definition for one word .after that it will scan other words and auto pause when it has a match but no definition is displayed. I first noticed this on .4 so I then reverted back to .3 and had the same problem..2 is ok though.
I'm having an Ocr problem in both .3 and .4. Other Oct will give me the definition for one word .after that it will scan other words and auto pause when it has a match but no definition is displayed. I first noticed this on .4 so I then reverted back to .3 and had the same problem..2 is ok though.
dustpuppy said:
Yes, I found the option and there is indeed a Pleco Flashcards shortcut - swiped to bring it up, selected an empty slot, chose "Link portal 1 to" "Shortcuts" and "Pleco Flashcards" is one of the options available.
If you're not seeing it, make very sure you're running version 2.4.3 or later of Pleco.
HW60
状元
Re: Pleco for Android 2.4.4 Bug Report Thread
Your idea of adding auto-complete lists as an option seems to be a good solution for those users used to auto-complete lists.
My favourite full-text search is realized in JED (free japanese english dictionary in Google Play).
I would not sort non-auto-complete lists even if the results come from different dictionaries. With only 2 or 3 letters entered, the total list can have 10000 entries or more. The user will not scroll, but add a letter in the input field. I think it is important that the user is confident that the word he is searching is in the dictionary. Sometimes a word that is written slightly different is in the dictionary, but you resign searching because you have already a short list without the word (that was the reason that I thought user dictionaries are not included in the Chinese Dictionaries Group). I think auto-complete is not natural - the user expects the list he gets is complete, but he only gets a list with the first auto-completed word of the first dictionary searched.mikelove said:
Your idea of adding auto-complete lists as an option seems to be a good solution for those users used to auto-complete lists.
My favourite full-text search is realized in JED (free japanese english dictionary in Google Play).
First of all: Happy new year and thanks for the nice, big update.
I like it. It even made me start some flashcard training again. :wink:
But I stumbled upon an bug within a flashcard session:
I see pinyin and translation and want to get the character right. So I press the brush-button to write the char, scribble it down and reveal the entire card. I then mark it as correct/incorrect and the next card is shown. But it's like it is in the background, behind the input field for handwriting. And I cannot close the handwriting.
It looks like this:
Also I then can press the speaker-button to hear the pronounciation - even if I disabled that until the card is revealed.
I'm using a Nexus 7 with stock android. Tell me if you need more information.
Cheers,
Mitch
I like it. It even made me start some flashcard training again. :wink:
But I stumbled upon an bug within a flashcard session:
I see pinyin and translation and want to get the character right. So I press the brush-button to write the char, scribble it down and reveal the entire card. I then mark it as correct/incorrect and the next card is shown. But it's like it is in the background, behind the input field for handwriting. And I cannot close the handwriting.
It looks like this:
Also I then can press the speaker-button to hear the pronounciation - even if I disabled that until the card is revealed.
I'm using a Nexus 7 with stock android. Tell me if you need more information.
Cheers,
Mitch
Re: Pleco for Android 2.4.4 Bug Report Thread
dustpuppy: as previously expressed, I too would prefer APK's. But while they're trying to fix up the shortcuts, let me recommend GMD Gesture Control to you. I use Pleco for similar real-time purposes as you. I used SwipePad for a long time, and it's great, but GMD made the kind of usage you're talking about (and other usage) even easier, so I've dropped SwipePad completely. In GMD, you associate a simple gesture with Pleco, and then you can switch to it instantly from any context more easily than opening and selecting from a SwipePad. For example, my Pleco gesture is to swipe my thumb downward diagonally from the screen's border. It's one of the easiest and most reliable gestures, and you don't even need to be looking at your phone to open Pleco. While Pleco is open, you can switch back to the precise location you came from with no thought involved by associating another simple gesture with GMD's alt-tab (switch to previous app) functionality.
dustpuppy said:
dustpuppy: as previously expressed, I too would prefer APK's. But while they're trying to fix up the shortcuts, let me recommend GMD Gesture Control to you. I use Pleco for similar real-time purposes as you. I used SwipePad for a long time, and it's great, but GMD made the kind of usage you're talking about (and other usage) even easier, so I've dropped SwipePad completely. In GMD, you associate a simple gesture with Pleco, and then you can switch to it instantly from any context more easily than opening and selecting from a SwipePad. For example, my Pleco gesture is to swipe my thumb downward diagonally from the screen's border. It's one of the easiest and most reliable gestures, and you don't even need to be looking at your phone to open Pleco. While Pleco is open, you can switch back to the precise location you came from with no thought involved by associating another simple gesture with GMD's alt-tab (switch to previous app) functionality.
HW60 said:
We have to do some sorting or else the list is utterly useless - the word you want might be there but might be several pages down, and there's no pattern (alphabetical order, i.e.) to allow you to easily find it. Showing the completion grayed out in the search field would seem to achieve the basic goal of advertising to the user the fact that we've auto-completed their search for them and that they might get different results if they continue typing.
3x13 said:
What happens if you simply tap on the paintbrush button again? Does it ignore you? Also, is there a "Done" button in the handwriting input box?
mfcb said:
We actually didn't consider that a major issue because we assumed that there wasn't much point to having a still OCR launcher when you can simply launch the built-in photo gallery app and share your photo with Pleco from that - do you find that significantly more awkward?
HW60
状元
I think a list is useful as long as it contains all words which match the actual input field. When the list is (too) long, the user can add a letter to shorten the list. As long as the list is not empty the word he searches can still be in the dictionary, and he can add more letters and shorten the list more - entering more letters when the user still has a chance to find the word is not the problem.mikelove said:
Auto-completion produces a list with one randomly chosen word. Looking for a certain word and getting a word that was chosen by any algorithm probably will not help the user. The normal user - without having studied the manual in great detail - believes what he sees and will assume that his word is not part of the dictionary and quit searching.
Sorting is not the vital question for me - if the list is sorted or not does not matter, if no other decisions depend on sorting.
Let me state once more that full-text searching in user dictionaries with the actual update of the program is a great advantage and long awaited!! But I think such a brilliant program should use auto-completion only as an option.