Pleco for Android 3.1 Beta 3

[KaiRong]

I use an HTC M7, Beta 1 was laggy and slow and I really considered to change back to the old version. But this new version runs smoothly, reader, OCR, flashcards, user dictionaries work fine. I quite like the new interface, the back button behaves like usual. Thank you very much, keep up the good work!

 

[Taichi]

• Restore database crashed pleco after the "restore successful" message. Database seems got restored correctly though.
• I can not scroll the scrollbar (bottom one) of reader if I'm at the top of the document as it opens the left panel instead. EDIT: never mind. I realized i can tap the scrollbar instead of dragging it...

 

[giokve]

The new version looks smoother and more stable. Good job.
Sometimes the popup bubble just won't appear, it must be a variation of a bug mentioned before.

 

[mikelove]

@kiraven - thanks!

@HW60 - the compounds in Words Containing are sorted by frequency, so you shouldn't generally need to look very far down to find a word even with every dictionary enabled; are you finding that a lot of the words you're interested in don't show up high in the list? (if this is specific to your use of Japanese then I'm afraid that's not really something we can justify optimizing around at the moment)

@leynux - yeah, getting a few other reports of that; we need to more tablet testing, it seems, though in general they're an extremely small share of our user base so it's funny to see so many of them cropping up in beta testing.

@KaiRong - thank you!

@Taichi - thanks! We can / should prevent the swipe gesture from kicking in there too, confusing to only have it work when you tap.

@giokve - thanks. Could you let me know what version of Android you're using on your Nexus 7?

 

[浩天]

@mikelove - Sorry, I forgot to provide that info! I'm using Android 4.3 + Touch Wiz (Note 2)

 

[giokve]

@mikelove 4.4.2

 

[Taichi]

OX and 21C in SENTS tab have blank lines.

 

[Taichi]

I can reproduce the search box font floating
bug reported by Wan in beta1 thread (attachment 1,2). It happens for both portrait and landscape with the default font, but it's more critical in landscape. the smaller search text option can mitigate the problem for portrait, not enough for landscape. Maybe xperia specific bug (I'm on xperia z ultra).

Popup in Two-pane search causes UI problem (attachment3)

 

[Wan]

I can reproduce the search box font floating
bug reported by Wan in beta1 thread (attachment 1,2). It happens for both portrait and landscape with the default font, but it's more critical in landscape. the smaller search text option can mitigate the problem for portrait, not enough for landscape. Maybe xperia specific bug (I'm on xperia z ultra).

Popup in Two-pane search causes UI problem (attachment3)

I just found out how to take screenshots
So here's what it looks like on my device. Also, pay attention to what the new handwriting recognition does (the double character line). Is that how it's supposed to look like?

 

[mikelove]

@giokve - thanks.

@Taichi - Thanks. Font thing could well be xperia-specific, though we haven't observed it on our test xperia here (but it's a different model) - Sony mucks around with their font rendering code more than any other Android OEM we've seen. I think we may end up simply checking for Sony devices and using the system Chinese font on them instead of our custom one - we already do this with Sonys in a few other places.

@Wan - yes, for the moment that is what it's supposed to look like - we wanted an easy-to-code thing that would let people compare output from both recognizers without limiting our options later in terms of charging for the new one.

 

[ckatt]

@leynux - yeah, getting a few other reports of that; we need to more tablet testing, it seems, though in general they're an extremely small share of our user base so it's funny to see so many of them cropping up in beta testing.

It must just be the thrill of the beta. I never really use pleco on my tablet. But when a new beta is released I feel compelled to test it with it.

 

[HW60]

@HW60 - the compounds in Words Containing are sorted by frequency, so you shouldn't generally need to look very far down to find a word even with every dictionary enabled; are you finding that a lot of the words you're interested in don't show up high in the list? (if this is specific to your use of Japanese then I'm afraid that's not really something we can justify optimizing around at the moment)

You can find in the Windows Mobile Posts (if you still have them) posts that I prefer a short list of WORDS - until I found out, that it is possible to scroll through the dictionaries and chose a dictionary with not too many compounds. Only when no word could be found I had to switch. That was long before user dictionaries worked and had nothing to do with japanese.
I had tried to describe the situation when I like to look for compounds: when I find a word during a flashcard session and do not know why I should know that particular character. Therefore I mainly need the WORDS belonging to that character from my user dictionary, but the problem is the same for japanese and chinese words.
I do not understand why compounds are sorted by frequency - in WORDS you can only scroll through the entries, and if you are looking for a rare word you should stop somewhere between page 50 and 100? That is worse than the former one syllable/two syllable/three syllable sort of words which you could get accustomed to. Why not simply sort words alphabetically? I remember the same discussion with full text search - following Google Search with a dictionary makes things unnecessarily complicated - you would not expect that kind of sorting in a dictionary.
It is a pity that a very good solution working in 2.4.18 is now destroyed in 3.1 for a reason I have not found out so far.

 

[mikelove]

@HW60 - there's an option in Settings under Definition Screen to disable frequency sorting in WORDS if you prefer.

But I'm afraid I'm still not seeing the benefit of the old system - if you want to pick out a specific word, then a longer alphabetical list only takes minimally more time to navigate than a shorter one, and you're spared the much greater inconvenience of flipping through multiple dictionaries (and scrolling to the correct place in each one) if the word isn't in your first choice.

Whereas if you're just looking for other common words that use this character, a frequency sorted list should be ideal for that, and with those, the length of the list really shouldn't matter at all.

 

[Taichi]

This is rather getting off topic but in my case I want words (and maybe search results) annotated with flashcard category name (e.g. HSK level) and even with frequency bin to see if there is any words I'm missing.

 

[mikelove]

That one's been on our to-do list for a long time - should be coming in one of our big flashcard updates.

 

[Taichi]

Cool!

Another bug: if I type "kaiche" fast enough in 2pane mode with WORDS tab opened, I see words for "kaiche" first, then updated with words for "kai". If I type slowly this doesn't happen, so it looks like this is because searching words for "kai" takes longer.

 

[giokve]

I would love to be able to copy text from the search bar.

Also, Pleco crashes when, while in SENTS, I search for an English word, which automatically takes me to 21ct, and try to go to DICTS. BTW I think a new search should always bring you back to DICTS.

 

[ohlordamen]

Finally able to post. Most of the bugs I mentioned seem to be fixed as far as I can tell. A huge improvement on the lag issue.

Flashcard: After you have answered the question in the old version you were able to click the pen icon, write (Img 1) and see the word you are writing, also had the delete key and done. It would be nice to have that back. I used that a lot on the words I get wrong, write it a few times, if I see it as the first word choice a few times I move on.

Bugs:
Stroke order, I'm still getting weird blank cards, or wrong words for the test. I did a test of 10 cards, and on the 11th card it came up with a word finally. (img 2-5)
In the fill in the blank test, after you have answered, the words sometimes disappear from the boxes.
As someone mentioned before I also get the lines while loading. For me it looks like the section of Pleco I'm going to loads then the slide in animation plays.


As for the new "Back button" options, none seem to work like in the old version. If I leave it on the default setting, when I'm in Settings or add-ons, hit the back button, I exit instead of going back to the dictionary (my only annoyance with this option). If I have the "Back to dictionary, the Exit" I sometimes get weird behavior of going from the dictionary to the flashcards, back to dictionary then exit. I think that is more like how the third option it to work.

Also with the loading of the sections. If I was taking a flashcard test, leave, and then click the Dictionary launcher (which I use now, explained next), I see the flashcard test popup then slide away to the dictionary. In the old version using the standard "Pleco" shortcut it took me back to dictionary, so I could use that and the flashcard launcher and had no problem jumping between the two. In this version if I'm in a test, leave, use the Pleco icon it takes me back to the test.

 

[Taichi]

Volume button scroll in reader doesn't work on xperia z ultra.

There's no way to stop reader TTS(Lulu). Hui doesn't have the problem.

 

[giokve]

Random rant: the English used in the sentences of 21C is often grammatically wrong.