Pleco for Android 3.2.6 Bug Report / Feedback Thread

[ckatt]

I know that you've got flash card updates in the works but I was just thinking that a good feature would be a time attack type test. Set the cards to endless and then see how many you can do in 10 minutes. Or what ever you have time for.

 

[mikelove]

Not sure about the pedagogical value of that, to be honest - feels a little too game-y - but we'll think about it.

Re @Yiliya's color theming comment: what about if instead of a Material color picker we simply added other color theme options besides Day and Night? (based on Material colors)

 

[Yiliya]

@mikelove, why not just include the color code support? Many apps have this in their color pickers, since this way you can pick the exact color you wanted, instead of a gross approximation. Is this hard to program or are you thinking it's going to confuse someone? This is especially important for tones, since on the PC and other Android apps (e.g. Anki) I can set exact tone colors that I've got used to over the years, but I still have to settle for approximations in Pleco. Maybe I'm OCD, but it really bugs me why directly inputting the color is not an option.

Here's a screenshot of what I have in mind.

 

[mikelove]

We can add hex color support too - it does make sense for tones - but you raised the issue of hex colors for the specific purpose of matching the Material spec in toolbars, and for that I think a palette is better.

 

[Yiliya]

@mikelove, well I can agree with that. In your current implementation one would have to separately set colors for both toolbar and statusbar and it's hard to get it right without the hex codes. And besides, most people are only going to care about the material colors, so might as well just make it a palette, I guess. How many are you going to include, though? IIRC the basic MD palette has about 20 colors.

 

[mikelove]

Actually we've shifted from a palette to full-blown themes now - only way we can update the colors of checkboxes and such, or of the toolbar that appears in the Lollipop task switcher.

So the tentative plan is that we'll let you choose any Material Design color as your day mode "theme" and adjust everything around that. We may also offer a plain gray with dark gray icons theme option - a lot of people have suggested that they find Material Design's colorful look distracting and I don't entirely disagree.

 

[ckatt]

Not sure about the pedagogical value of that, to be honest - feels a little too game-y - but we'll think about it.

I think think the pedagogical value is it would be fun!

 

[alex_hk90]

I'm not sure which version this started in but there seems to be a minor bug in the way user dictionary entries are searched using Pinyin. (Thanks to goldyn chyld for reporting this for the LACD and MoEDict user dictionaries.)

Specifically, there are some entries that can be searched when using the Hanzi but not found when using the Pinyin. However they are found when searching with part of the Pinyin.
For example, the following entry from LACD:
---
空窗期[空窗期] kōngchuāngqí 【陸拼】kōngchuāngqī1 感染病毒後，至出現病毒抗體的期間。例：愛滋病～。（英window period）2 結束某事後，至某事再出現的期間。例：感情～｜職場～。
---
The above entry is:
- found when searched using "空窗期" or "空窗";
- not found when searched using "kongchuangqi" or "kongchuang";
- found when searched using "kongchuan".

I've tried a few test entries (see attached for test dictionary Pleco cards) and the behaviour is fairly consistent:

Hanzi [Traditional] Pinyin Definition Result
空窗期[空窗期] kōngchuāngqí test entry 01a kongchuan
空船期[空船期] kōngchuānqí test entry 01b OK
空船济[空船济] kōng chuān jí test entry 01c OK
东窗期[東窗期] dōngchuāngqí test entry 01d dongchuan
空窗济[空窗期] kōngchuāngjí test entry 01e kongchuan
同窗[同窗] tóngchuāng test entry 02 tongchuan
同船济水[同船濟水] tóngchuán-jìshuǐ test entry 03 OK
寒窗[寒窗] hánchuāng test entry 04a hanchuan
寒船[寒船] hánchuān test entry 04b OK
寒霜[寒霜] hánshuāng test entry 05 hanshuan
揭疮疤[揭瘡疤] jiēchuāngbā test entry 06 jiechuan
揭船疤[揭船疤] jiēchuān-bā test entry 06b OK
东窗事发[東窗事發] dōngchuāng-shìfā test entry 07 dongchuan
东船事发[東船事發] dōngchuān-shìfā test entry 07b OK

The entries where the second Hanzi has 6-character Pinyin (i.e. "chuang" or "shuang") is only found when using Hanzi or the first 5 characters of the Pinyin (i.e. "...chuan" or "...shuan").

 

[mikelove]

Thanks! Reproduced and fixed (related to a recent change to string padding in a seemingly unrelated portion of Pleco) and should be addressed shortly in 3.2.7. It's on the search rather than the database side, so the fix will work without any need to re-generate or otherwise alter databases.

 

[alex_hk90]

Thanks! Reproduced and fixed (related to a recent change to string padding in a seemingly unrelated portion of Pleco) and should be addressed shortly in 3.2.7. It's on the search rather than the database side, so the fix will work without any need to re-generate or otherwise alter databases.

You're most welcome, and thank you for the ultra-fast response - very impressed as usual!

 

[burdenofhope]

I just updated to this version and now I got a quick question: apparently you removed the old search screen interface, which I like, but whereas in the old version when you entered a word and got to the definition screen interface, the keyboard would automatically close - this isn't the case anymore with just one screen. I enter a word and have to close my keyboard manually, otherwise I'm not able to see anything. Is there a way to close the keyboard automatically once I enter a word?

 

[mikelove]

We didn't remove the old interface, it sounds like you've (perhaps accidentally) enabled the "Two-panel layout" option in Settings / Search Screen; turn that off to get the old interface back.

As for keyboard closing behavior, this two-panel mode is mostly designed for use on tablets and on those at least we think it makes more sense to leave it open (so you can carry on entering another search term) - we could consider automatically closing the keyboard when you're using this mode on a phone, though.

 

[burdenofhope]

I've had the two-panel layout option enabled for the last two years, I like it especially for wildcard searches. But what you're saying is that if I disable two-panel layout, the keyboard will close automatically after entering a search term? I will try that. -edit- Tried it but it still did not close automatically. :/

I don't want to nitpick, but every time there was a bigger update over the last two years I found myself stuck in the settings searching for boxes to uncheck trying to de-cram the UI. This time for example, how do I get rid of the pencil in the upper right corner (see thumbnail below), the input field is just so wedged in there.

Plus, is there any way I can change the spacing between dictionary entries/words in a single dictionary entry? Here on the other hand I just feel that a lot of space is not being used as Pleco somehow becomes more and more of a tablet app.

 

[mikelove]

Actually I just checked this here and it appears that the keyboard already does close after tapping on a list item in 2-panel mode on a phone, at least on the device I checked on. So it's not doing that for you now? What's your current device model / Android version?

The pencil has been there by default for the last several releases, I believe - it's how you access the edit entry screen to add or edit a user dictionary definition. (there isn't really another way to access that screen at the moment) To get rid of it, go into Settings / Manage Dictionaries and lock your user dictionary to prevent editing.

As for spacing, to be honest that would be really tricky to make customizable - have you thought about shrinking the English font size and then enabling the "enlarge Chinese characters" option in Settings / Definition Screen? That will make the English definitions take up less space (and shrink the space between them) while keeping the Chinese characters large enough to be readable.

 

[alex_hk90]

EDIT: Please disregard below - user error.

Found another minor bug with user dictionaries, this time with the Full-text Index - I acknowledge it does say "(experimental)" so I didn't expect it to be working perfectly yet.
I just tried enabling it for MoEDict and it works but duplicates the result:


The first example is with the database unlocked and the second with it locked.
I also tried the "Optimize Full-text Index" button but it didn't seem to do anything (or if it did it was too quick for me to see it, maybe something popped up for a fraction of a second).

 

[mikelove]

I don't suppose there's any chance you have a second copy of MOEDict installed, do you? It looks like in your first example you have one copy of MoE with a pencil icon and one copy without one. The function to check for whether to add that pencil icon is very simple ("is this dictionary ID editable," basically) - not tied to search results at all - so it would be a very odd bug for the same dictionary to be editable in one place and not editable in the other.

 

[alex_hk90]

I don't suppose there's any chance you have a second copy of MOEDict installed, do you? It looks like in your first example you have one copy of MoE with a pencil icon and one copy without one. The function to check for whether to add that pencil icon is very simple ("is this dictionary ID editable," basically) - not tied to search results at all - so it would be a very odd bug for the same dictionary to be editable in one place and not editable in the other.

My mistake - you're completely correct; please disregard.
I thought I didn't turn on full-text search for the other one but clearly I did.

 

[Michal]

I think I have come across a stability issue in 3.2.6. Pleco crashes with Android reporting "Unfortunately Pleco has stopped".

This has happened to me repeatedly in the following situation: I am reviewing flashcards, bring up a pop-up definition, continue from there to the separate definition screen using the button with four arrows, from there I continue to the chars or words tab to look at related words or characters, look at a couple, then Pleco crashes.
I do not know if the flashcard environment has anything to do with it, it may be an issue with the pop-up definition that happens to me in the flashcard environment simply because I spend most of my time there when working with Pleco.

I have an Asus with Android 4.2.1.
This has only started happening with version 3.2.6. However, I did not upgrade from 3.2.5, I skipped a couple of minor versions.

Thanks for any help.

 

[mikelove]

Try rearranging the definition screen tabs (Settings / Definition screen) so that STROKE is at the very end instead of next to DICT; does that make the crashes go away?

 

[Michal]

Yes, the crashes have gone away after I rearranged the tabs. This is a workaround I can live with pretty much indefinitely. Let me know if you want me to try anything else to help with the diagnostic though.

Since this is the first time in months I have had something urgent to say and appeared here on the forum, let me also say thanks for the Enlarge Chinese characters option. It really helps to have nice largish legible Chinese characters without making the English ones unnecessarily large. Thanks.