Pleco for Mac Update?

[abai]

View attachment 4679

haha, dope.

Yeah, it works for me too. Handwriting etc. all works as well and since clipboard is also shared between devices you can easily copy paste things across. It's great.

 

[kasim]

Seems like developing a separate desktop version for MacOS doesn't make that much sense now

 

[mikelove]

I think there are still other reasons to do it, it just maybe has to offer more than 'floating iPhone screen' functionality

 

[abai]

I think there are still other reasons to do it, it just maybe has to offer more than 'floating iPhone screen' functionality

Absolutely. I've been using screen sharing and there's a few downsides:

• Clipboard sharing is possible but fairly slow
• Start up time can take a while
• Keyboard is a bit finicky and you can't select character via number, you have to arrow through them manually
  
• Copying text can be painful sometimes
• You can't copy the Zhuyin text (not sure about pinyin, I don't use it)
• There's no keyboard shortcuts in general

With a native application there's also the opportunity for system-wide shortcuts, e.g. highlight text and hit keybind to open Pleco directly, or have a mode where any text highlighted will hover a small dict. window like this extension:

 

[ACardiganAndAFrown]

I think there are still other reasons to do it, it just maybe has to offer more than 'floating iPhone screen' functionality

Just being able to resize the window would be more than enough, really. Adding lack of latency + inconsistency with Handoff (like @abai mentioned), would already make it a much more enjoyable experience.

 

[Shun]

@ACardiganAndAFrown I doubt that will ever be possible because you're always limited to the portable device's screen size. (and, just one screen) In my view, Pleco is an exceptional case in the mobile apps space. An app as feature-rich as Pleco deserves a full-grown computing machine to stretch its legs.

You could even do Live OCR on the desktop if you link it to the iPhone's camera, except you will see what's being scanned much larger on the screen in front of you.

What's clear is that Mike's time and development manpower is limited, but I am happy that he feels the effort that goes into a desktop version is justified. Almost everyone has a laptop or desktop, too.

More ideas:

• A separate window for the flashcard category tree.
• Separate windows for lists of flashcard categories (double click on category in the tree to open)
• Flashcards can be dragged and dropped between categories, with Option-drag to copy them.
• Dictionary entries in search results can also be dragged to flashcard categories.
• A separate dictionary search history window, also with the ability to drag and drop to flashcard categories
• Flashcard studying sessions could have a history window.

All of this seems quite natural, but could be used in powerful ways.

 

[Gukeli]

I join my voice to those who are patiently (but longingly) awaiting the arrival of desktop Pleco for Mac. Nothing else will do, and it would increase my productivity immensely.

 

[kpham123]

For those technically inclined, I'm running Pleco on an Android Virtual Device through Android Studio: https://developer.android.com/studio

 

[Shun]

Hi,

thanks a lot for the hint. I have two questions:

• Is clipboard sharing (copy and paste between the virtual device and the host OS) supported?
• Can it run multiple virtual devices simultaneously? (I think so; that may be fun if you have enough RAM)

Installation of the Android version of Pleco is very easy, just drag the Pleco APK into a running virtual device.

Cheers and thanks,

Shun

 

[kpham123]

1. The Android clipboard prefers Ctrl+C while Mac uses Cmd+C. When you highlight text in Pleco aka the AVD, you can also click Copy in the tooltip manually. However, to speed that up, I used a program called Karabiner to map Cmd+C to Ctrl+C only for the Android emulator. So, now it's quite smooth to move between the two OS's.
2. Yes, you could run multiple virtual devices with Pleco if you wanted, although not sure why.

I attached some example images. The first shows the interface, I've highlighted external text in a web browser and you can see the paste tooltip within Pleco recognizing new Clipboard, you could click it. The second is showing a paste and clipboard sharing. The third is highlighting text within Pleco and either Ctrl+V or clicking tooltips will work to leave the AVD.

 

[Shun]

Very nice, thanks!

On question 2, you could read a text with pop-up definitions in one virtual device, check dictionary entries in another device, and perhaps add custom flashcards in a third device (I realize that the data is easily lost, so perhaps not.). Since Android also supports devices with very large screens, one could also emulate one of those.

Edit: Now it would be nice if the copy and paste supported styles. Also, is it able to copy entire dictionary entries or just single paragraphs? Once, I couldn't select more than a single meaning. I can also try it when I get to it.