Preview of 1.0.3 for Palm Posted

[mikelove]

At long last, we've posted a preview of version 1.0.3 for Palm:

http://www.pleco.com/ppupdate103.zip (updated to point to the finished 1.0.3 release)

This supersedes the previous "TX fix" release, though I'll leave that up separately until we release the offiical 1.0.3 update. Install the file inside of this .zip archive to your Palm to update to 1.0.3. Note that this update will overwrite your preferences (but not your registration info) - this was unavoidable as we had to make some changes to the preferences file format to accommodate a few of these fixes.

Changes in this version from 1.0.2:

* Palm OS 5.4.9 database bug fix, as previously implemented in the TX fix release (1.0.2b). Also, in this version, if you try to use the old handwriting recognizer on a TX or Z22, you'll get a warning message pointing you to the (soon-to-be-posted) Pleco Software knowledge base instructions about how to upgrade to the new recognizer.
* Handwriting recognition is now available in the demo version; this download doesn't include the necessary data files but the finished 1.0.3 will. (e-mail me if you'd like an early copy of those files)
* Palm version now remembers the last dictionary used separately for English-Chinese and Chinese-English (as on PPC).
* Duplicate user dictionary bug fixed (as on PPC).
* Fixed a couple of rare user DB-related crashes; we're still on the lookout for one or two more bugs which will hopefully be fixed before we release the finished 1.0.3.
* Show flashcards hardware button will now advance to the next card without marking the current one correct, as on PPC.
* Flashcard buttons are now on a 1/4 second delay to prevent accidentally pressing them twice.
* Session summary displays whenever you exit flashcards.
* Erase button now correctly sets the focus to the Input Field in Input Field Compatibility Mode.
* Flashcard correct percentages should now be calculated correctly.
* English-to-Chinese search should now work correctly in the demo version.
* Slightly more informative demo version warning message in entries.

This should fix pretty much all of the outstanding issues we know about, but if there's anything we didn't cover (or worse yet, some newly-introduced bug) please do let us know so that we can fix it for the offiical 1.0.3 update.

A preview of 1.0.1 for Pocket PC should hopefully be out by the end of the week (or worst-case early next week).

 

[lmcjipo]

At long last, we've posted a preview of version 1.0.3 for Palm:

http://www.pleco.com/pd103p.zip

* Flashcard correct percentages should now be calculated correctly.

Hi Mike,

I just downloaded and tested the above bug fix for the percentages. Even though with v1.0.3p, I don't get over 100% (like what I reported the last time with v1.0.2), I'm not sure if the percentages are actually calculated accurately (or maybe I'm missing something).

I have 1 flashcard that shows 100% but when I go to the card info for this flashcard, my accuracy is actually 31 / 33 which works out to be about 94%.

I will do more testing with this and post my results.

 

[mikelove]

No need to test, I checked the code and it looks like we're using the rank correct/incorrect numbers instead of the total ones. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, considering that cards are rarely in the same rank for very long. So this will be fixed in the finished 1.0.3.

 

[The Duelist]

Bug Report: Ranks Not Advancing

Hi Mike

I just installed the Preview of v1.0.3p

I'm afraid there Seems to have a Newly Introduced Bug

I have my Flashcard Ranks set to Advance with 5 Correct Out Of Last 6.
Ranks are no longer Advancing at All.
(This Definitely Needs to be Addressed Before the Official Release :wink: )

Hope This Helps

TIA
The Duelist

BTW: I am running on a T5

 

[mikelove]

I just checked and this seems to work OK on a test system here - how are the rest of your rank / test / card settings configured? Is the card history still being recorded correctly?

 

[The Duelist]

对不起 (Sorry)
I Also Required A Flag To Be Set Before Advancing To Rank 3.

The Duelist

BTW: I am now a 举人 (Juren) 8)

 

[mikelove]

No problem - given the other issues it certainly would have made sense that there might be a bug there. Thanks for the report anyway.

 

[Anonymous]

I got a bug while using input field incompatibility mode. It allows me to write just one time, then I got unreadable characters.

 

[mikelove]

Hmm.. I'm seeing this here too now. We made a change that sets focus back to the Input Field whenever you press the eraser button and I guess that also caused this. If we can't fix this for the finished version then we will at least reverse that change.

 

[gandq]

Request

Hi Mike.

Didn't post for a long time, mainly because PlecoDict is working almost flawlessly for me and because my final examn is coming closer and closer.

After installing 1.0.3, i found that all my preferences (except for the flashcard preferences - those are stored separately, i guess) had been reset to default, don't know if that is done on purpose? Apart from that, it works just fine.

JogDial use during a flashcard setting is now registered as input and resets the auto-off timer. Or does it? Actually, it seems that auto-off doesn't work at all now during flashcard sessions. Anyway, this is better than having to switch my NX80 back on every two minutes or so.


User Entry export: exporting my flashcard lists still gets me a pretty messed-up tabbed text file. Plecodict seems to export more than just 3 attributes with tabs inbetween. Can't really describe it, but it is different from a standard UTF-8 tabbed-text file (like those by which i import my entries into Pleco in the first place).

I want to make a paper based list of my entries for my examns, as i am not sure, whether i will be allowed to use my PDA. Apart from that, English-Chinese UserDict search is not supported by PD yet.

EDIT: i found a way to use the exported text file in the way that i wanted. I had to do some editing, but finally it worked. And most importantly: i found out that PlecoDict does indeed support annotations! That's great! The Annotations i imported as a 4th attribute (i.e.separated with a tab) are still there and separated by a tab after the export. But still, I am not allowed to enter tabs (i.e. edit annotations) on the Palm, which is a pity.


With regard to my examns, I would like to ask another question: is it possible to create a pure single character + pinyin dictionary from Unihan or CEDICT? Because for some of my examns, we will get a paper-based character list, but are not allowed to use dictionaries. If i could modify my PDA in a way that i can use it just for character lookup (meaning: deleting everything else, but still being able to use the HWR and pinyin lookup), that would mean a big speed gain when looking up a char that I am not sure how to write - given that I would get the official OK to do so. I would be greateful for any suggestions.


So much for now. Thanks and keep up your great work!

Greetings,




jo.

 

[lmcjipo]

At long last, we've posted a preview of version 1.0.3 for Palm:

http://www.pleco.com/pd103p.zip

Note that this update will overwrite your preferences (but not your registration info) - this was unavoidable as we had to make some changes to the preferences file format to accommodate a few of these fixes.

Hi Jo,

Mike mentioned that it would overwrite the preferences (see above - I've highlighted where he mentions it).

 

[gandq]

thanks. my bad.

maybe i shouldn't just go for the download next time, but read the info first.


jo.

 

[gandq]

partly solved

Mike.

After a lot of painful and time consuming trial-and-error, I finally succeeded in creating a dictionary only with the most frequent 3500 chars + pinyin. Please forget about my request.


Apart from that, did some more testing on the new 1.0.3 version:

- the old "card-reveal bug" has disappeared! Advancing with the right/wrong buttons won't lead to having the next card completely revealed. Great!

- percentage shown on cards is always 100%. Wish this were true, but it's a bug ;-)

- after a review session, summary is the same as after a test session, meaning it contains "correct" and "incorrect" scores. Of course, those are always zero, as this only applies to test mode. Might consider changing that. Not in any way a bug, though. How about the "repeat all incorrect" feature?

- show flashcards hardware button will advance to the next card without marking card as correct, but the session summary will show it as correct, making it less informative.

- i repeat: auto-off does not work during a flashcard session. I don't mind, it's better this way.


All this is nothing really worth mentioning. This update made PlecoDict just a little greater than it was already.

Thanks a lot!

Cheers,



jo.

 

[mikelove]

gandq - sorry that you had to go to all that effort to create a character/Pinyin list, but there's no easy way to do this built into PlecoDict yet (though we are planning to let you enable/disable particular parts of a definition in the main dictionary in Pleco 2.0). PlecoDict doesn't actually support annotation, but it ignores any tabs after the second tab on a particular line of input (treats them like normal text), so it makes sense that it would preserve them between import and export - obviously this is an area we need to work on in the future.

Glad to hear the card-reveal bug disappeared - I'm not entirely sure why, possibly the flashcard button-press delay timer had something to do with it. The percentage actually isn't a bug per se, it's more of design flaw - it uses the percentage correct within the card's current rank rather than the overall percentage correct. But it's technically accurate, it's just not very useful. Anyway, we've already fixed this for the finished 1.0.3 release.

The test session thing was a simple oversight - the session summary shouldn't display in those cases. Easy to fix. Same goes with the skipped cards being marked as correct in the session summary, those statistics are tracked in two different places and I guess it's still updating the ones that go into the session summary.

"Repeat all incorrect" is beyond the scope of what we would do in a minor update like this, but it's still likely to show up in a future major update.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[The Duelist]

auto-off does not work during a flashcard session.

Hi Mike

I am actually Unable to Switch the T5 Off While in a Flashcard Session.
(I have to Exit the Session First. Is this a New Feature?)
To Save Battery I Think Auto-Off Is Better :wink:

The Duelist

 

[caesartg]

Seeing as you're about to finalise the 1.0.3 release, I'll just throw in this one and see if you want to include it:

"Copy to Input Field" for the "Instant Access"'s toolbar. I currently have to use the Palm's native copy and paste to get this functionality and it's a bit tedious.

Maybe you could have it as an optional, or allow the "Instant Access"'s toolbar to be configured in the same way as the Plecodict's main screen one?

 

[mikelove]

The Duelist - I'm seeing this too. It looks like the on/off button is getting captured by the flashcard hardware button system and isn't getting passed along to the Palm OS. This should (hopefully) be easy to fix.

caesartg - This is doable, but I'm afraid not in 1.0.3. Adding almost anything to Instant Access is a massive undertaking because of the way that Instant Access works - basically, the Palm OS limits any program running in a "pop-up" mode to just 64K of code (a tiny amount by modern programming standards), and we've just barely managed to squeeze the current Instant Access system into that space, so in order to add in a new function like Copy to Input Field we'd need to go in and rewrite a bunch of other functions in order to clear up enough space. But this should certainly be possible in the next major update. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[The Duelist]

Session Summary

Hi Mike

Probably Too Late for 1.0.3, But I'll Ask Anyway :wink:
Would it be possible to add '% Correct' to the 'Flashcard Session Summary Screen'.

TIA
The Duelist

 

[johnh113]

Re: partly solved

Mike.


- How about the "repeat all incorrect" feature?

-
jo.

Dear gandq,

I get a similar effect to "repeat all incorrect" by going to "card settings" and setting "repetition spacing" to "custom" with my first spacing set to "0" days. I also set my "rank settings" to "Advance to the next rank after" "1" "correct in rank" and I set "retreat by" so that any card that I get wrong falls back to rank 0. That way, any card that I get correct advances to the next rank, and any card that is incorrect stays in rank 0 or falls to rank 0. When I run my flashcard session again, all of the incorrect cards come up.

John

 

[mikelove]

The Duelist - I'm afraid it is a little late for that, but we are planning to provide a lot more results data (more statistics, history, possibly even visual aids like graphs / charts) in 2.0 so this will likely happen eventually.

johnh113 - great suggestion! There's a lot of power in the Rank system if you use it strategically like this.