Preview of Beta 2 for PPC Posted

[mikelove]

We've now posted a preview of PlecoDict for Pocket PC Beta 2, available here:

http://www.pleco.com/pd09b2p.zip

This fixes (nearly) all of the the PPC bugs that have been reported to us so far, including the numerous flashcard issues, the jumping search bug and at least a few of the many font glitches. Plus of course the file search problem which we already fixed in that update posted shortly after Beta 1 came out.

To install this fix, first install Beta 1 (if you haven't already), then soft reset your Pocket PC to make sure that PlecoDict isn't currently running. Next, connect your Pocket PC to your desktop, go to My Computer (on your desktop) and Mobile Device and navigate to the directory where you installed PlecoDict. Replace the "PlecoDict.exe" file in that directory with the one from the bug fix archive; do likewise with the "PlecoPinyin.ttf" file.

You can verify that the new beta is installed by checking the About screen - the fixed version will be listed as "0.9b2p" instead of "0.9b1".

 

[Anonymous]

Judging by the lack of activity in this topic, I must be the only one who finds beta 2 more erratic than beta 1. I touch a definition from the list of hits and sometimes it takes me to the full screen definition and sometimes it doesn't and I have touch the dictionary icon to get it to go to the definition.

Also, as far as I can tell, the Search button does nothing at all. Is that right?

Sandra

 

[sfrrr]

Sorry. that was I.

Sandra

 

[mikelove]

The search button only comes into play if you're using the "delay before search" option (or if you check the "require" box next to the "enable search button" box) - it skips through any delay and searches immediately. With the "require" option, PlecoDict won't automatically search whenever you input text, but will only perform a search when you press the search button.

I'm not sure about this other problem - we did find one bug (highlighting doesn't work in the Input Field) which will be fixed in the official Beta 2 we're about to release, but I'm not sure about this other one. It might be related to the fix for the (very tricky) jumping search bug... we'll take a look anyway. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[mikelove]

We didn't manage to reproduce this on our X50v here, so we've posted Beta 2 as-is; let me know if the problem is still present in the official Beta 2 release and we'll see if we can track it down. Are you running any unusual third-party software on your PPC? Anything related to stylus input?

 

[micas]

Not to bust your balls but... you have a preview version of a beta and an official beta release?

 

[mikelove]

The preview came out a few days before the offiical one. It's kind of a double-checking thing, we've had a few incidents in the past where we released a new version only to immediately have to put out a fix for some serious bug that cropped up at the last minute; this way, people get to try out the new versions a few days earlier in exchange for helping us avoid stupid mistakes.

 

[micas]

Yup, it seems buggier than the previous beta release. Now during a flashcard session, the font size in the three fields are now smaller.

Bring back the big Chinese character font (can I resize somewhere?) in the flashcard session.

The definition text is now bolded.

And in the pinyin field, letters with a 3rd tone mark above gets bolded.

The character info screen also intermittently kicks you back to the windows mobile desktop when you try to close the window. But this one was also present in previous version.

Unfortunately, I neglected to backup plecodict.exe and plecopinyin.ttf so I'll have to reinstall the previous beta.

 

[sfrrr]

OK, here are two more (little) ones:

1. I have PD search set up so that when I tap on a result in the list, PD displays that hit's definition. Perfectly straightforward. Unless, that is, I tap on the topmost hit in the list. Then nothing happens, unless I hit the open/close list button.

2. remember I was complaining about the keyboard not coming up automatically when I place the cursor into the search box? Your reply was that it was intentional because lots of people lots of times will be searching on characters, not pinyin. I can go along with that. (Aren't you glad?) But the fact that I erase the previous search phase, either by backspace or the erase button, and when I start typing, the search box isn't activated and so accepts none of my strokes (unless I tap in the box), that's driving me crazy. I can't tell you how many times I start typing and realize that nothing is going on in the box.

Sandra

 

[mikelove]

micas - you can fix (most of) the font size issues in the Characters section of the control pane (just set them to the appropriate point size). We're still tweaking the font code a lot - the Windows CE system is really horribly buggy, it's almost impossible to ensure consistent sizes between multiple fonts and the HTML control doesn't even follow the instructions we give it about font sizes. If it wouldn't be so much work, we'd probably just give up on using Microsoft's system and port over a version of FreeType or something else which we could get working reliably, but as is we just have to keep working around all of these blasted inconsistencies and bugs.

Is all of the definition text bolded (including the Chinese characters), or only parts of it? Does this happen with every entry or just some? What type/model of Pocket PC are you running?

We're still tracking down that card info bug, but it should be fixed in the next update.

sfrrr - thanks for the additional bug reports. #1 still isn't coming up in our testing, but we'll keep looking for it. #2 is something we're still working on - Beta 2 made it happen less often but hopefully in Beta 3 we'll manage to eliminate it altogether. We know what's causing it at least.

 

[micas]

If you're referring to Dict -> Preferences -> Characters, I've tried setting both "Small font size" and "Large font size" and the character size in the flashcard session remains the same.

The definition text looked bolded but now that I look at it, seems to just be difference in font style. Don't know why it didn't seem so markedly different before. Getting cross-eyed I guess.

The bolding in the pinyin field on letters with a 3rd tone mark is definitely there.

The character field is not bolded. It's just small.

I've got a Dell Axim X50v, ROM A05, English. You've mentioned it's one of your testbed models.

 

[sfrrr]

I'm having trouble with the pinyin font in definitions and, I think, on flashcards. The typeface looks like a typewriter font--courier?--and the third-tone letters with umlauts look like the diacritical marks and tones were added by a four-year-old in Sharpie pen. Ugly but most definitely readable.

Sandra

 

[mikelove]

Interesting that the two of you are both encountering these font problems with X50vs, particularly since our own X50v isn't exhibiting any of these symptoms.

Is ClearType turned on or off on your system? If it's off, try turning it on - I know it slows things down significantly, but it should make the font display a lot more readable/consistent.

We're aware of the bold/ugly 3rd-tone characters- Microsoft's built-in Tahoma font doesn't include those characters, so we add them (along with a hundred or so others) with our identical-looking PlecoPinyin font, but thus far, even though we've gone to great lengths to ensure that all of the text metrics/sizes/etc are the same, the characters still look different. So it's quite baffling; if we could produce our own font from scratch we would, but getting the hinting to work correctly on all of the different Pocket PC font sizes would take an obscene amount of work, so we pretty much have no choice but to piggyback on Tahoma.

 

[sfrrr]

I always have clear type on, so that's not a factor. Unless you want me to turn it off. And as for the funky 3rd tone umlaut letters, you're preaching to the choir here. As long as I can read everything, I'm happy. It may be a problem for you with new potential customers though. If I weren't on deadline, I'd install it on the new Axim x51v with WM 2005 and see whether there's any difference. Or onto one of my not-so-old iPAQs. But I am on deadline.

Sandra[/code]

 

[Anonymous]

Soft Reset

I have up-loaded the Beta 2 version on my Ipaq 4155 PPC. The improvements over Beta 1 are great. But now I am having a frequent problem with the system "freezing", requiring a soft reset. It appears to happen if I have Pleco open, and then turn off my PPC. When I turn it back on it is completely frozen. It happens most frequently when turning off the PPC while viewing flashcards. But this situation has definitely started occuring more frequently using Beta 2... and continues to happen more and more while PlecoDict is running. Any ideas?

Thanks! Great program

-Shannon

 

[mikelove]

Are you sure the freeze is permanent? (i.e., the system isn't just a little slow after you start up?) It's actually quite normal that the system would freeze briefly when it starts up, because of a quirk in the Pocket PC OS - basically, when you put the system to sleep it unmounts any available storage cards (equivalent to what happens when you remove a card from its slot), and it takes a few seconds to re-mount them when you turn the system back on. You'll likely also notice this behavior in other Pocket PC programs that load a lot of large files from the storage card. In Beta 2 we specifically check for this and reload any invalidated files, which is why you may notice this happening more often (but should also see fewer crashes or soft-reset-requiring failures).