Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - iOS/Android tested

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ldolse

状元
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

Well, importing the text file won't work either as it doesn't include definitions, I didn't want to run into any errors with the lengthy definitions and special characters causing problems, so it just inludes the headword and Pinyin. I couldn't create an XML export because of some other bug, mentioned in the other thread.

If it's just a few characters then I would think that adding them manually would probably be the best way to resolve it for now. If they did import and they're not quite what you expected delete them from manage flashcards, and then re-add them.

Users who haven't yet created their own user dictionary shouldn't run into this issue based on the current reports. If you haven't yet imported the file an alternative workaround is to move your existing user dictionary somewhere else, import the flashcards, then put the original user dict back.
 
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stephanhodges

状元
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

I would like to mention that Idolse also wrote up a complete wiki page at http://china.panlogicsoftware.com/radical_dictionary with the radical dictionary stuff. When he did it, I wasn't ready to make it public, but now it's available for anyone.

It's been available through the beta forums and anyone who emailed me directly before now, but I just finished moving it to a separate web site.

Although it's not an "official" Pleco site, I've discussed almost everything about that site with Mike, and gladly accepted his suggestions.

I don't know if currently has the same files as this thread, but over the long term, it should be easier to keep track of things on a page (wiki) where the item is always there and current.

So, I'm hoping people will both help out (if they see something needed a change), add their own questions, or generally just use the resource.

Stephan
 
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dynamicfish

Member
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

Can I use Sun Exta to enable character viewing for sms messages on my HTC Touch without changing reg files? How would I do that?
 
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ldolse

状元
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

Yes, you can use Sun-extA for fontlinking. You need a registry editor to do it. Check this MSDN article for details on the keys you need to change. Put Sun-ExtA font in with \Windows\ directory.


When editing the individual keys, instead of this line in the article:
Code: 
"\\Windows\\simsun.ttc,NSimSun"

Use this:
Code: 
"\\Windows\\Sun-ExtA.ttf,Sun-ExtA"

Note in the actual registry editor you probably won't need double backslashes as noted in the article, '\\' is used for text file import, '\' is generally used in the actual editor.
 
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ausgang

进士
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

hey there

thanks for the great work idolse. it's very comfortable to have a separate dictionary for radicals.

only one thing: is there a possibility to use handwriting input for searching? for example i can't find the "STANDING HEART radical" by drawing it. would be very useful (also for flashcard practice).

thanks in advance
 
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ldolse

状元
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

Thanks Ausgang, glad you like it. Unfortunately there isn't any way that I know of to tie these into handwriting, as it's a function of the handwriting engine, not the dictionary itself. I agree it would be pretty sweet. If one knows how to write each component by heart it's then a simple matter of remembering which order to draw them in for each character.

My understanding is that the handwriting recognition database isn't really designed to handle this sort of scenario, as many of the characters in that dictionary aren't ever supposed to be drawn alone.
 
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thph2006

进士
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

If there are only a few radicals missing from the ZYSong.ttf font Pleco uses I wonder whether it might be possible for the Pleco guys to add the missing radicals to ZYSong so we wouldn't need to do the 2.0 font patch you outlined. I don't mind the larger font file size but am a little worried about it changing the appearance or performance of Pleco. If there really isn't any noticable difference in appearance or performance then I'm fine with the Sun font you suggested. Can you advise?
thanks,tom
 
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ldolse

状元
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

I've personally never noticed any difference in functionality, nor the general look and feel of the text. That said I'm not a font snob, and it's possible others may not like the difference.
 
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thph2006

进士
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

Question for Mike and the Pleco team:

Is there any downside to replacing ZYSong with Sun-ExtA for Pleco, e.g. readability, compatibility? I'm also not clear on how all this works between Pleco and the system. If I replace ZYSong with Sun-ExtA will the Sun-ExtA only be accessible to Pleco? If so, is there a way to make it available to all applications including Pleco? One last question - Is Sun-ExtA a superset of Sun-ExtB or would I need to install both?

Thanks, tom
 
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davidy

秀才
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

thph2006 said:
If there are only a few radicals missing from the ZYSong.ttf font Pleco uses I wonder whether it might be possible for the Pleco guys to add the missing radicals to ZYSong so we wouldn't need to do the 2.0 font patch you outlined.
Click to expand...

Has this been done?

I note two other font files - what are they?
PlecoExtra.ttf
PlecoExtraBold.ttf

Thanks.
 
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ldolse

状元
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

I don't believe anything has changed here. There was discussion about changing from ZYSong to an open source font, if that happens then I think all the characters would be covered in that event. In any event manually changing to from ZYSong to Sun-ExtA is still just as safe as it was a long time back.

The two other font files you mention are customized font files specifically for Pleco, and required to the best of my understanding.
 
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jamesd.nz

Member
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

I saw that the ZYSong font has been replaced in the new pleco update by an open-source version for licensing reasons - has anyone noticed an improvement in rendering all the radicals?
 
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ldolse

状元
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

I didn't see/couldn't find the announcement of 2.0.4 mentioning fonts, so not sure which font is being used. If it's firefly (which was once discussed) then I believe all the characters should be supported. If it's the Arphic fonts mentioned in the copyright notice, then I'm not sure - I'd have to download them and check.

All the characters do display natively on the iPhone, btw.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

ldolse said:
I didn't see/couldn't find the announcement of 2.0.4 mentioning fonts, so not sure which font is being used. If it's firefly (which was once discussed) then I believe all the characters should be supported. If it's the Arphic fonts mentioned in the copyright notice, then I'm not sure - I'd have to download them and check.
Click to expand...

It's basically Firefly, yes, so all of the characters should be supported. But if you notice any that aren't, let us know and I'm sure we can find a way to add them.
 
radioman

radioman

状元
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

My premise to this posting - I want to be able to use Pleco to look up radicals.

1) Pleco, under the Character information and components shows the components to a character. I want to be able to write those by hand and have the looked up but that does not seem possible, even though the character components are obviously in the Pleco DB / Tables somewhere.

- Is there anyway to get it so I can look up those characters?

2) I see that Idolse has a radical dictionary -
- would those character components be avaiable via that add on dictionary?
- What is the easiest way to get that into the iPhone?

Any insights appreciated.
 
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ldolse

状元
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

You can do some of this with Pleco, but I've just played around with it, and I'd have to say that there is a bit left to be desired around this. Mike, if you're reading this see below for a feature/bug fix to address this.

First of all, iPhone Installation:
  • Join the iPhone to your local wireless network (it may work via the Edge/3G connection, ymmv)
  • Click the functions icon on the lower right hand corner of the screen
  • Click Settings
  • Select the file manager
  • Click Upload/Download Files
  • Enable Uploads, note the local url under 'address details'
  • Go to a computer, enter the url from the previous step in the browser
  • Upload the radical dictionary

That's the easy part. The other parts of your request are a mixed bag:
  • In terms of drawing components, the handwriting recognition database doesn't include components which aren't standalone characters.
  • If you select a character in the dictionary, then click '字', followed by 'Chars', you'll get a list of components (or containing words - click components at the bottom if not selected).
  • Unfortunately at this point getting from here to my radical dictionary to get a component definition isn't brilliant:
    • You have to select the component you want, then click 'Words' at the top.
    • At this point you can cycle through dictionaries, but unfortunately this doesn't appear to work for user dictionaries :(
    • If the component has a definition in a 'normal' Pleco (i.e. non-user dict) dictionary, then select one of those definitions.
    • NOW, you can select the dictionary icon in the lower left and get the Radical dictionary definition
  • If the component has no definition in a 'normal' dictionary then your pretty much out of luck. Since it doesn't exist in a regular dictionary there is no way to get to a definition window for it. To make matters worse there doesn't appear to be any way to copy it in order to paste it in the search box for a regular dictionary lookup. What you have to do in this case is manually scroll through the radical dictionary to find the character. The sort order in the radical dictionary is based on KangXi #/Stroke Count.

Mike, any chance of addressing this so that user dictionaries show up when you go through the component definitions? I think that would be the simplest fix for this. Even with that done it seems like an awful lot of clicks are needed to get to this point, not sure if there are some interface optimizations coming up to make this easier.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

Thanks for the suggestions on this.

Handwriting input of components won't be happening anytime soon - it would be prohibitively expensive / complicated to update the recognizer database to work with that, and there's an inherent tradeoff anytime we do; the more characters we support, the more likely we are to come up with false positives.

As far as the larger issue with component search, though, that's happening because the iPhone version uses a newer dictionary database format than the one in pre-2.0.4 releases of Pleco on Palm/WM; if you go into "Manage Dicts," tap on the Radical dictionary and scroll down there should be a button you can tap on to update to the newer format. There's actually supposed to be a prompt to do that when you first bring the dictionary into Pleco, but it doesn't seem to be working correctly - we'll make sure that's fixed in 2.2. (we don't update the format automatically without prompting because it requires rebuilding the index and can take several minutes - there's a similar format update in flashcards which we do do automatically on Restore Database because it only takes a few seconds in most cases)
 
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ldolse

状元
Re: Radical Dictionary & Flashcards - updated for 2.0

Don't worry, I wasn't trying to ask for component handwriting recognition, the issues there are clear. Was just explaining to radioman why that wouldn't work.

As far as the other bit goes, I upgraded my dictionary format - first I had to click unlock, after that I was able to see the upgrade button. A bit odd as this is a user dict and was never locked.

That said, upgrading the format didn't make a difference. It still doesn't show up as a potential dictionary to search. To reiterate the steps:
  • 1. From the regular dictionary view select on a multiple component character, including components which are not standalone characters.
    2. In the definition click the character to get the popup-def.
    3. click 字 to get details
    4. click chars at the top, then make sure components is selected at the bottom
    5. Click one of the components that is NOT a standalone character in a regular dictionary
    6. Click 'words' at the top. This brings you to a set of empty search results that let you cycle through the installed dictionaries.
    7. Note that user dictionaries are not one of the dictionaries that can be cycled through.

I'm on 2.1.1 on the iPhone at the moment, not sure if that's part of the problem. Note the user dictionary doesn't show up as a pop-up dict option either. Allowing pop-up defs from the character details page might be one way to streamline some of this btw...

Update - editing the dictionary options and selecting 'Use in Reader' lets it come up in this area and in the pop-up def window.
 
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