Search Definitions?

bam

秀才
Trying to find out if there's a way to search the definitions. For instance: let's say I want to find the chinese word for "make friends". Searching the E-C dictionaries doesn't help much. But if I can do a global search through all the definitions, I can find the phrase "make friends" in the ACE dictionary under the word 交, as in 交朋友.
If it's not possible in Palm OS, is it possible with iPhone?

TIA
 

mfcb

状元
just search for "#make friends", its called full-text search, currently only works on the pleco-dicts, not the user dictionaries. on palm full-text search for user-dicts might be never available (due to lack of memory), on iphone and WM we hopefully get it sooner or later...
 

denmitch

探花
Please confirm: use a pound sign before the search text? And if so, this character is not an option in the soft keypad inside Pleco for WM, correct?
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
denmitch said:
Please confirm: use a pound sign before the search text? And if so, this character is not an option in the soft keypad inside Pleco for WM, correct?

Yes, you insert a pound sign before the search text. You can also add "Full-text Search" to your toolbar or invoke it from the menu bar if you can't get at the # character easily, or you can change it from # to another character via the "Query" page in Preferences.
 

HW60

状元
I have problems with full text search using more than one word: i.e. in ACE the definition of 好 contains the words "nice person". If I look for that using "#nice person" in the input field, I am successful finding results with "#n", "#ni", "#nic", "#nice" and "#nice ". After "#nice p" Pleco's answer is "No matches". This is still the case until "#nice pers". Only after "#nice perso" (and "#nice person") the result is found. Did I make a mistake?
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
HW60 said:
I have problems with full text search using more than one word: i.e. in ACE the definition of 好 contains the words "nice person". If I look for that using "#nice person" in the input field, I am successful finding results with "#n", "#ni", "#nic", "#nice" and "#nice ". After "#nice p" Pleco's answer is "No matches". This is still the case until "#nice pers". Only after "#nice perso" (and "#nice person") the result is found. Did I make a mistake?

No, that's just a limitation in our full-text search system at the moment - it only works with whole words, can't do partial-word matches at an acceptable speed.
 
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