[Unofficial] Feature Request / Suggestion List

[Weyland]

Only thing that fixed it was removing both from OCR and making them "Search only on fallback". Reconfigured my phone two months ago and reinstalled Pleco, and had been having the issues since then. Not sure how to replicate it. But if I'm the only person dealing with this issue then I guess all is fine as I've resolved it for myself with excluding them from the OCR and using them as a fallbacks.

Are either of these dictionaries marked as "pop-up dictionaries" in the code base and Pleco was prioritizing them? I don't know why they acted up and didn't conform to the sort order.

 

[Cameroon]

Sorry, I meant pinyin instead of zhuyin - does switching to that while keeping Cantonese allow you to listen to both?

I found the roots of the problem: that's not zhuyin or pinyin to blame, but ruby text next to the hanzis shown in the header.
Since no separate line of pinyin/zhuyin is shown, hence there's no placeholder for the audio icon. And there's no option to have both ruby and normal zhuyin (it would be rather redundant though).
So finally the feature request might sound as: please make own audio icon for ruby style, even if it's accompanied by Cantonese transcription+audio.
(now, when in ruby mode, even if there's no Cantonese, an audio icon for Mandarin is available, even though there's no separate transcription line shown at all - so the audio icon is there alone. Wish it could do so even in the presence of Canto pronunciation line + Canto audio icon)

 

[mikelove]

Are either of these dictionaries marked as "pop-up dictionaries" in the code base and Pleco was prioritizing them? I don't know why they acted up and didn't conform to the sort order.

No, there's nothing that would make them be treated any differently than any other dictionary by the reader. Very odd.

Since no separate line of pinyin/zhuyin is shown, hence there's no placeholder for the audio icon. And there's no option to have both ruby and normal zhuyin (it would be rather redundant though).

What about if you turn on "Show Zhuyin + Pinyin"? Does the audio button appear next to the pinyin readings?

 

[Cameroon]

What about if you turn on "Show Zhuyin + Pinyin"? Does the audio button appear next to the pinyin readings?

Yes, if I turn on this setting, then pinyin+audio appears. In my specific case, I'd like to get rid of pinyin though as they distract me from reading hanzi instead (zhuyin is harder for me so I instinctively read hanzi first), that's my simple method ))

+yet another feature request; to make possible sorting in the flashcards categories and sub-categories. Now I guess they sort in the order created sorting no matter what setting is selected in sorting method (I think it only influences flashcards themselves but not categories).

 

[Quart]

Would it be possible to add a “prompt for tone” option for multiple choice tests? Essentially just showing the correct pinyin/zhuyin letters with several tone combinations to choose from

 

[mikelove]

yet another feature request; to make possible sorting in the flashcards categories and sub-categories. Now I guess they sort in the order created sorting no matter what setting is selected in sorting method (I think it only influences flashcards themselves but not categories).

Yes, no current way to sort category names - I'm a little unclear on whether enough people are going to end up with random jumbles of category names to justify adding that, honestly.

Would it be possible to add a “prompt for tone” option for multiple choice tests? Essentially just showing the correct pinyin/zhuyin letters with several tone combinations to choose from

We've had a few requests for this but it's not currently planned for 4.0.

 

[喆文]

Hi,

Feature request: (Already requested first in 2016 via another post)
Any chance we could get tone colors for characters in Clip Reader for text copied to clipboard. Example below i.e Clipreader with no tones and dictionary with tones

 

[Toom]

Hello,
It would be nice to be able to pick a higher than 200 number of cards for tests (but no "all") like 500 or 1000.
Thanks

 

[mikelove]

It would be nice to be able to pick a higher than 200 number of cards for tests (but no "all") like 500 or 1000.

Thanks. (I think we're moving to allowing arbitrary numbers there, at least for some profile types)

 

[rizen suha]

¿? can we have the same for the flashcard entry of zhuyin pronunciation:

https://iphone.pleco.com/manual/30200/settings.html

System keyboard Zhuyin input - Force the iOS system Zhuyin keyboard to enter raw Zhuyin instead of Chinese characters, useful for searching in Zhuyin

also, please get rid of the tone numbers on kb, since tones are already represented on zhuyin kbs

thanks

 

[mikelove]

That's actually kind of broken on newer versions of iOS, at least for tone input; I don't think we could get it working well in flashcards. You could check the App Store to see if there are any third party keyboards that support direct Zhuyin input.

(we are also planning to offer an actual Pleco Zhuyin keyboard at some point - it's not that hard, we just take the fake keyboard view we already built for the tone bar and put 4 more of them underneath it with Zhuyin syllables)

 

[rizen suha]

as earlier suggested (ego), but now as separate modality (to simplify user configs and ui/funcionality expectations): "quick dictionary": whenever pleco becomes active (is no longer in the background) it serves up a "yes master, on your command, enter new search!". unlike std dict modality, old search components are erased and input keyb is reverted to user selected default. this quick dict will greatly enhance on the road lookup where u are continously looking up new, unrelated content. that is: search, go to other app, go to pleco, go to other app, look at street sign, go to pleco, look at menu, talk to somebody, go to pleco, ... and i do not want to scan, copy, send to pleco. i just simply want to enter myself a brand new search every time, be that from zhuyin, pinyin, handwriting, whatever my default keyb choice ... currently, having to be sure to clear previous search, go back to my default keyb amounts to 2 or 3 fingermovements every time and is a mental overload that drives my small brain crazy. this honestly should be very easy to code. just use the existing dict search modality as starting point, add the initiate with clean slate and default keyb. done. should really be doable within 0.5 to 5 hours of coding depending of parameter passing complexity. already considered for 4.0? wait for 4.0? then ok, google translate yue lai yue hao option to substitute pleco. thx

 

[mikelove]

We already do support this - you can long press the Pleco app icon and pick 'jump to search' and it will do that very thing, open up to the search screen with keyboard ready and input clear. If you're already in Pleco in another section, long press the hamburger menu icon to do the same thing.

 

[rizen suha]

We already do support this - you can long press the Pleco app icon and pick 'jump to search' and it will do that very thing, open up to the search screen with keyboard ready and input clear. If you're already in Pleco in another section, long press the hamburger menu icon to do the same thing.

thanks, its really close. i never noticed that menu! however, from the home screen its still a long press (painful), plus one selection click, plus possibly one click to select the desired (custom = default, not the last used) input mode. maybe you could consider creating a "jump to custom search" then it would be down to a long press plus a jump click. the "jump to custom search" would only appear after the user configured it inside the app, so it would not appear (and therefore not cause confusion) for the average user. what i would most love, is a second icon for pleco that opens up the same search as would "jump to custom search", then it would be down to just that, one click. alternatively one could (the user, ego) look into creating an ios automation task. thanks for reading, responding and your patience. to be sure, pleco is not substitutable with google translate. but for quick and dirty basic search it sometimes is quicker to use, at least for me since the chinese traditional zhuyin keyboard is always activated on app-open (start-up or switch-back-to / forefront / active) and input into the cn-trad window, no matter what kb was used on the last use of the app. anyway, the current home screen icon jump to search already will only on average cost only 2 + change press / clicks so its probably just me that has gone of the deep end... keep up the good work. thanks

 

[mikelove]

what i would most love, is a second icon for pleco that opens up the same search as would "jump to custom search", then it would be down to just that, one click. alternatively one could (the user, ego) look into creating an ios automation task.

I think you might be able to do that already with Shortcuts, actually - at some point we should probably publish some official ones, but the basic idea would be a URL in this format:

plecoapi://x-callback-url/q?s=&in=(hwr|key|rad|last)

I haven't actually tested it in this scenario - normally there'd be text after the s= with your search query - but I don't know any theoretical reason it wouldn't work.

 

[vickynessz]

Hi! I've been using Pleco for a year now and just wanted to drop my thoughts on features I really wish the app had, asides from ones that I think are already in the works (I only took a cursory look through the forums, sorry if some are common requests). Listed roughly from "most want" to least:

1. Option to automatically add the sentence a new word is saved from as an example sentence in the flashcard (would REALLY help me remember the context and usage), and/or to scan a reader file for all occurrences of the word and select which sentences to add as examples (or maybe even more conveniently, auto-add from files for a whole batch/folder of cards)
2. Ability to see most common looked up words in the reader! This feature is SO useful in Readibu and pretty much the only reason I still have both apps instead of just Pleco. Filters would be useful too, like showing most looked up words, but filtering out words that are already flashcards above a certain score, or showing only non-card words.
3. More stats!! I love being able to visually/quantitatively see and track my progress. Particularly, graphs of time spent reading/reviewing flashcards daily/weekly/monthly/total, cards learnt over time, streaks of days read/cards studied in a row, maybe settable goals even, and maybe notifications to read/review flashcards
4. In spaced repetition flashcard learning, ability to (secondarily) sort words in the test by oldest to newest, or highest to lowest score (so I could begin test with the cards I'm most familiar with and slowly work my way down; I feel less frustrated when I miss a word, knowing the words are slowly getting harder, so every correct card is sort of a "win," whereas with the random sorting I actually get discouraged more easily)
5. An easier way to browse through and review my flashcards in Organize Cards, where one tap or swipe takes me to the full dictionary page rather than needing to long press and tap. I prefer reviewing/learning new flashcards in Organize Cards over the Review test option bc it fits far more words on the screen, and I can scroll through them and navigate between them far faster.
6. A way to report/fix wrong pronunciation in cards (the tones written are correct, but the audio is wrong)
7. Ability to rename a text file made in the reader clipboard

Despite all the suggestions though, I think Pleco is amazing! It's the most expensive in-app purchase I've made, yet also the one that I think has been most worth every penny. Looking forward to 4.0

 

[mikelove]

Thanks!

Option to automatically add the sentence a new word is saved from as an example sentence in the flashcard (would REALLY help me remember the context and usage), and/or to scan a reader file for all occurrences of the word and select which sentences to add as examples (or maybe even more conveniently, auto-add from files for a whole batch/folder of cards)

We've added something like that, actually - it's a bit rough but basically it'll create a flashcard for the sentence if one doesn't already exist and then link to that from the word flashcard. We're leaning heavily into sentences-as-flashcards rather than as bits of text embedded in flashcards because if they're their own discrete entities they can be brought up in other places like the sentences tab / cloze tests / etc.

I'm a little more reluctant to invest time in your second idea, because at that point I kind of feel like you're better off drawing from a database of dedicated examples rather than extracting them from a text file where they may be uninteresting or ambiguous or not a good demonstration of the word, and in any case don't come with pinyin or translations like other examples do. But will keep it in mind if we can figure out a way to make it work well. (maybe if Apple adds an offline language translation API in iOS 17...)

Ability to see most common looked up words in the reader! This feature is SO useful in Readibu and pretty much the only reason I still have both apps instead of just Pleco. Filters would be useful too, like showing most looked up words, but filtering out words that are already flashcards above a certain score, or showing only non-card words.

All of that's coming, yes; the current very limited history system is a relic of the Palm/WM/early-iOS days where storage space was a significant concern and we had to be wary of having somebody end up with 100,000 history lookup records.

More stats!! I love being able to visually/quantitatively see and track my progress. Particularly, graphs of time spent reading/reviewing flashcards daily/weekly/monthly/total, cards learnt over time, streaks of days read/cards studied in a row, maybe settable goals even, and maybe notifications to read/review flashcards

Most of this is coming but I remain stubbornly opposed to the idea of reminder notifications for the moment; however, we might consider adding an API at some point to let you check for whether there are flashcards due via a Shortcut (or Android-equivalent-of-Shortcut) which can then deal with that via a notification or whatever else you like.

In spaced repetition flashcard learning, ability to (secondarily) sort words in the test by oldest to newest, or highest to lowest score (so I could begin test with the cards I'm most familiar with and slowly work my way down; I feel less frustrated when I miss a word, knowing the words are slowly getting harder, so every correct card is sort of a "win," whereas with the random sorting I actually get discouraged more easily)

Definitely coming, would have even been possible in the old app if we'd had enough interest to add an option for it.

An easier way to browse through and review my flashcards in Organize Cards, where one tap or swipe takes me to the full dictionary page rather than needing to long press and tap. I prefer reviewing/learning new flashcards in Organize Cards over the Review test option bc it fits far more words on the screen, and I can scroll through them and navigate between them far faster.

Yeah, for this one we've actually gone back to a variation on our pre-3.0 Card Info Screen with multiple tabs except that now one of those tabs is a dictionary definition screen. (and of course it saves your last tab)

A way to report/fix wrong pronunciation in cards (the tones written are correct, but the audio is wrong)

Is this with recorded audio or TTS? iOS or Android? Can you give me an example of a word where this is happening?

Ability to rename a text file made in the reader clipboard

That one is actually possible already, just tap on (i) next to the file in File Manager and you can change its name to whatever you like.

 

[vickynessz]

Ohh thanks for the behind the scenes details on how these features will/won’t be handled! It’s great to hear most are already in the works.

I'm a little more reluctant to invest time in your second idea, because at that point I kind of feel like you're better off drawing from a database of dedicated examples rather than extracting them from a text file where they may be uninteresting or ambiguous or not a good demonstration of the word, and in any case don't come with pinyin or translations like other examples do.

I know there are some databases like that, but they’re a separate website that I would have to go to and search up the word in, which takes up time (yeah, I’m really lazy lol).

I don’t mind if the sentences wouldn’t have pinyin or translations, either—past early learning stages I’ve turned off pinyin already, and just having read the text the sentence comes from gives me a better sense of context/meaning already even without a specific translation.

Is this with recorded audio or TTS? iOS or Android? Can you give me an example of a word where this is happening?

I’m not sure of the difference? If it’s single word playback then it’s recorded, right? It’s in iOS. When I play single word, 存档 is pronounced as cun2dang3 but the given pronunciation is cun2dang4. 直截了当 the audio is pronounced jie1 instead of jie2. 痉挛 only the female audio pronounces it differently from the written pronunciation of jing4, she says jing1 instead.

Also, I notice that the audio doesn’t pronounce 一 as yi2 in words/phrases where the tone should shift, yet the audio does pronounce correctly the tone shifts for two 3rd tone characters in a row. Why is that? Can it be fixed?

That one is actually possible already, just tap on (i) next to the file in File Manager and you can change its name to whatever you like.

Oh! Haha, I must’ve subconsciously included that point last because I had a feeling it could be changed and I just hadn’t looked into it enough. Figured it out, thanks!

 

[hunxiao]

Are there any plans to add more TTS options? Qiang and Hong might have been acceptable options years ago but are nowhere near the best offerings available today. I would happily pay a subscription for access to better TTS in Pleco.

 

[mikelove]

The problem with those other offerings is that they’re mostly online, and rarely come with the ability to follow along word by word as they read. Also, frankly, most users seem to be happy with the system TTS, and paid TTS is not a particularly big / profitable add-on for us.

So our current plan is mostly to improve system TTS support - let you access all of the Chinese voices on iOS and juggle multiple engines / voices simultaneously on Android - and wait for somebody to release an offline Chinese TTS with the features we need.