User Interface Feedback Thread

[mikelove]

What about an option to override the timeout and screenlock on Android phones? It would help me a lot on my homework.

That's already available in the latest beta version (see the topmost post in this forum).

 

[stephanhodges]

After I've added a "new" word to a flashcard (剑士 jian4shi4), I'd like to be able to add this to a user dictionary from the flashcard pop up menu. (Press and hold a flashcard from the Organize/Edit flashcard screen).

In general, I'm finding it hard to add new user dictionary entries, as I read books. I'm trying to write more about that elsewhere.

** EDIT **

I've just discovered that a "short" press brings up a different menu from the long press, and does have an "add to user dictionary" option. Not sure why there's both a short and a long press option, but I'll get used to it!

 

[mikelove]

I've just discovered that a "short" press brings up a different menu from the long press, and does have an "add to user dictionary" option. Not sure why there's both a short and a long press option, but I'll get used to it!

There are some shared-code issues at work there - the perils of simultaneously redesigning an app on two different platforms with different approaches to selecting items. But hopefully in a few releases we'll have every command in the separate "Card Info" screen also accessible from the tap-hold menu.

 

[soulspirit]

Hello,

sorry i didnt read through all 13 pages of this thread, so if this feature was already requested i apologize

* on my ipod 4 i have still an older version of pleco. now that i got a galaxy nexus i found that on the new android version, the hand write recognition isnt transparent anymore. i really wonder why this was done, i really liked the fact that i instantly knew if my searchword was found. also couldnt find a setting to enable transparent input.

for the flashcard-addon whats bothering me a bit is that i couldnt find a quick way to create custom cards for words that are not found in any dictionary (some proper names of tourist attractions for example, which i have to study).
* on my galaxy nexus phone first i had to install the google chinese ime (which onestly is a pain in the a** compared to pleco inputs) to be able to write chinese headwords at all. why cant i use the pleco inputs? now i have to switch from chinese ime for the characters all the way to the german ime for umlaut and characters like "ß" in the definition for each custom flashcard.
* wouldnt it be a nice gimmick if after i write a chinese headword, the software would give me suggestions for the pinyin? i know this from an older version on ANKI (maybe about 3-4 years), which inserted some pinyin which could be edited of course (because we all know that suggested pinyin is correct only 90% of the time..). i couldnt find a setting for this behavior.

 

[mikelove]

* on my ipod 4 i have still an older version of pleco. now that i got a galaxy nexus i found that on the new android version, the hand write recognition isnt transparent anymore. i really wonder why this was done, i really liked the fact that i instantly knew if my searchword was found. also couldnt find a setting to enable transparent input.

It's much dicier to get that working correctly on Android, and so far there hasn't been enough demand to justify it. We are adding an option for handwriting to only take up half the screen, though - you can try that out in the latest beta.

for the flashcard-addon whats bothering me a bit is that i couldnt find a quick way to create custom cards for words that are not found in any dictionary (some proper names of tourist attractions for example, which i have to study).

Where are you encountering those words? Are you typing them into the search box or somewhere else?

* on my galaxy nexus phone first i had to install the google chinese ime (which onestly is a pain in the a** compared to pleco inputs) to be able to write chinese headwords at all. why cant i use the pleco inputs? now i have to switch from chinese ime for the characters all the way to the german ime for umlaut and characters like "ß" in the definition for each custom flashcard.

Again, it's difficult to do transparent handwriting on Android and without that we'd be confining your text input to a tiny little portion of the screen. It's also rather tricky to use our own text input system in general - iOS provides a nice simple API for us to replace the built-in IME with our own alternate keyboard, but on Android there's no way to do that without making your own IME (which would be a massive undertaking and require users to manually go in and activate it) - getting our handwriting working even just in the two screens it works in now was a massively complicated effort, the system is fighting us at almost every point to try to get its own keyboard to reappear.

* wouldnt it be a nice gimmick if after i write a chinese headword, the software would give me suggestions for the pinyin? i know this from an older version on ANKI (maybe about 3-4 years), which inserted some pinyin which could be edited of course (because we all know that suggested pinyin is correct only 90% of the time..). i couldnt find a setting for this behavior.

Yes, just not something we've gotten around to yet - the custom dictionary / custom flashcard systems are certainly great features, but they're actually used by only a small portion of our customers, so we can only make a few improvements to them at a time; for the current 2.4 release our main improvement was adding full-text indexing to user dictionaries, which we've actually had a lot more requests for than auto-generated Pinyin.

 

[soulspirit]

Where are you encountering those words? Are you typing them into the search box or somewhere else?

for example at university we had a text about tourists attractions in vienna. so for the "Stephansdom" we had to study the chinese version 圣斯多芬教堂 which of course is not found in any dictionary. if i type the chinese characters into the searchbox of the dictionary, there is no way to make a flashcard out of it on the fly because thats only possible with actual results.

so what i do is: open flashcards->organize flashcards->switch to category->add new card-> switch IME to chinese -> enter headword -> switch to german/english -> fill out the rest -> save.

i understand its not a common thing for non-students to do who are using the dictionary in everyday situations. so to have a shortcut for custom cards in your dictionary maybe would be a waste of space. on the other hand you could maybe group actions for non existent dictionary entries (add to custom dictionary, add custom flashcard, ...) under a separate button and use the characters in the searchbox for those actions. anyway i was never really good at GUI design

but i guess whats bothering me the most anyway, is the constant switching between IMEs: at university you encounter those "special" words quite often, a uniform way to write chinese and latin characters across all parts of the dictionary IMO would be *very* desirable.

sad to hear though that google actually seams to offer a weaker api than apple. thats about the opposite from what i would expect from a open-source OS. thanks for the hint to check out the 2.4 BETA, will do that!

 

[ckatt]

so what i do is: open flashcards->organize flashcards->switch to category->add new card-> switch IME to chinese -> enter headword -> switch to german/english -> fill out the rest -> save.

I've had the exact same problem myself (minus the German part) i found an easy way to deal with it was to long tap the text i entered in the search box and then copy it to the clip board. then long tap the dictionary icon and choose my USR dict from the list. then i tap the add card button past the characters in to the head word an fill out the rest. This was a pretty good solution in v.2.3 but unfortunately the edit/add card button no longer present in the new beta for 2.4. I think it should make a come back, how bout it Mike?
that said, i don't think we need an edit/add card button, just an add card button, since editing a card can be done via the edit card link in the custom definition.

 

[soulspirit]

I've had the exact same problem myself (minus the German part) i found an easy way to deal with it was to long tap the text i entered in the search box and then copy it to the clip board.

thats actually working pretty good, thanks for the hint

 

[mikelove]

for example at university we had a text about tourists attractions in vienna. so for the "Stephansdom" we had to study the chinese version 圣斯多芬教堂 which of course is not found in any dictionary. if i type the chinese characters into the searchbox of the dictionary, there is no way to make a flashcard out of it on the fly because thats only possible with actual results.

Ah, makes sense. So maybe an option at the top of a list of partial-match results to create a new flashcard (or dictionary entry) from the entered word?

but i guess whats bothering me the most anyway, is the constant switching between IMEs: at university you encounter those "special" words quite often, a uniform way to write chinese and latin characters across all parts of the dictionary IMO would be *very* desirable.

Certainly could happen eventually, but right now it's hard to prioritize it over other new features.

sad to hear though that google actually seams to offer a weaker api than apple. thats about the opposite from what i would expect from a open-source OS. thanks for the hint to check out the 2.4 BETA, will do that!

Actually it's a stronger API in a way, Apple doesn't let you make custom IMEs that work systemwide at all; the problem is that because Google does support those IMEs, they haven't bothered to develop a solution for apps to have private IMEs that only work in-app - you have to use Google's IME system and so for security reasons that means a separate, dedicated IME that has to be specifically activated and switched to by the user.

This was a pretty good solution in v.2.3 but unfortunately the edit/add card button no longer present in the new beta for 2.4. I think it should make a come back, how bout it Mike?

Which button are you referring to? The only button related to this that we've gotten rid of is the create/edit dictionary entry button when you switch into a user dictionary, which we've replaced with the "Browse Dictionary" screen.

 

[ckatt]

Which button are you referring to? The only button related to this that we've gotten rid of is the create/edit dictionary entry button when you switch into a user dictionary, which we've replaced with the "Browse Dictionary" screen.

Ah, yes that was the one i was talking about, but i see now that it has been included in the "Browse Dictionary" screen. Its a little less easy to get at but i like your idea of a button create a "new flashcard or dictionary entry from the entered word" better anyway.

 

[leoninto]

Did a quick search, but didn't see anything.

When I search for an English word, how can I copy the Chinese characters into the search box or clipboard?

Example: I looked up mayonnaise. I see that it's 蛋黃醬. Now, how do I get those 3 Chinese characters into the search box?

On the left (entries list), I can click and hold to get a popup that copies that word into the search box, but I don't want the English word. Clicking and holding anywhere in the definition panel doesn't give any options to perform on text.

Mayonnaise isn't a good example because only one definition exists for it, but for many common words, there may be multiple Chinese definitions, and I would like to copy it back to see what other English meanings it may have.

Thanks

 

[mikelove]

On the left (entries list), I can click and hold to get a popup that copies that word into the search box, but I don't want the English word. Clicking and holding anywhere in the definition panel doesn't give any options to perform on text.

There should be another option in that popup to "Copy Headword" - choose that option and you'll get the headword in the clipboard from which you can then paste it into another app.

 

[leoninto]

On the left (entries list), I can click and hold to get a popup that copies that word into the search box, but I don't want the English word. Clicking and holding anywhere in the definition panel doesn't give any options to perform on text.

There should be another option in that popup to "Copy Headword" - choose that option and you'll get the headword in the clipboard from which you can then paste it into another app.

Using the latest beta (2.4.0b3c), I don't get a Copy Headword. I only get:

View Entry
Show in Dictionary
Add to Flashcards
Copy Word to Search Field
Copy Word to Clipboard
Copy Full Entry to Clipboard

 

[mikelove]

Using the latest beta (2.4.0b3c), I don't get a Copy Headword. I only get:

View Entry
Show in Dictionary
Add to Flashcards
Copy Word to Search Field
Copy Word to Clipboard
Copy Full Entry to Clipboard

You'd want Copy Word. Sorry, it looks like you're actually viewing the tap-hold menu for an English-Chinese rather than a Chinese-English dictionary lookup (headwords are in English, in other words) - is that the case? If so, and if you want to copy out one of the Chinese words in that English-Chinese definition, you'd actually need to use a different method: tap on the entry to view it, tap on the word to select it, then tap on the clipboard icon in the toolbar.

 

[llammamama]

I recently switched from the iPhone version to Andriod, and one user interface change that has been a pain for me is the way Pleco for Android shows you single-character definitions by default when you tap on a character in the headword of custom flashcards. I think this feature makes a ton of sense for normal dictionary entries / flashcards since the definition of the word is usually right there, but it's been making my life difficult for custom flashcards which don't fit this format.


Since Pleco makes it so easy to look up words just by tapping on them, I have hundreds of custom flashcards which have only a headword (mostly short sentences or phrases) and no other content. During repetitions, I would simply tap on a word if I wasn't sure I remembered it.

With the new system, I need to tap on a headword then tap the right-arrow a few times in order to get a definition. This alone probably adds 20-40% more taps during my repetitions on Android.

Is it possible to have the pop-up definition use the default word-based lookup behavior in the headword on custom flashcards?

I'm not going to ask for a special option just for this since I know we have too many of those already, but my custom sentence flashcards are a real pain to use on Android. Letting the popup definition on custom flashcards behave like they do on iPhone would be a huge relief.

 

[mikelove]

Is it possible to have the pop-up definition use the default word-based lookup behavior in the headword on custom flashcards?

This sounds like a bug - it should already be doing that, the character limiting bit was an iPhone-specific thing because we hadn't yet come up with the solution of the tappable character bar for 字info/stroke/etc.

 

[llammamama]

If it is a bug to be showing a character-only definition on the headword during flashcard repetitions, then that's great news and I hope a fix can make it into the next release.

This is the thread that made me think it was a "feature". It appears someone else was experiencing the same problem I had:
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3307&p=26707&hilit=headword+popup+character#p26707

 

[mikelove]

If it is a bug to be showing a character-only definition on the headword during flashcard repetitions, then that's great news and I hope a fix can make it into the next release.

This is the thread that made me think it was a "feature". It appears someone else was experiencing the same problem I had:
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3307&p=26707&hilit=headword+popup+character#p26707

True, I had somehow lost track of the fact that that was an Android rather than an iOS question.

 

[llammamama]

Hmm, so does that mean it is working as intended?

Regardless of the behavior for dictionary headwords or dictionary-based flashcard headwords, I feel pretty strongly that the best behavior for custom flashcards is how iOS handles it. Specifically, looking up full words normally when tapping on the headword of a custom flashcard.

Do you think this something that you are able or willing to change to make Android behave like iOS for custom flashcards?

 

[mikelove]

Do you think this something that you are able or willing to change to make Android behave like iOS for custom flashcards?

I think it's something we're going to have to add an option to deal with, unfortunately. (but for anybody who wonders why Pleco has so many options screens, this is why)