Wildcard search and filtering search button

Hi Pleco,

I believe before there used to be a button on the pleco keyboard:
1. "wildcard"
2 "word containing"
3 "full" ( Not sure about this)

Question: was this already removed? if not, then where is it?

Thanks
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
1) Wildcard: removed because they're easy to get to via the system keyboard now - ? for single character and * for multi.

2) Words Containing: was never on the keyboard - Words tab in a single-character dictionary entry will give you those, if you prefer to keep Starting / Containing separated there's an option for that in Settings / Definition Screen.

3) Full: also on the keyboard - insert a # before the search term. Or just tap-hold the dictionary switch button and select your preferred full-text search type.
 

Bendy-Ren

举人
3) Full: also on the keyboard - insert a # before the search term. Or just tap-hold the dictionary switch button and select your preferred full-text search type.

Been using 3.0 since release and this is the first time I realized you could search specific dictionaries by tap-holding that button. A super useful feature that really should be more discoverable. Might even deserve its own button.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
To be honest, in general that's not something we're really trying to encourage - a number of features in the future may depend on the ability to merge data from multiple dictionaries. In another update or two you'll probably have to create (or perhaps the system will automatically create for you) an extra 'dictionary group' for any specific dictionary that you'd like to be able to switch to.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
We're already doing that in a few places - it's why you might see a YY Cantonese pronunciation even if PLC isn't your top ranked dictionary in Manage Dicts, for example. It's a logical way to do a couple of things we'd like to do in the future, too - for example, the user dictionary system has already quietly gained the ability to act as an annotation system if you choose to use it that way (create a user dictionary, tap on the edit button at the top of an entry, note that the "edit entry" screen is magically pre-populated with the current entry's characters / pinyin, type in your note in the definition section, and boom - note added) and we'd like to make that more official.
 

Bendy-Ren

举人
That does sound cool, but there are some situations where it makes sense to be able search/browse just one specific dictionary. For example, I haven't been able to really play with the new chengyu dictionary as much as I would like because the new interface makes it so troublesome to do so. Another case might be the specialty dictionaries like TCM.

I guess it might be old fashioned, but when I spend money for a dictionary I'd like to be able to look through it and see what it's like... via the search and browse functions
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
You'd still be able to, you'd just have to specifically set up a one-dictionary dictionary group for it rather than having it show up by default. (at the very least, we need to keep dictionaries out of the tap-hold menu by default - it can get borderline unmanageable otherwise)
 

denmitch

探花
Does this annotate feature only work on iPad? I am not seeing the same option to "add to user dictionary" on iPhone.
 
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