2.0.7 / Search Delay

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
We're putting the finishing touches on the still 2.0.7 iPhone update (hopefully the last before we add flashcards), the biggest new features of which are a) more flexible Pinyin search (no more putting spaces before syllables that begin with vowels) and b) audio no longer interrupts music playing in the background. Plus some bug fixes, of course. Beta-testers should get an email about this within the next day or two, we want to do a quick double-check to make sure that that Pinyin change doesn't cause any problems for people.

One other 2.0.7 change we're not sure about, though. Right now, when typing in a search on the keyboard there is by default a 0.25 second delay between when the input text changes and when Pleco starts searching. The search itself is basically instantaneous (and takes place in the background anyway), but drawing the search results on the screen (which has to happen in the foreground) takes long enough that without that delay, the keyboard can become a bit unresponsive in the middle of entering a search.

But turning off that delay makes the software feel a lot faster, so we're considering disabling it by default in 2.0.7. (it'd be off by default even for people who already had it set, though you'd still be able to re-enable it through Settings)

The delay can already be optionally turned off in the current version, so I'd really appreciate it if people reading this would:

1) Go into Settings / Dictionary / Search Settings
2) Scroll down to the "Results" section
3) Tap on "Delay before search" and choose "None."
4) Try some keyboard-based searches.
5) Post your impressions / whether or not you prefer this to the old setting and why. (also mention what iPhone / iPod model you're running so we know what you were working with processor-wise)

If you're using transparent-background handwriting, feedback on how well this works with that would be useful too. (we could always make it separately configurable in both modes)
 
With zero delay, I don't detect unresponsiveness of the keyboard, but I'm not yet able to type fast. (ipod Touch, second gen, I think)
 

rcloud

举人
Mike,

First of all, I thought Pleco was already blazing fast with the delay enabled. If I hadn't turned it off for this test I wouldn't have even noticed the delay. That said, I won't be putting the delay back on. Pleco does feel much quicker now and I haven't noticed any unresponsiveness (iPhone 3G). The same holds true with the transparent background handwriting.

I say leave the delay off by default and add a note about the possible unresponsiveness so people are aware about the change when they update.
 
iphone 3g jailbroken.

I didn't detect any additional unreponsiveness in the keyboard while using the transparent background. As for the search speed itself, the difference from a .25 second delay to instant search is noticeable.
 
mikelove said:
And do you like the faster feel better in general? Thanks.

Can't say it is "faster than instant". I do remember having to try different delays in Palm TX in order to avoid unresponsiveness of the keyboad.
 
iTouch 3g, whatever the newest x.x.x would be.

Agree with the other posters. 0 second delay feels much better than the default 1/4 sec.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
We're probably going to end up putting this off until a later release, unfortunately, since it turns out that this does make things very pokey when doing wildcard searches - we could work around that by only delaying the search when we detect a wildcard character and doing it instantly otherwise, but it'll take some tricky extra coding to make that work (have to cancel the one query mid-execution so we can perform another).

But thanks for the feedback, and I suppose in the meantime this would be a good little "expert tip" for a FAQ or wiki or somesuch thing (which we've been meaning to put up for a good year and a half or so now).
 
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