User Interface Feedback Thread

[EddyVIII]

Hi Mike,

Great product - you're a legend. Quick question - I can't seem to find the button to turn on the camera's flash in the OCR screen in this latest update. I do a lot of reading in less than favourable light conditions (i.e. a dim Beijing flat), and turning on the phone's light made the OCR perform so much better. Am I not looking hard enough? I know it uses a lot of battery power, but that's a user-end decision right?

Thanks!

 

[mikelove]

Great product - you're a legend. Quick question - I can't seem to find the button to turn on the camera's flash in the OCR screen in this latest update. I do a lot of reading in less than favourable light conditions (i.e. a dim Beijing flat), and turning on the phone's light made the OCR perform so much better. Am I not looking hard enough? I know it uses a lot of battery power, but that's a user-end decision right?

Thanks!

Tap on the camera icon to access the flash and other such camera options (continuous autofocus, zoom, etc).

 

[EddyVIII]

Oh yes, silly me! Thanks!

 

[ziggy]

90 degrees

Hello,
For some reason, my OCR shows a picture which is 90°rotated to the left... I tried to lock and unlock the Android auto-rotate function, no change.
Screen orientation is "auto", camera orientation is "natural"... I tried +90°, no change either.
Any idea ?

 

[mikelove]

Re: 90 degrees

Hello,
For some reason, my OCR shows a picture which is 90°rotated to the left... I tried to lock and unlock the Android auto-rotate function, no change.
Screen orientation is "auto", camera orientation is "natural"... I tried +90°, no change either.
Any idea ?

It may be that your phone's camera simply won't support anything except sideways orientation - if you turn the phone sideways, can you get it oriented correctly then?

 

[ziggy]

My (Samsung Galaxy S2) camera "supports" any orientation ; in other words, the image keeps the same orientation no matter the (horizontal or vertical) position of the device. This is how I take picture of landscapes, or portraits, depending of needs.
But for the Pleco OCR application, the image shown is systematically rotated 90° to the left - again, no matter how i move the device. This wasn't the case before - I suppose that it has changed when updating to the new release, but since I don't use it often, I can't tell.

 

[mikelove]

My (Samsung Galaxy S2) camera "supports" any orientation ; in other words, the image keeps the same orientation no matter the (horizontal or vertical) position of the device. This is how I take picture of landscapes, or portraits, depending of needs.

That actually doesn't necessarily mean that it supports any orientation - it may simply be that it's flipping the camera app UI when the camera turns while keeping the same official UI orientation. (subtle difference but an important one for our purposes) Unofficial kernels like the one you're using tend to have a lot of trouble with glitchy camera drivers, unfortunately.

Try setting Camera Orientation to "Camera natural" and Screen orientation to "Always Landscape" - does that make any difference? If not, turn on "Alternate video display" as well.

 

[ziggy]

Hello,

I can't understand the difference between "official" UI and non official as far as the camera is concerned, but my camera works normally.

The Pleco OCR used to work earlier with the same custom Siyah Kernel (very widely used, by the way), so i'm not sure if it is the cause. I've tried many combinations for Camera and Screen orientation, etc.. but still I keep having troubles : either the text seen is 90° rotated to the left, or it is the UI, or both.
With the combination that you said, I can lock the OCR UI in Landscape orientation an then I am able to read the interpretation of the characters, but then I can only use it in Landscape : in Portrait, the UI is 90° pivoted. - with or without "alternate" checked.

No big deal, it is just that the application is so excellent that when something is not perfect, you notice it !

Also, it seems to display roman characters (and symbols like ><# §..) as well as Chinese ones, when "reading" Chinese words ; is it normal ? It seems that I had only Chinese characters before.

Thank you anyway for your help.

 

[mikelove]

The Pleco OCR used to work earlier with the same custom Siyah Kernel (very widely used, by the way), so i'm not sure if it is the cause. I've tried many combinations for Camera and Screen orientation, etc.. but still I keep having troubles : either the text seen is 90° rotated to the left, or it is the UI, or both.
With the combination that you said, I can lock the OCR UI in Landscape orientation an then I am able to read the interpretation of the characters, but then I can only use it in Landscape : in Portrait, the UI is 90° pivoted. - with or without "alternate" checked.

That sounds like typical buggy driver behavior, then - are you sure this was the exact same firmware you were using before when it worked correctly? We really didn't change anything at all related to OCR orientation settings in 2.4, so I'm not sure why it would suddenly stop working... it might not be the kernel itself but rather some other file in the firmware distribution; we've seen this with a few CyanogenMod nightlies (among others), no kernel change but some driver file gets bugged and the camera starts misbehaving.

If you're confident that this was tied to the Pleco update and that you didn't change the firmware at all between them, though, we can try to reproduce your configuration here to see if we can replicate the problem.

Also, it seems to display roman characters (and symbols like ><# §..) as well as Chinese ones, when "reading" Chinese words ; is it normal ? It seems that I had only Chinese characters before.

That definitely could happen before, though it's possible that the lighting / style of the text you're looking at now is making it show up more. (also possible that this could be a camera driver issue too, actually - some subtle change in exposure or noise removal or whatever)

 

[ziggy]

I have flashed back my Galaxy S2 to a previous version of Siyah (3.5.2). I am absolutely sure that Pleco OCR worked with this kernel ; and my ROM is still the official Samsung XWLPG.
The problem remains. Is there a "reset" for the OCR parameters, or could you please remind me of what should be the "standard settings" for OCR (only the parameters relating to this issue of course) ?

 

[mikelove]

I have flashed back my Galaxy S2 to a previous version of Siyah (3.5.2). I am absolutely sure that Pleco OCR worked with this kernel ; and my ROM is still the official Samsung XWLPG.
The problem remains. Is there a "reset" for the OCR parameters, or could you please remind me of what should be the "standard settings" for OCR (only the parameters relating to this issue of course) ?

Settings / General / Reset all settings will bring them back to their defaults.

 

[ziggy]

Thank you.

However, I'd rather not turn all seetings to default (flashcards, colours, screen arrangement, etc.). I'll keep what I have now for the moment, that is : camera natural, screen always landscape. It only allows correct recognition if I hold the telephone horizontally (landscape), but this is not a big trouble.

FYI I have also tried to flash my telephone back to a stock Kernel (and I have a stock Rom), with no improvement whatsoever. So in the end, it is not impossible that this issue has something to do with the new release...?

Thank you for your support.

 

[mikelove]

However, I'd rather not turn all seetings to default (flashcards, colours, screen arrangement, etc.). I'll keep what I have now for the moment, that is : camera natural, screen always landscape. It only allows correct recognition if I hold the telephone horizontally (landscape), but this is not a big trouble.

Ah. Camera default / Screen audio / alternate off would be the default options - I was suggesting the full reset in case there was a conflict with some other option (unlikely but possible since we can't test every conceivable combination). Does it act correctly again with those on your old ROM? Are you actually running a stock kernel again now? (stock SGS2 here with XWLPG doesn't seem to have any trouble with OCR)

 

[ziggy]

Thank you.
I tried the "natural / default" settings, and other combinations, with the stock Kernel (and Rom), but no change, it behaved exactly as before, especially this irritating "camera natural"... producing an image that is rotated 90° to the left ! (Is anyone in your dev Team from Mars by the way ?)

Now I'm back to Siyah (more battery-consumption effective).
The best combination is actually Camera always 90° and Screen always portrait. This way, I can hold the telephone vertical and I can read characters normally through the camera (not pivoted), and the UI is correctly oriented also (portrait).
I can use it like that, I don't want to bother you ; my level is still a beginner, and I'm not going to China soon, so I don't really use the OCR that often - and it does work 90 percent correct.

NB : For the record, I am writing 90 "percent" because I lost the percentage symbol character in my Windows 7. I know it's not a faulty keyboard physical key, because it is the same with other keybords... I posted the issue everywhere, I tried various software to assign this symbol to the key, etc... but Windows just cannot "hear" what this specific key says..whatever the leyoard connected to my PC. Just to illustrate the vast mystery of bugs.

NB #2 : good news (especially for me). I have done, just in case, a "wipe cache partition" and a "wipe Dalvik cache" through an application called CWM (used for saving/restoring the phone), and, O miracle, my OCR works now as it should, in both orientations . Sorry for the headache, Mike, and thank you again for your client oriented approach. :wink:

 

[ziggy]

Suggestions:

1 - When I write wrong Chinese characters in fill-in-the-blanks flashcards, it would be useful to allow clicking on them and having a pop-up bubble with their definition/pinyin. It would help understanding the mistake, by comparing the wrong and right characters - especially when they look or sound almost the same.

2 - I have created a flashcard shortcut, but still I have to click two more times to resume a test. is it possible that the shortcut gets me directly to where I left the test?

3 - In night mode, the frame of the empty boxes at the top of the screen, that should be filled in, is thin and/or not very contrasted. So, depending on daylight conditons, it may be difficult to know if have to fill one, two or more boxes. Of course you may say it's better, because the number of characters is a hint...

Thank you for your attention.

 

[mikelove]

NB #2 : good news (especially for me). I have done, just in case, a "wipe cache partition" and a "wipe Dalvik cache" through an application called CWM (used for saving/restoring the phone), and, O miracle, my OCR works now as it should, in both orientations . Sorry for the headache, Mike, and thank you again for your client oriented approach.

Glad to hear it! (must have been some bit of cached driver / configuration data)

1 - When I write wrong Chinese characters in fill-in-the-blanks flashcards, it would be useful to allow clicking on them and having a pop-up bubble with their definition/pinyin. It would help understanding the mistake, by comparing the wrong and right characters - especially when they look or sound almost the same.

Good one, I think it's been asked for a few times before actually.

2 - I have created a flashcard shortcut, but still I have to click two more times to resume a test. is it possible that the shortcut gets me directly to where I left the test?

That's a bug, actually - should be fixed in the imminently-due 2.4.8.

3 - In night mode, the frame of the empty boxes at the top of the screen, that should be filled in, is thin and/or not very contrasted. So, depending on daylight conditons, it may be difficult to know if have to fill one, two or more boxes. Of course you may say it's better, because the number of characters is a hint...

Also should be fixed in the next update, thanks.

 

[ziggy]

Thank you for your response.

I have two more points :

1 - Not sure if it's due to my settings or else : when I perform a test (self rating choice with 3 buttons), once all "due" cards are done, the system asks if I want to continue with "not-due yet cards" (or something like it). If I say yes, test continues without rating. Once my answser is entered, right or wrong, there is only one button, that says "next card".
Intuitively, I would think that it would be better if all my answsers were rated. But I suspect the scoring system is beyond my intellectual capabilities anyway, so if the answer is :"no, it's better that way", I'll trust your knowledge and experience.

2 - In the same kind of test, once I have entered characters in all the blank fields, I tap "done", then I tap on "check answer". One "done"/check answer" button would be enough for me. What is the intention with this two-step protocol ?

 

[mikelove]

1 - Not sure if it's due to my settings or else : when I perform a test (self rating choice with 3 buttons), once all "due" cards are done, the system asks if I want to continue with "not-due yet cards" (or something like it). If I say yes, test continues without rating. Once my answser is entered, right or wrong, there is only one button, that says "next card".
Intuitively, I would think that it would be better if all my answsers were rated. But I suspect the scoring system is beyond my intellectual capabilities anyway, so if the answer is :"no, it's better that way", I'll trust your knowledge and experience.

Basically the problem is that if you're studying the card ahead of schedule, the fact that you remembered or didn't remember it should not be counted - otherwise, the system would think that you knew the card really well when in fact you'd just seen it the day before and were probably going to remember it regardless. The whole idea of SRS is stretching out the intervals between card reviews - in strict SRS you wouldn't keep reviewing cards at all after seeing that message, but we added that option feature for people who feel like doing so anyway; however, if we also counted these early reviews towards the card score, the algorithm really wouldn't work at all.

2 - In the same kind of test, once I have entered characters in all the blank fields, I tap "done", then I tap on "check answer". One "done"/check answer" button would be enough for me. What is the intention with this two-step protocol ?

Is this in a handwriting test? If so, Pleco should both close the handwriting box and check your last answer as soon as you tap on your last character selection, or as soon as you tap in the input box with two fingers to clear it.

The reason those buttons' functions aren't combined is so that you have a way to hide the handwriting box and scroll through a long definition without submitting your answer. (we could also do this with the pen button at the top of the screen, and in fact we do, but with the same "Done" button also used non-destructively in the main app handwriting input screen we were worried that making it also score your answer here might seem jarring to some people)

 

[ziggy]

I understand your answer to the first point, thank you.

For the second one :
"Is this in a handwriting test? Pleco should both close the handwriting box and check your last answer as soon as you tap on your last character selection".

- Yes, it's the handwriting fill-in-the-blanks test.
- And no, once I have entered my last character (usually by choosing one among the horizontal list at the bottom of the screen), it I tap "done", it closes the handwriting box, but still displays "check answer". Same if I tap with two fingers to clear : the character appears in the last top box, but I still have to tap "done", then "check answer".
- For your last comment, I don't understand ; but what I know is that the pen button doesn't allow me to scroll long definitions (it is inactive when the system submits an new word to find)...and if I use "done" to scroll and read the full definition, then I don't seem to be able to go backwards to handwrite my answer.

Wouldn't it be better, if possible, to just add up/dow arrows if definiton is longer than available screen space, and to make the "done" button unveil the correct answer ? It would seem more intuitive to me.

PS: I'm now using ROM XWLS8 + Kernel Siyah-Dorimanx 7.45, faster than earlier combinations. But the behaviour described above was identical before.

 

[mikelove]

- Yes, it's the handwriting fill-in-the-blanks test.
- And no, once I have entered my last character (usually by choosing one among the horizontal list at the bottom of the screen), it I tap "done", it closes the handwriting box, but still displays "check answer". Same if I tap with two fingers to clear : the character appears in the last top box, but I still have to tap "done", then "check answer".

Go into "Test Settings" - is "Score Immediately" turned off? Turn it on if so. If it's already on (normally is by default), this might be something else specific to your Android version + ROM so we can investigate further in that case.

- For your last comment, I don't understand ; but what I know is that the pen button doesn't allow me to scroll long definitions (it is inactive when the system submits an new word to find)...and if I use "done" to scroll and read the full definition, then I don't seem to be able to go backwards to handwrite my answer.

Update to the latest version of Pleco (2.4.\8) - pen button should work more reliably in that one.