jekbradbury
Member
The flashcard system has now reset at least four times, and seems to do so pretty regularly when I task-switch into Pleco after using other apps for a while.
3.0.0 Bug Report / Feedback Thread
- Thread starter mikelove
- Start date
John W - you'd be surprised how many complaints we've gotten on the subject of those 'barely remembered' etc labels, actually; it seems like an awful lot of Pleco-using SRS enthusiasts prefer to have the extra data. As I said, we can consider adding an option to hide it if we get a lot of complaints about the new behavior, but I hope you understand why we can't go around adding a checkbox to reverse every single design change we made in 3.0 - at some point, if we think something will be better for the vast majority of people we'd rather just pull the trigger on it and only backpedal if a lot of users demand it.
The 3.x flashcard updates are going to make some much more dramatic changes to our flashcard system and I fully expect to get at least a few dozen 1-star reviews / emails telling us we've totally ruined our once-brilliant flashcard app, but given the choice between stagnation / irrelevance and upsetting a few longtime users I think we have to bite the bullet and opt for the latter.
Clive - yes, both that and Settings were screens that we wanted to split-screen-ify on iPad but we ran out of time before we managed to do so; should happen in a future update, though.
afritzse - that should already be disabled; we'll see if we can find any reason why it wouldn't be.
golden chyld - good point, thanks; we should only hide simplified when displaying LMA entries solo. (it has the simplified characters embedded, we just hide them, basically because Longman doesn't want their name associated with simplified conversions that weren't developed by their own editors)
jekbradbury - would you please send me your crash logs? See this page for instructions on how to retrieve those.
The 3.x flashcard updates are going to make some much more dramatic changes to our flashcard system and I fully expect to get at least a few dozen 1-star reviews / emails telling us we've totally ruined our once-brilliant flashcard app, but given the choice between stagnation / irrelevance and upsetting a few longtime users I think we have to bite the bullet and opt for the latter.
Clive - yes, both that and Settings were screens that we wanted to split-screen-ify on iPad but we ran out of time before we managed to do so; should happen in a future update, though.
afritzse - that should already be disabled; we'll see if we can find any reason why it wouldn't be.
golden chyld - good point, thanks; we should only hide simplified when displaying LMA entries solo. (it has the simplified characters embedded, we just hide them, basically because Longman doesn't want their name associated with simplified conversions that weren't developed by their own editors)
jekbradbury - would you please send me your crash logs? See this page for instructions on how to retrieve those.
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I have several dictionaries installed and updated, but when I make a search, I only get the entry and definitions of the Pleco dictionary. Does anyone know how to see the definitions of the rest of the dictionaries? Thank you.
Any chance of adding an "Advanced Dictionary Search" option?
I'd like easier access to wildcard characters, the option to search only within specific dictionaries (a big one for me), and the ability to sort by frequency/alphabet/stroke/length according to situation... Maybe also with some/all of the options currently in the "Search Options" screen.
If you had this, you could also trim the "Search Options" menu down a bit...
Also, a couple of other small bugs:
-When switching between Night Mode and regular, some of the menu options in the New Test screen appear the wrong color (still white in night mode, and vice versa)
-Tapping a sidebar item doesn't always highlight the choice, especially if the tap is too short.
I'd like easier access to wildcard characters, the option to search only within specific dictionaries (a big one for me), and the ability to sort by frequency/alphabet/stroke/length according to situation... Maybe also with some/all of the options currently in the "Search Options" screen.
If you had this, you could also trim the "Search Options" menu down a bit...
Also, a couple of other small bugs:
-When switching between Night Mode and regular, some of the menu options in the New Test screen appear the wrong color (still white in night mode, and vice versa)
-Tapping a sidebar item doesn't always highlight the choice, especially if the tap is too short.
sobriaebritas - are you sure those dictionaries are all unlocked, and that they all have entries for the word you're looking up? Have you changed any options in Manage Dicts?
Bendy-Ren - we're actually moving in that direction with "dictionary groups" - not well-documented yet though they're better documented in the Android manual; support specific dictionary search now and we'd like them to support some other options in the future so that people can can have the ability to use them as something akin to "search profiles" and easily switch to their preferred search type on demand.
For wildcards, how often do you find yourself doing wildcard searches other than what comes through the "Words" tab? A big part of why we felt we could get rid of the Wild button is because people seem to be usually just inserting a multi-character wildcard before or after something - do you do a lot of more complex wildcard searches? Also, given that it's only 2 taps to insert a ? character anyway, would Advanced Search really make things any faster?
bglasow - yeah, somebody actually reported that one on Twitter - system thinks it's in a flashcard test for some reason; should be fixable for 3.0.1 though we haven't found the cause yet.
Bendy-Ren - we're actually moving in that direction with "dictionary groups" - not well-documented yet though they're better documented in the Android manual; support specific dictionary search now and we'd like them to support some other options in the future so that people can can have the ability to use them as something akin to "search profiles" and easily switch to their preferred search type on demand.
For wildcards, how often do you find yourself doing wildcard searches other than what comes through the "Words" tab? A big part of why we felt we could get rid of the Wild button is because people seem to be usually just inserting a multi-character wildcard before or after something - do you do a lot of more complex wildcard searches? Also, given that it's only 2 taps to insert a ? character anyway, would Advanced Search really make things any faster?
bglasow - yeah, somebody actually reported that one on Twitter - system thinks it's in a flashcard test for some reason; should be fixable for 3.0.1 though we haven't found the cause yet.
A bug or two I haven't seen mentioned. These are all on an iPad mini:
Went to do some Flashcard Organizing while in Night Mode, tapped Edit and could no longer see the definitions very well, only colored Hanzi stood out. Did the obvious workaround (backed out, turned Night Mode off, went back in), but it would be nice to have that fixed. Night Mode is easy on the eyes and the battery.
Flashcard Testing has an issue, as well. I used to be able to pause my test and resume it later. Now it seems there's no way to save it, it just wraps it up and shows the stats and percentages. Is this broken or is resuming a test gone for good?
Another thing there may actually be a setting for that I just can't find:
In Dictionary mode, Olde Pleco used to highlight the searched word in the example sentence with a different color. New Pleco has the example sentence all in one color with the searched word in an ever-so-slightly-bigger font. It's now quite hard to see and locate it. Is there something I can do about this?
Went to do some Flashcard Organizing while in Night Mode, tapped Edit and could no longer see the definitions very well, only colored Hanzi stood out. Did the obvious workaround (backed out, turned Night Mode off, went back in), but it would be nice to have that fixed. Night Mode is easy on the eyes and the battery.
Flashcard Testing has an issue, as well. I used to be able to pause my test and resume it later. Now it seems there's no way to save it, it just wraps it up and shows the stats and percentages. Is this broken or is resuming a test gone for good?
Another thing there may actually be a setting for that I just can't find:
In Dictionary mode, Olde Pleco used to highlight the searched word in the example sentence with a different color. New Pleco has the example sentence all in one color with the searched word in an ever-so-slightly-bigger font. It's now quite hard to see and locate it. Is there something I can do about this?
iOS 6 or 7?
With the Organize bug, it might be that the screen simply hadn't refreshed properly from the Night Mode change - try turning on Night Mode and then exiting / reopening Pleco, does it look better then?
Resuming a test is still there, it's just done more invisibly now - if you switch out of the test it's automatically saved and will resume if you "Continue Test," or if you exit Pleco and reopen later you can Continue Test then. Basically we're downplaying the "session"ness of it - now you either have a test in progress (in which case it'll stay in progress until you cancel or finish it, regardless of whatever else you do in Pleco) or you don't.
We actually feel that boldfacing the headword characters in examples instead of coloring them is a nicer approach; we want them to be noticeable but we don't want them to totally disrupt the flow of reading the sentence. As with most of the 3.0 changes, we're happy to add an option to return to the old system if a lot of people request it, so I'll chalk this up as one such request.
With the Organize bug, it might be that the screen simply hadn't refreshed properly from the Night Mode change - try turning on Night Mode and then exiting / reopening Pleco, does it look better then?
Resuming a test is still there, it's just done more invisibly now - if you switch out of the test it's automatically saved and will resume if you "Continue Test," or if you exit Pleco and reopen later you can Continue Test then. Basically we're downplaying the "session"ness of it - now you either have a test in progress (in which case it'll stay in progress until you cancel or finish it, regardless of whatever else you do in Pleco) or you don't.
We actually feel that boldfacing the headword characters in examples instead of coloring them is a nicer approach; we want them to be noticeable but we don't want them to totally disrupt the flow of reading the sentence. As with most of the 3.0 changes, we're happy to add an option to return to the old system if a lot of people request it, so I'll chalk this up as one such request.
having issues getting full-search english to work...
I have turned on "intergrated english searches" assuming that would fix it but it seems like that didn't work either...
tapping the [C] doesn't change
tap+hold [C] and selecting "full text, eng dicts" doesn't do anything either
anything I'm missing?
I have turned on "intergrated english searches" assuming that would fix it but it seems like that didn't work either...
tapping the [C] doesn't change
tap+hold [C] and selecting "full text, eng dicts" doesn't do anything either
anything I'm missing?
iOS 7 (sorry about that!).
I just now tried what you suggested with the Organize in Night Mode issue, didn't work for me. So, I powered the iPad off and back on again, restarted Pleco- same thing. A pic is attached to show you what I'm talking about.
As for the testing, I guess I'll just have to remember not to tap the X for a full exit/complete. Easy enough. And in some ways maybe more convenient. I grasp the intent.
My highlighting inquiry may be totally idiosyncratic. I'm a first year student still struggling with character recognition and also got in the habit of using example sentences and a word's position in them to help me untangle grammar and usage issues. On the iPad mini the boldface is barely noticeable, even with Embed Definitions turned off and the Dictionary claiming the screen. Even an option to color the searched word differently would be an improvement.
Thank you, Mike, you were right: all those dictionaries were locked. Doing some guesswork, I went to Add-ons/Registration, tapped on Restore iTunes Purchases, and the problem was solved.
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I like to use large font sizes on my iPhone 5 to make things more readable. This worked fine in the previous version of Pleco, but now with 3.0.0 I am having issues. FYI, I have iOS 7.0.3 installed.
For flashcards, I have the "Headword size" set to 120. During a flashcard test, if the entry contains more than two characters, the third character gets half obscured as it continues off the right side of the screen. The fourth character will wrap to the next row as expected.
Here are screenshots of three- and four-character flashcards during a test.
For flashcards, I have the "Headword size" set to 120. During a flashcard test, if the entry contains more than two characters, the third character gets half obscured as it continues off the right side of the screen. The fourth character will wrap to the next row as expected.
Here are screenshots of three- and four-character flashcards during a test.
Thanks Mike, appreciate the explanation.
Anyway, focusing on the big issue, the upgrade looks great and, other than the flashcards, is easier to use.
I hope you'll understand though if I hope you get many complaints!
I've got no objection to more data but you've actually deleted data. When I've got "6 - 60 days", "5 - 60 days", "4 - 60 days" - what appears on most of my flashcards at the moment - how do I - or any novice (especially those who haven't learned their numbers yet) - know which is the score to indicate how well I've remembered it?
Having worked in the introduction of technology new products and services for almost twenty years I don't think this is an either/or option.
Anyway, focusing on the big issue, the upgrade looks great and, other than the flashcards, is easier to use.
ronald
Member
I cannot figure out why the dictionaries are not re-ordering in the settings. After I reorder the dictionaries, and go to another word, or quit and restart the app, the order remains: PLC, CC and Uni. If i try to move Uni to the top, nothing happens.
Am I doing something wrong, or is this a bug?
Am I doing something wrong, or is this a bug?
TimBenderSLS
举人
Question about the pdf reader function - i have several pdfs (ocred through adobe, In windows I can highlight and cut and paste text), but when opening in pleco the behavior seems odd. I can search for charecters, but it often only returns a few results from nearby, and I can't seem to tap and select text for autolookups in the dictionary at all.
The only thing I can think of is that the text is vertical rather than horizontal - does that matter for pleco's pdf reading function? If it does, is there the possibility of an update in the future?
The only thing I can think of is that the text is vertical rather than horizontal - does that matter for pleco's pdf reading function? If it does, is there the possibility of an update in the future?
Leipzig - ah, thanks, seeing it now - seems to only apply when you're editing.
(BTW, didn't notice this comment earlier but I'm afraid Night Mode makes no difference at all in battery life on iOS. It only helps on LED displays, where each pixel is itself a light source; on LCD displays, like those of every iOS device, each pixel is simply blocking the light source behind it and that backlight stays on / burns the same amount of power regardless of how bright or dark the image on the screen is)
Understood about example highlighting - we'll see if any other complaints come in about that.
sobriaebritas - great! Had me worried about a serious bug there... thanks.
李定 - that's an interesting one; does it help matters if you go into Settings / Languages + Text and switch to one of the system STHeiTi fonts?
John W - 4/5/6 always equated to the same things; 6 was always "remembered perfectly" and 4 was always "barely remembered." The text underneath was merely reinforcing the meanings of the icons, but it wasn't providing any additional information except as a reminder of what the icons meant.
As far as stagnation versus keeping old users happy - much harder tradeoff on mobile, because every button / pixel / little bit of battery life counts and any accommodation you make for old users is necessarily going to make the app that much clunkier for new ones. Also in our case we frankly have way too little time for all of the stuff we want to do, so extra time spent maintaining / testing an old feature we'd been keeping around for the sake of a few people who grew accustomed to our app working that way means we don't have that time to spend on a new feature that would ultimately have a bigger impact on more people.
ronald - is the ordering in Manage Dicts itself returning to what it was before, or is the problem simply that moving UNI to the top isn't causing it to come up first?
The latter behavior is expected with UNI - turning off the "fallback" option in its configuration screen might help, but its nature as a single-character reference causes it to be treated differently by Pleco in several places; if you let me know where specifically it isn't coming up first that it should be, we can try to see if there's a bug.
TimBenderSLS - could you send me a sample of one of these problem files? Our PDF decoder library is actually something we licensed from a third party (http://pspdfkit.com), but the developer is extremely accommodating - already added support for decoding Big5- and GB-encoded PDFs thanks in part to my nagging on the subject - so if it hasn't already been fixed by a more recent bug-fix update (the library just had a big iOS 7 redesign too) I can file a bug with them and hopefully have a fixed version in Pleco a few releases later.
(BTW, didn't notice this comment earlier but I'm afraid Night Mode makes no difference at all in battery life on iOS. It only helps on LED displays, where each pixel is itself a light source; on LCD displays, like those of every iOS device, each pixel is simply blocking the light source behind it and that backlight stays on / burns the same amount of power regardless of how bright or dark the image on the screen is)
Understood about example highlighting - we'll see if any other complaints come in about that.
sobriaebritas - great! Had me worried about a serious bug there... thanks.
李定 - that's an interesting one; does it help matters if you go into Settings / Languages + Text and switch to one of the system STHeiTi fonts?
John W - 4/5/6 always equated to the same things; 6 was always "remembered perfectly" and 4 was always "barely remembered." The text underneath was merely reinforcing the meanings of the icons, but it wasn't providing any additional information except as a reminder of what the icons meant.
As far as stagnation versus keeping old users happy - much harder tradeoff on mobile, because every button / pixel / little bit of battery life counts and any accommodation you make for old users is necessarily going to make the app that much clunkier for new ones. Also in our case we frankly have way too little time for all of the stuff we want to do, so extra time spent maintaining / testing an old feature we'd been keeping around for the sake of a few people who grew accustomed to our app working that way means we don't have that time to spend on a new feature that would ultimately have a bigger impact on more people.
ronald - is the ordering in Manage Dicts itself returning to what it was before, or is the problem simply that moving UNI to the top isn't causing it to come up first?
The latter behavior is expected with UNI - turning off the "fallback" option in its configuration screen might help, but its nature as a single-character reference causes it to be treated differently by Pleco in several places; if you let me know where specifically it isn't coming up first that it should be, we can try to see if there's a bug.
TimBenderSLS - could you send me a sample of one of these problem files? Our PDF decoder library is actually something we licensed from a third party (http://pspdfkit.com), but the developer is extremely accommodating - already added support for decoding Big5- and GB-encoded PDFs thanks in part to my nagging on the subject - so if it hasn't already been fixed by a more recent bug-fix update (the library just had a big iOS 7 redesign too) I can file a bug with them and hopefully have a fixed version in Pleco a few releases later.
denmitch
探花
Not to be disrepectful to Leipzig but I prefer the new display of headwords in examples. It makes me focus more and seems more natural, more like real life. Growth can be painful even when it's just brain cells.
Two more bugs. These only happen a fraction of the time, and I can't reproduce them reliably, but I managed to get screenshots...
-Sometimes, finishing a flashcard test takes me to a glitched version of the "New Test" page, with only one button. Choosing it causes the test to start and then end again immediately. If instead I go to Sidebar > New Test, it asks if I want to quit the test in progress (which I just finished). Weirdest of all, if I choose Sidebar > Continue Test, the previous test resumes at about halfway through, prompting me to either "cancel" or else take the second half of the test all over again.
-Tone colors sometimes show up in grayscale, even after the whole card is revealed—or, they'll be in color after the first part reveal, and go to grayscale after the second. Sometimes it's the other way around. The characters are not just black—they appear as different shades of grey, as if it's loading the brightness information but not the hue.
-Sometimes, finishing a flashcard test takes me to a glitched version of the "New Test" page, with only one button. Choosing it causes the test to start and then end again immediately. If instead I go to Sidebar > New Test, it asks if I want to quit the test in progress (which I just finished). Weirdest of all, if I choose Sidebar > Continue Test, the previous test resumes at about halfway through, prompting me to either "cancel" or else take the second half of the test all over again.
-Tone colors sometimes show up in grayscale, even after the whole card is revealed—or, they'll be in color after the first part reveal, and go to grayscale after the second. Sometimes it's the other way around. The characters are not just black—they appear as different shades of grey, as if it's loading the brightness information but not the hue.
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