2.0.2 Beta 1 Bug Report / Feedback Thread

[stephanhodges]

Plecomover - Palm (Tapcis)

When copying files from CardL to internal, it will overwrite the existing (internal) file even if the internal file is marked as "BACKUP" (no problem with that!)

INCONSISTENT (Bug): When copying from CardL to CardR, it does NOT overwrite existing file, if existing file is marked "BACKUP", presumably because names don't "match". It creates a new file, and then you have to delete the backup, and remark the current as a backup.

 

[mikelove]

We aren't officially supporting card ordering in categories at all yet, so the split feature was designed specifically to mix up cards so that people wouldn't end up with a lot of cards with the same starting letter grouped together (since most premade flashcard lists are sorted by Pinyin). If / when we do eventually let people reorganize cards within a category then we can certainly consider adding an option to split by that order instead, though.

Card scores are kept within the profile now - they're in the profile's "scorefile," which can be selected / managed in the Scoring tab of Advanced Settings. So if you want separate score tracking for writing / reading / etc, just create a separate scorefile for each of those profiles. (by default we link everything to the same scorefile to avoid confusing people - the most straightforward behavior is for every card to have only one score)

Good point about that inconsistency in PlecoMover, but resolving it would be kind of tricky - we don't want to unexpectedly overwrite another file that happens to have the same name as that backup file but has nothing to do with Pleco, so we'd either need to bring up a prompt about replacement or open up / check the file to see if it's Pleco-related.

 

[sthubbar]

When doing a full text searches and pressing the "Next Entry" button, in some dictionaries it stop after they find the last entry and in other dictionaries it keeps going and displays non-relevant entries. This may be related to whether the search item is

You can replicate this by doing a full-text search of 畅销书 - #畅销书

Problem dictionaries

NWP - after displaying 'best' entry, pressing "Next Entry" will display non-relelvant "bestial"
OX - starts with 'best2' and then goes to non-relevant "best3"

Good dictionaries

21 - after the last entry "top" pressing "Next Entry" does nothing, as I would expect
DHD - only displays 2 entrys and "Previous Entry" and "Next Entry" only display those two.

 

[mikelove]

Yeah, that happens because of the standard switch-into-dict-ordered-mode-when-there's-only-one-result behavior - probably would make sense to turn that off for full-text searches at least, though. (some have suggested turning it off altogether, but I'm not sure about that one - jumping right to the dictionary does save a step)

 

[sthubbar]

I vote for turning off this feature for all searches.

 

[sych]

I would like to be able to get to the flashcards categories screen quicker, in order to be able to set the default category and/or make a new one.

I generally add new flashcards as we review vocab lists in class, but most of the time I haven't pre-prepared by making and/or setting a default category for the current class and chapter. If I could quickly access options to add/set categories from the main screen, I'd wouldn't be poking around on my PDA for so long every time we start doing a vocab list in class

 

[sych]

(is this the right place for feature requests?)

I like the recently-added "123/456" scoring buttons, but a lot of the time I have to stop and think "what's better, 1 or 6? which way does this damn scale go again?" Giving the 456 buttons a green background, and the 123 buttons a red background, would save me this distraction. Even better would be varying shades of colour... dark red for a "1", medium red for "2", pale red for "3", and so-on.

 

[mikelove]

sych - the official recommendation for dealing with default categories is not to use them at all and instead just add new cards without any category and file them after the lesson ends. But virtually nobody seems to actually be doing things that way, so it seems like putting things back closer to where they were in 1.0 might make sense - that or add a preferences option that switches the default category whenever you pick a category from the add-to-flash popup menu.

Changing the score button backgrounds makes sense, but it's another one of those things that by rights ought to be very easy but is made difficult by the complexity of bridging between the cross-platform and platform-specific bits of the flashcard user interface code - might be possible eventually, though.

 

[sych]

the official recommendation for dealing with default categories is not to use them at all and instead just add new cards without any category and file them after the lesson ends.

I'm not good at remembering to get around to doing things like that :|

that or add a preferences option that switches the default category whenever you pick a category from the add-to-flash popup menu.

This wouldn't work particularly well for my usage patterns... basically what I'm doing is putting vocab items into categories organised by Class/Lesson... e.g. "Jingmao Kouyu / Shang Ce 01 Ke" So, when we're in class doing vocab, my default is the category for the current lesson. In addition for about 20-80% of the vocab items, I might want to make sure I learn to write them, too, so I also put them into the "Write" category. If they're a chengyu, I'll also tag them with the "Chengyu" category. So what I like is having my current class as the default, and being able to pick various other categories from the drop-down if I want them. Changing the default category each time I used the drop-down wouldn't help me here, I don't think.

 

[stephanhodges]

Card scores are kept within the profile now - they're in the profile's "scorefile,"

I am already using scorefiles associated with each profile. I've double checked that. But, now I will watch for any patterns and report it as a bug. They do not seem to run independently for me.

As for the "default category", which was recently requested, I've also requested this in the past and would like a way that is independent of the Manage Categories screen, just because that screen is blocked whenever you've a suspended flashcard review in progress. But, perhaps this isn't as much an issue anymore, since it seems that picking up the review is smarter than before.

For selecting default category, as already mentioned, I'd really like it to work like the Group button, so that I could use the tree control!

 

[ben_gb]

Just trying out the 2.0.2 beta. I've noticed it seems to eat up memory pretty rapidly! I loaded pleco and ran a flashcard session and at the end, it seems to be using over 2800K of memory (memory at initial pleco start up is 1751K).

This is on a Touch HD wm6.1.

The memory usage is high enough to have an impact on other applications (eg if I click 'reply' on an sms message, the 'To:' field isn't filled in...just left blank). This works OK again if I close down Pleco.

Let me know if there's any other info I can provide.

Ben

 

[ben_gb]

One other thing...

When you have the 'review incorrect cards at end' option set (in flashcards), it seems to repeat some of the wrong cards multiple times even if I press the 'tick' on the first time it comes up in the review (also I don't have this set to loop). Is this intentional?

I think it might be making a list entry every time a card is given a wrong score during the actual testing phase (when it appears multiple times), and not taking into account that the card is already on the 'incorrect list'.

It seems a bit strange, as I am getting cards coming up 2 or 3 times in a row the 'incorrect card review'. These are usually new cards which I don't know yet, but it doesn't seem much point showing the same ones within such as short space of time.

By the way, this worked the same way on the older 2.0 version.

Ben

 

[radioman]

Pleco File Moving Program, it references a database along with my flashcard database. I assume that the flashcard database would be the configuration for the toolbar setup etc. However, it appears not to be the case.

I might have referenced or asked about this in the past, but just do not recall. So to get to it, is there anyway to save the tool bar button assignments and other button assignments such that if I have to do a reinstall, I can get them right back?

 

[mikelove]

sych - right, guess we'd need a quick-access default-category change screen to really fix this problem. (something that's been mentioned here a few times during the original 2.0 beta)

stephanhodges - they definitely should be getting tracked separately - let me know if/when you're sure that's not happening. But yes, I figured that default selection issue had at least partly been addressed by the change to saved sessions in 2.0.1.

ben_gb - that doesn't necessarily mean it's leaking memory, actually, between the various caches employed by SQLite / the audio playback system / FreeType / our own database system, Pleco's memory usage often does expand for a while before peaking. Does the memory usage go up further with each new flashcard session you run? 2800K shouldn't have much of an impact on a Touch HD, though - is this a cooked ROM? Has it worked reliably for you otherwise?

Your theory about cards coming up repeatedly in the incorrect review makes sense, easy to check on in the code even if we don't manage to reproduce it.

radioman - preferences are actually stored in a whole other place on Palm, the built-in system preferences database - utilities like FileZ can edit / back those up for you but there's no way to do that backup in Pleco.

 

[ben_gb]

ben_gb - that doesn't necessarily mean it's leaking memory, actually, between the various caches employed by SQLite / the audio playback system / FreeType / our own database system, Pleco's memory usage often does expand for a while before peaking. Does the memory usage go up further with each new flashcard session you run? 2800K shouldn't have much of an impact on a Touch HD, though - is this a cooked ROM? Has it worked reliably for you otherwise?

I haven't changed the ROM....it's just the normal shipped ROM. The memory problem is something that started occuring after I upgraded to Pleco 2.0.2 yesterday (I last upgraded in December, so may have missed some interim updates). The pleco memory usage does seem to vary up and down. I'll continue to use it and see if there is any obvious trigger for the problems appearing in the other applications (another one I noticed is that Touchflow 3D is now restarting itself every so often).

Ben

 

[ipsi]

2800K of memory isn't too bad, really - I've got applications on my Treo Pro that eat up a lot more than that. Pleco is also quite unusual in that the amount of memory it says it takes up in the Task Manager is actually accurate! A lot of other applications (most, in my experience) tend to display a rather small figure in the Task Manager (1 - 2 MB), but when you close them 4 or 5 MB is suddenly freed up. Example: Pocket Informant claims that it's taking up 1710KB in the Task Manager, but when I exit it, my memory usage shrank from 64.44MB down to 60.46MB... Pleco seems to be one of the very few applications where the memory it says it uses is the memory it actually uses. Dot Net Compact Framework apps are really bad for using a lot more memory than they say, from the little I've seen.

 

[ben_gb]

2800K of memory isn't too bad, really - I've got applications on my Treo Pro that eat up a lot more than that. Pleco is also quite unusual in that the amount of memory it says it takes up in the Task Manager is actually accurate! A lot of other applications (most, in my experience) tend to display a rather small figure in the Task Manager (1 - 2 MB), but when you close them 4 or 5 MB is suddenly freed up. Example: Pocket Informant claims that it's taking up 1710KB in the Task Manager, but when I exit it, my memory usage shrank from 64.44MB down to 60.46MB... Pleco seems to be one of the very few applications where the memory it says it uses is the memory it actually uses. Dot Net Compact Framework apps are really bad for using a lot more memory than they say, from the little I've seen.

Actually, I've been running Pleco today, and it's now up at around 6000K.

Still, I'm not actually sure if it is the memory use that is causing the problems I'm experiencing, as the Windows Mobile 'Program Memory' is showing 121MB free right now, even with the 6000K for pleco.

 

[radioman]

With regard to saving preferences, is it possible to outline how that would be done using filez? Is it just a single file? Again, my interest is in button settings on the toolbar as well as harware button mapping etc.

 

[sych]

Changing the score button backgrounds makes sense, but it's another one of those things that by rights ought to be very easy but is made difficult by the complexity of bridging between the cross-platform and platform-specific bits of the flashcard user interface code - might be possible eventually, though.

Changing the foreground colour would probably work just as well, if it's easier to implement.

 

[mikelove]

ben_gb - OK, let me know what happens. It's certainly possible there could be a new memory leak somewhere, but this sounds like it might be bigger than just a memory problem. Even 6000KB is actually well within what we've observed normally - even up to 10 MB is quite possible if every cache is filled up.

ipsi - yeah, .NET CF is known as a big memory-waster; now that most WM phones are shipping with 128MB of RAM on top of lots of flash memory for storage memory, it's becoming less of a problem, but still not nearly as efficient as native apps.

radioman - open up the "View Preferences" screen, scroll through / open each of the "Pleco" items, and "Export" each of them to a file (the first one listed will probably contain most of the important preferences, but you might as well export them all to be safe). Copy / backup those files and then you can reimport them (I believe that's using a menu command, haven't got a Palm handy right now to double-check) back onto your new / reset Palm.

sych - that would actually be a lot easier, I think - just change the colors of the icons and we don't even need to worry about the buttons.