2.0.2 Beta 5 / 5(a) / 5(b) Bug Report / Feedback Thread

[mikelove]

Post any bug reports / feedback on the newest beta here. 2.0.2b5 is pretty much a release candidate, so we'll be releasing this almost exactly as 2.0.2 unless we find some last-minute showstopper bug, but if that showstopper bug is out there we really want to know about it

 

[ipsi]

Re: 2.0.2 Beta 5 Bug Report / Feedback Thread

Three things:

While I really like the dictionary switch button in the Compounds Tab of character info, there is one issue with running it on a square screen... Basically, the problem is that it the dictionary icon has squeezed everything just a little too close together, and now there's only room for two entries in each box, plus *almost* (but not quite) enough whitespace for a third row. Not sure what can be done about that, apart from maybe making that full-screenable as well... Bit of a pain trying to fit all this stuff on a square screen, really.

Also, if I switch to a dictionary which doesn't contain the selected character (e.g. a user-created dictionary for classical words), then it will actually jump ahead to the next dictionary in the list and use that, rather than displaying a line like "No entries found" or something. Actually, it doesn't even search user dictionaries, I think. Entered in 之, which does appear in my simple Classical Dictionary, then looked up compounds, but it only displayed words from the next dictionary in line, *not* the single entry for 之 in my custom dict. Is this expected?

EDIT: Focus doesn't move from List A to List B when I select an entry in List B. Have to explicitly pop-up a word, which shifts the focus to the button, then move the focus via the d-pad to the list. This only matters if you want to use the d-pad to scroll up/down a list.

When using the fullscreen HWR, hitting the undo button to remove the final line from the undo stack doesn't restore the buttons. You have to hit the clear button before the on/off button and the 笔 button come back. Not a major problem, but for consistency, I would have thought it would be best to have either of undo and clear restore the original buttons.

Looking at the third-tone i on my Treo Pro, using 12-point font for the definition, it seems to be thicker/heavier than the other i characters (those with first, second, fourth and neutral tones). Not sure why that is, and why I've only just started noticing it, but there we go. That's the only character that I've spotted which exhibits this behaviour. Everything else appears consistent. Dropping the font-size to 10 or 11 fixes it, but then I have trouble reading complex characters (and provided I'm wearing my glasses, I have fairly good eyesight). Increasing it to 14 also fixes it, so I'm not sure what's so special about 12...

 

[mikelove]

Re: 2.0.2 Beta 5 / 5(a) Bug Report / Feedback Thread

Thanks! Fixed the list size / focus / fullscreen undo issues in 5(a), along with another issue that could have been a big headache for some Palm users (particularly those with Pres). User dictionaries aren't supported in compounds yet because the search index they use isn't very good at plucking out individual characters from words - performance is way too slow to make this practical, though this should be corrected in 2.1. The lack of a "no entries" display was a design decision, since we don't do it in the main dictionary it seemed unnecessary to do it here.

The font issue is probably just some tiny little font hinting glitch - Windows Mobile's built-in fonts aren't well-optimized for 320x320 anyway (as you may have noticed) and the third-tone 'i' in our fill-in PlecoExtra font may differ just enough from the first / second / fourth-tone ones in Tahoma to cause that change. Eventually (maybe in 3.0) we're planning to use a dedicated font for non-Chinese characters as well, instead of relying on the built-in OS ones, so that should help matters significantly on that front.

Thanks for the bug reports, and keep them coming - really want to get 2.0.2 nailed down ASAP so we can get to work full-time on finishing up iPhone.

 

[ipsi]

Re: 2.0.2 Beta 5 / 5(a) Bug Report / Feedback Thread

Still a problem with the focus in the compounds tab... Basically, select something in the second box. Switch dictionaries. Select something in the first box. Try using the d-pad. It moves the second box, despite the fact that you've got nothing selected. Select something in the second box, then something in the first box. Yay! It works! A little strange, but there we go. Also, I think it would possibly be better to have it display an empty box rather than entries from a dictionary much further on. Good example of how this might cause confusion is 黯, where only ABC and Guifan provide entries that fill the second box. Since I have ABC listed as the fourth dictionary, and Guifan as the 5th, I was slightly confused as to why they weren't changing (but the first box was) when I changed dictionaries. You actually have to pop-up the words to figure out which dictionary they're from, which seems a little odd to me.

Also, if you're not going to search custom dictionaries, you might want to exclude them from the dictionary cycle, otherwise it may be confusing for people when they see results from a different dictionary in there.

Huh. I had thought you already used your own English fonts. Apparently I was wrong .

 

[anchan42]

Re: 2.0.2 Beta 5 / 5(a) Bug Report / Feedback Thread

Treo 680. I can not lock the keyboard to numeric mode. It always switches back to letter mode after I key in one number. The 0 key does not work at all.

Not sure it is a bug through.

 

[johnh113]

Re: 2.0.2 Beta 5 Bug Report / Feedback Thread

Three things:


Also, if I switch to a dictionary which doesn't contain the selected character (e.g. a user-created dictionary for classical words), then it will actually jump ahead to the next dictionary in the list and use that, rather than displaying a line like "No entries found" or something.

Dear Mike,

I find the same behavior that ipsi does. (I'm running 5a.) On the compounds screen, I choose OX. I then look up a character (琪 qi2) that isn't in OX but is in GF. Instead of leaving the space blank, it actually pulls a definition from the next dictionary that has that character. In my case, GF. So now I have OX chosen at the bottom, and the "Words starting with this character:" window has 琪 and the definition from GF.

Not a big deal, but I think that is wrong. If it can't find the word in OX, then I think it should just leave the window empty. I don't think it should retrieve a character and definition from GF, allowing me to think it's from OX. The window should just be empty (or as ipsi suggests, "No entries found").

John

 

[mikelove]

The compounds dictionary mismatch bug has been fixed in the newly-posted 2.0.2b5b - hopefully that'll pretty much be the finished 2.0.2 release.

anchan42 - is this happening everywhere or just in the dictionary search field?

 

[anchan42]

Just in the search field. It is not a big deal through.

 

[ben_gb]

Hi,

I just noticed a problem which I believe has appeared in beta 5 or 4.

Basically when Pleco is running (foreground or background) and I press the 'long end' key in order to set the ringer to vibrate, or to turn on airplane mode, I get the MS error screen "A problem has occured with endkey.exe....etc".

This is reproducable every time.

If I exit Pleco first, then the long end key press works fine and brings up the Quick List menu.

This is on the Touch Diamond 2, with the normal shipped ROM (and not much other software installed either).

I dont believe this was in beta 3 (the last beta I was using), as I used that for quite a long time and I use the long end key press fairly frequently, so I think I would have noticed it.

Ben

 

[Alexis]

Continuing from the Beta 4 thread as I just tried this with Beta 5...

Alexis - it might be that the software is just skipping the last card because it's incomplete / missing a definition - what type of test is this? Does it make any difference if you enable the "allow missing sections" option (Tests tab of Advanced Settings)?

I am doing "Self-Scored" and "Stroke Order". I checked the "allow missing sections" selection as you suggested. One weird thing I'm noticing now is that as I progress through the test the total number of cards decreases (in the same flashcard session). For example I started on 1/103 cards, the total kept reducing, went down to 97, then 92, etc. I quit and came back in and then I was on 1/70 (then the total seemed to proceed correctly). I only noticed this recently, I installed the beta update for the Tuttle dictionary (my flashcards are heavily Tuttle-based) and also switched to repetition-spacing around same time, so not sure which one is the contributing factor here.

One thing I noticed is that after a messed up session, trying to start another session results in the message "No flashcards were found. Please check your test settings and try again.". If the session seemed normal, trying to start another session gives the expected message "No flashcards are due for repition-spaced study today right now. If you'd like review some flashcards anyway, switch to 'Frequency adjust' card selection in the Cards tab of Advanced Settings."

 

[Alexis]

By the way, your note about the new C-E dictionary in the release notes has me salivating.

 

[mikelove]

ben_gb - not seeing this on an upgraded-ROM original Diamond here... does it make any difference to this one if you turn off the Instant Access taskbar icon?

Alexis - that's actually normal behavior too, though I agree it's confusing / not really desirable - basically, in order to start sessions quickly the flashcard system doesn't go through and verify that every card has a completed headword / pronunciation / definition before adding them to the queue of cards to review, but instead it checks each card as it comes up in the session and skips to the next one if it finds those fields missing. We're not sure what the best way to deal with this would be - in a couple of 2.0 betas we didn't include a total # of cards counter in some sessions, but people hated that. Slowing the start of each session down while we manually re-check cards doesn't seem like such a good idea, and popping up an annoying "invalid card" message when cards are skipped would probably be much worse than skipping them silently.

And yes, the new C-E dictionary is well worth salivating about, at least for a lot of users.

 

[ben_gb]

ben_gb - not seeing this on an upgraded-ROM original Diamond here... does it make any difference to this one if you turn off the Instant Access taskbar icon?

Yes, it still happens if I turn off the IA taskbar icon.

Maybe it's another memory/files issue like the Album problem (which is also still there in beta5).

As a quick check, I tried running through all the previous 2.02betas, and the problem does occur in all of them...Sorry about the misinformation about this only appearing in beta5 in my earlier message!

A bit more information. When you press the long-end key, you can see in the header line that 'Quick List' is starting up, then the windows error screen pops up, and that is then overwritten by the Quick list screen, but only two icons are displayed: the plane and the lock icon. The rest of the screen is blank, and there is no text in any fields.

I cant seem to attach an image here, so I'll send it to you in email.

Ben

 

[mikelove]

Yeah, it seems like it could easily be connected to those earlier possibly-number-of-files-related issues, particularly since there's the reference to endkey.exe which I assume is only getting opened (along with any accessory files) when you hold down that button. I'd love to get to the bottom of this whole thing, but since it doesn't seem to be tied to anything specific in 2.0.2 and may in fact have been around in 2.0.1 as well I'm not inclined to hold up the release of 2.0.2 for it - there are lots of other things that are much-improved since 2.0.1, so unless 2.0.2 is more unstable in other ways the average Pleco customer would now be better off running that than 2.0.1.

(but please, anyone who's still having crashing / general-bugginess issues with 2.0.2 now do speak up - we certainly don't want to release it if it's going to be worse than 2.0.1 for a lot of people)