Beta 2 Bug Reporting

[TaiwanSwedey]

We haven't noticed any delays in handwriting input in our testing - is anyone else experiencing anything like this?

I also noticed this problem. Happens when I try to write quickly (a bit like grass style... within reasonable bounds of course, so that the character is still recognized correctly most of the times) with almost no pause between strokes. Then the next stroke is not drawn and I have to write it again... which almost always succeeds, as there seems to be a long enough pause between two strokes in such cases. If I try to write neatly, stroke after stroke, with some delay between them this problem almost never occurs. At first I thought that there is something wrong with my display again but it seems I am not the only one encountering this...

Never happened in PD1, I can write as quick as I want there... though I do that on a different part of the screen as I have the "bottom" option turned on, so that I don't have to switch to that special handwriting screen...

I am experiencing the exact same problem as Sarevok while using Beta 2. I am trying Pleco 2.0 Beta 2 on a new WM6 device with VGA screen so I always figured the slow handwriting input is due to the VGA screen. I used Pleco 1 on a non VGA screen device and never experienced similar slowness in charachter input except if I was listening to MP3s on my bluetooth headset while trying to input characthers.

 

[The Duelist]

Unable To Run A Flashcard Session

Platform: Palm T5
Software: PlecoDict 2 Beta2

Bug Report: Selecting 'Start' In New Flashcard Session Screen Causes Immediate System Crash
Fatal Alert: Emul68kMain.c, Line:108 Divide by zero at address 008B85A8

Trying To Run A Flashcard Session Is Completely Broken For Me :cry:

The Duelist

Edit: Fixed Problem By Deleting The Flashcard File (Again)

 

[courtlandre]

I can only see one page of the preferences on the PPC 56 version.

I have an HTC Hermes running a cooked windows mobile 6 Rom.

 

[mikelove]

Just realized that all of the people with handwriting problems are using Pocket PC instead of Palm - that probably explains why I wasn't seeing them on my TX Good argument for listing platforms in signatures (or just linking the forums to My Orders so I can see what everyone's using that way), it's not an easy thing to remember...

grabolus - didn't realize that was something people were doing. Anyway, the screen should update as soon as you exit Preferences but doesn't yet due to simple programmer laziness which will of course be corrected in the finished version.

sfrrr - yes, there's a Big Friendly Button on the External/OS preferences screen that resets all of the big ones. And there shouldn't be any problems if you delete some of the registry keys, they're all independent and the software will automatically fill in any missing ones. Probably a good idea to make sure it's completely exited first, though.

ldolse - glad to hear the entries aren't missing altogether. But yeah, sorting is still something we need to work on a bit; untangling the printed ABC's unusual entry order isn't as easy as we'd like it to be. For the rare characters, this is just another unimplemented feature; at some point between now and the finished version we'll add code to automatically fall back on the Unihan database (which is just another dictionary as far as Pleco is concerned, but one that's normally skipped during searches) if a character can't be found elsewhere.

roddy - do you remember which dictionary this was in by any chance? Might be an issue with the traditional/simplified converter acting up. And the magnifying glasses are just because we haven't filled in default values for those extra buttons yet.

The Duelist - glad that the reset cleared it up. Though that divide by zero is a bit odd, the SQLite code is pretty much divide-by-zero-proof due to how extensively it's been reviewed so that suggests that there's something wrong with the flashcard layout system; not sure what, though.

courtlandre - remember that preferences now are accessed through that little menu at the bottom right corner of the screen rather than the standard Pocket PC tab interface; with so many screens we decided that would be a lot easier for people, tabs are fine when they fit within the screen width but can be extremely awkward when they don't. Does that menu only show one item or were you just not looking there?

 

[sfrrr]

I did use the reset to default button and I'm a happy camper.

Except that the auto-search fails after a minute or two and I'm back to hitting the dictionary button to get a search going. My flashcards now work with prefab sets of cards--e.g. 500 most frequent words by [can't remember whom]. And sometimes PD2 saves my new entries, but only into the current flashcard pack (the self-same 500 words). Can't get it to respond when I try to make a card file. Also, none of the notifications work. There is no feedback when I try to save a word to a flashcard pack. Al;so, the only way I can start a flashcard session is by going to the Modules menu and clicking on Open Flashcards. I would dearly love to have a Manage Flashcards card on the Main Menu. And a start session button too. Or a toggle buttons between the two. (Remember, in real life, I don't use flashcards except, rarely, for review.

Have tried the Reader. Since it needs a lot of work, haven't yet tried to figure it out.

 

[mykal]

I am using a Palm Treo 680, and am unable to enter characters using the handwriting method.
I am able to draw the character in the window, but as soon as I tap on the 'Recognize' button, my phone does a soft reset.

This problem just started showing up with the Beta 2 software.

 

[roddy]

Ok, I am seeing the 家庭 bug again, where 庭 is replaced by a 口+舌 character which I can't find the pinyin for （found it, 咶). Seems to be across the board in all Guifan entries, headwords and bodies. Other dictionaries are fine. Same in traditional and simplified views.

If this is just a variant character I'm unaware of, ignore me :mrgreen:

 

[mikelove]

sfrrr - glad the reset helped a little at least. Still sounds like preferences files are getting corrupted, not sure about that but we'll keep investigating. Notifications aren't implemented yet, so that's why you're not seeing them (this is pretty much what you should assume anytime a particular feature is missing or doesn't do anything), and as for flashcard access, I actually prefer the Flashcard Central approach; much more friendly to new users and it's only one extra button tap for experienced ones, plus in the next beta we're moving the Language setting (see my new post on Beta 3 Flashcard Changes) to that screen since it affects both New Session and Manage Flashcards. Profile may end up there too, actually, even though it only affects the former.

mykal - delete/reinstall all of your Pleco Beta software and try again, most likely the handwriting recognizer database/library has gotten corrupted somehow (probably the ever-annoying "busy flag" bug) and since the beta doesn't handle missing files very well it's crashing when it can't access the recognizer.

roddy - turns out this problem is in the source data we got from them, which will unfortunately make it rather difficult to fix - at some point we can write a script to go through, check the characters in each headword against the Pinyin and flag any characters that seem to be mixed-up like this but that's not exactly at the top of our priority list quite yet. 庭 still does appear in a lot of places, though, even with 家, so it may just be a text entry glitch on their end - I don't have the printed version out here with me so I can't check it against that.

 

[FUmminger]

Just wanted to report that all of my problems went away after I deleted Pleco 1 and Pleco 2 beta entirely and then reinstalled only Pleco 2 beta. I am no longer losing authorizations for purchased components when I exit Pleco 2, audio keeps working after I exit Pleco 2, and I can now access the char info screens without a crash. I guess I was suffering from some conflict between the two versions. I was running both versions off of an SD card; every component that could be put on the card was put on the card.

-Frederick

 

[haraldalbrecht]

Well, and now PD 1 does not work anymore but does a soft reset of my TX. :cry:

 

[johnh113]

Tones aren't being spoken because we didn't record toneless versions of most Mandarin syllables since they're either never actually spoken that way or sound basically identical to first-tone - we'll eventually fix this by having it just play the first-tone syllable in those cases.


Dear Mike,

I'm just a beginner, but from my limited experience it would seem problematic to just substitute first tone for neutral tone. I can think of a lot of examples where using first tone instead of neutral tone wouldn't seem right. Am I misunderstanding your statement?

John

 

[sfrrr]

Using the restore defaults button did the trick. Although now, I can't customize the toolbar, and PD2, again, has forgotten how to search automatically. But I still have PD1 for the real studying and PD2 for fun and exploration, so how can things be bad?

Sandra

Dell Axim x51v running WM5 (OS 5.1.195, build 14957.2.3.1), 190.5 MB of which 120 MB are still free Main Memory storage, 49.4 MB total Program Memory of which 178 KB are still free, 4GB SanDisk SD card with 1354 MB free, 16 GB SanDisk CF Card with almost 15 GB still free, Mobem's CE Star IME.

 

[mikelove]

FUmminger - glad to hear it!

haraldalbrecht - sorry to hear that; about the only suggestion I can offer is that you delete both completely and start again. This is why there's that warning about not installing PD2 on a PDA that you're depending on every day...

johnh113 - it's not quite perfect, we had some issues with the people we contracted to do the recordings not wanting to record words they'd never heard used before (they were very weird about that, actually) or else we would have recorded a toneless version of every syllable, but since the syllable-by-syllable playback isn't going to be very accurate anyway (and, if we wanted to prize accuracy above all else, would probably be dropped entirely) it shouldn't make a big difference. For single characters, as far as we know any individual character with a toneless pronunciation does have an associated recording, and for multi-syllable words with their own recordings the tones are all pronounced correctly including toneless syllables. I suppose if we get a lot of complaints about this we could create recordings for those missing syllables by either extracting them from multi-syllable words or just making shorter / less stressed versions of the first-tone ones.

sfrrr - yeah, typical life of a PPC-version beta tester I'm afraid, there's something seriously screwed up about the preferences code.

 

[haraldalbrecht]

Mike -- that's okay ... you made the status of PD2 clear and I was aware of that. And for the moment I can stay with PD2, because currently I'm using ZDT on my Linux laptop for setting up my flash cards and going through them.

I suppose if we get a lot of complaints about this we could create recordings for those missing syllables by either extracting them from multi-syllable words or just making shorter / less stressed versions of the first-tone ones.

So please add me to the bunch (or toneless chorus?) of annoying complainers :wink: Shorter, less stressed versions would be just fine.

-- Harald

 

[sfrrr]

I'm not quite sure what benefit there is to presenting words in a neutral tone. A neutral tone doesn't tell us how to pronounce the word. I prefer the tonally correct pronunciation, so I can use more of my senses to memorize the tone.

What am I missing here?

Sandra

 

[haraldalbrecht]

Well, properly remembering toneless syllables in words is probably of the same importance as remembering proper pronunciation and rhythm in German, my mother tongue. You have a really hard time understanding foreigners trying to speak German but who do not remember the proper rhythm and syllable stress in the pronunciation of words -- especially as German words tend to be composed of many things (Mark Twain comes to memory).

But back to Chinese: there are quite some words where variations exists with toneless syllables and quite different meanings. Thus, I personally would really like to have toneless syllables pronounced as toneless syllables. There's no way around: you have to remember both the proper tone of a character but also to remember any tone changes when used in certain words. But maybe I'm taking this too serious

 

[daniu]

Dell Axim x51v running WM5 (OS 5.1.195, build 14957.2.3.1), 190.5 MB of which 120 MB are still free Main Memory storage, 49.4 MB total Program Memory of which 178 KB are still free, 4GB SanDisk SD card with 1354 MB free, 16 GB SanDisk CF Card with almost 15 GB still free, Mobem's CE Star IME.

Hi!

I heard about your config before but ... I did not think that you have 20GB of memory and more than 16GB free space on them. May I ask what it helps to buy memory cards as expensive as the PDA itsself if you do not use them?

Since the cards are getting cheaper I got some questions:
-which CF-Card do you use? Extreme I, II, III or IV?
-is CF more stable than SD? I think that many of the problems I am having with Plecodict come from unstable SD-Cards ...
-which SD-Card do you use?
-Do you see differences concerning speed between different cards or is that just a gimmick?

regards
Daniel

 

[johnh113]

I'm not quite sure what benefit there is to presenting words in a neutral tone. A neutral tone doesn't tell us how to pronounce the word. I prefer the tonally correct pronunciation, so I can use more of my senses to memorize the tone.

What am I missing here?

Dear Sandra,

The neutral tone is a tone like any other tone and needs to be voiced properly or it can change the meaning of the word. For instance, lao(3)shi(1) means teacher. But, lao(3)shi is a stative verb meaning honest or frank. That is, in the second case, the shi is pronounced in the neutral tone, not the first tone, and this is a completely different word with a different meaning. To not properly pronounce the neutral tone can change the meaning of what you say.

John

 

[sfrrr]

Oh, duh, i get it now. you want the word pronounced in neutral tone when It's used in Neutral tone in a word. Sounds reasonable, but I understand from my Chinese teacher that neutral is a moving target, depending on the tone before it. That would make things a little difficult to convey in a dictionary program. Maybe PD isn't the place for this and, instead, take this question (and your ears) over to Chinesepod. They pay attention to things like this.

 

[mikelove]

Yes, neutral tone is something of a moving target (sort of a transitional pitch), which is part of why we only felt like we needed to support it in multi-syllable recordings; if it's being recorded as part of an entire word/phrase we can certainly get it right in those cases, but getting it right when it's pronounced by itself is beyond our software's ability. This is also why we put all of the time/money into doing separate recordings for 30,000+ words; a program that only plays you single syllables really isn't going to give you the correct pronunciation in a lot of cases.

The syllable-by-syllable playback system isn't designed to be an accurate pronunciation or listening guide, it exists only because it's less confusing to play that than to play nothing at all; the only actual uses we can think of for it are to remind beginning students what individual syllables sound like and give advanced students a way to find out a word's pronunciation without having to squint at the screen. But since it doesn't factor in tone changes either, even adding neutral tone support wouldn't make it much more useful. We should probably add a Preferences option to disable it altogether, actually, some people might prefer not hearing a word at all over hearing it pronounced inaccurately.