Beta 3 Feedback Thread

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Feedback on the new beta should be posted here. We're particularly interested in what you think of the changes to the flashcard system design, since that's far and away the biggest difference between this and the previous beta. Also we'd love to know if the Pocket PC font performance is now at an acceptable level for most of you, and if Pocket PC handwriting stroke capture feels at all smoother/quicker - the stroke-smoothing option actually didn't work in Beta 2 but does work now so try turning that off and see if that changes anything.
 

ldolse

状元
I installed this yesterday, haven't played with it much, but here's my initial feedback:

  • Rendering Performance is fine now, nice!
  • The handwriting recognition problem hasn't changed at all - you still can't write multiple strokes at a quick natural speed as every second stroke isn't captured. I tried this with and without smoothing in the prefs, no difference.
  • Font handling is screwed up - I installed Sun-ExtA as my default Windows font in the windows directory with the appropriate registry keys. ZYSong is on the SD card in the Pleco folder. Pleco doesn't render the chinese in the list view, that just comes up as boxes. Definition text is rendered properly. Only Sun-ExtA shows up in Pleco prefs as a font to use.
  • The aliasing looks ok except for the text that you type in in the lookup box - really fuzzy. In general I don't think the aliasing is as good as cleartype yet.

I was hoping for a real beta, but the performance differences make me think that this will at least be usable now. I bit the bullet and upgraded to WM6 anyway. I'll play with the flashcards and reader later.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Thanks for the feedback. I've figured out via a late-night flash of insight what the cause of the handwriting bug is (the 2.0 handwriting capture control was accidentally configured to process double-clicks) so that should be fixed soon, but I'm glad to know that the rendering is fast enough now.

With the font problem, are you sure you're doing this in Pleco 2.0? It doesn't even have a font selection option in prefs, so the only place you'd be seeing that is in the 1.0 preferences screen, and it's exceedingly unlikely that the font would work in one control and not in another in 2.0 because of the way its font handling system works.
 

ldolse

状元
Font problem seems to be gone in both versions, so not sure what the deal was. It's possible I was running 1.0 before, not sure....
 

daniu

榜眼
Hi!

Am I actualy the only one who does not manage to get audio any more?

Dell Axim X51V - WM5

regards
Daniel
 

daniu

榜眼
daniu said:
Am I actualy the only one who does not manage to get audio any more?

Tried the following already:

-redownload everything
-really delete PD2B2 - before that I had just renamed the folder
-reapply key - then I got a "key accepted but not all components found"
-erase the registry entries - after that I just got a "key accepted" without missing components

At all times the dictionaries that I bought were listed in the Order-Box - so this part was correct. I am just confused that there is more than one (of the same) entry for some things like "Pleco Audio Man Basic"

regards
Daniel

PS.: because of step 2 it is very bad that it does not work any more because now I cannot show off with it any more ... :roll:
 

ssaito

探花
feedback on reader: i tried using the reader this evening. downloaded some text from a website (chinese wall st journal) into pocket word, then saved as text. I was able to load it into the reader and view, but the text appeared to be gibberish. tried changing from Gb2312 to other encodings. However, the reader would not be able to find the text after i exited the reader (hit the little x on lower right) and tried to go back. that seems like a bug, even if the text i loaded did not have correct characters.

thanks,
steve
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
With the audio problem, it looks like the file date disconnect that affected the Palm release affected the Pocket PC one to a lesser extent too - we should be able to release a beta 3(a) with this fixed and with a brand new set of data files by Monday. (it'll also contain our latest attempt at fixing the handwriting missed-stroke bug) Looks like my statement about this being an iffy beta even by our standards was disturbingly accurate...

ssaito - not sure what's going on with this reader bug, my guess is that the file is somehow being left open even when the screen is closed and the software is refusing to open it again. Does the Ah Q sample file work correctly at least? (aside from the boxes-in-place-of-characters in the chapter selector list)
 

ssaito

探花
hi mike,
the reader seemed to work ok with Ah-Q file that was in pdb format.

i also noticed that the problem with pleco forgetting that i fed it a keyfile is surfacing, as it did with previous beta. i read some discussion about people changing the registers to deal with this problem. would you (or anyone) have some advice as to how i could solve the keyfile-lapse problem? (this time it seems to only forget that i bought the guifan chinese-chinese dictionary).

thanks,
steve

at&t 8525 w/ wm6
 

beirne

进士
Beta 3 on Palm

I've installed beta 3 on my Palm TX. So far no serious problems. It seems a bit faster when I'm entering letters and so far no crashes. It has only been a few minutes, though. I've looked up words in English and Chinese, done stroke order, and turned parts of the screen off and on. Is there anything I should test to see if it will crash?
 

beirne

进士
I used beta 3 some more this morning while at a Chinese restaurant. I looked up words and used the reader a bit without any bad effects.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
ssaito - glad to hear that part works anyway. We didn't really do much about the keyfile bug in this release, the PPC preferences / settings system still needs an overhaul and will be getting one for Beta 4 so that should hopefully take care of it but the only advice I can give you in the meantime is that immediately after unlocking you should exit PlecoDict completely, soft reset, and reopen.

beirne - that's a big relief, first successful Beta 3 Palm install we've heard of. Does audio work correctly or have you not tried that yet?
 
First let me say that I find Pleco an outstanding product, by far the best electronic Chinese dictionary I've seen. I love the new options offered by Pleco2. The support for the product is outstanding.


My issues wit Beta 3 (inlcuudin the new sound files of Dec 28):

-- no sound
-- cannot change/improve font
-- preferences don't save
-- handwriting recognition requires slow strokes with somewhat heavy pressure on the stylus.
-- cannot copy definitions to paste into anoter application like Word (I understand this is a WindowsMobile 6 bug)

It might be my own stupiidity rather than a ug, but I'm finding the Flashcard system difficult:
-- cannot import cards (the import text feature seems to compile, but I then cannot find the cards)
-- cannot duplicate the simple functionality of the old flashcard system: eg, one side the English definition, with the pronunciation, hanzi displayed one-by-one

my system:
Cingular 8525
WM6
 

ipsi

状元
Can't help much with most of those problems, but I can suggest that you change the date it's looking for when browsing the cards. Set it for all cards with a date greater than 1/1/1900 or something like that. If you still don't see any, then it's probably a bug.
 

neilperks

进士
I decided to take the plunge at last an upgraded to Pleco 2.0, and am hugely impressed by its improvements over version 1. From my brief use the interface is much improved and the stroke order much appreciated.

However I am having similar problems to 老马识途吗in that there is no audio, even using the latest files posted. As this was a new install there are definately no old files lurking in the background, so not sure what the problems are there. I'm assuming putting the audio files into SD/Pleco/ directory is correct ?

The other major usability issue for me is the pressure required to draw the characters on the PPC, which is much greater than version 1, and often leads to missed strokes.

Thanks for a great product and look forward to the final product.

Thanks

Neil

Toshiba e800
WM4
 

beirne

进士
mikelove said:
beirne - that's a big relief, first successful Beta 3 Palm install we've heard of. Does audio work correctly or have you not tried that yet?

I hadn't tried them yet but just loaded them. The first one I tried gave me a lot of electronic noise with nothing sounding like words at all. I hit the speaker button a few times to see what it would do but it just kept happening, which may make sense if the speaker isn't a toggle. After a few of the taps, though, the Palm TX reset itself.

After the reset and another backup, I tried it again, this playing 大. I got the same electronic noise. This time I hit the home button to get out of the program.

I noticed that the files in the zip file are dated Oct 21, 2007. Are they really new audio files?
 
Dear Mike

I have installed Beta 3, but I still experience the problem that ZYSong, is not render by the program if installed on the SD card. It seems that IDOLSE had the same problem but that it disappeared later on. Is there anything that I can do on my registry keys?

P.S. You remember that it works fine if I put the file into \\Program Files directory; but I don't have enough internal memory available.


Regards
Frank

QUOTE IDOLSE
Font handling is screwed up - I installed Sun-ExtA as my default Windows font in the windows directory with the appropriate registry keys. ZYSong is on the SD card in the Pleco folder. Pleco doesn't render the chinese in the list view, that just comes up as boxes. Definition text is rendered properly. Only Sun-ExtA shows up in Pleco prefs as a font to use.


- Is it possible to try installing ZYSong as a default Windows font? How does that work? (now I find the following tff files on my system under \\Windows : tahoma.ttf, tahomabd.ttf & cour.ttf - taiwanese OS)
- I don't see where in Pleco Prefs the font can be chosen?
 
Audio crashes Palm TX

(Don't know whether to post in this thread or the other).

The current beta3 audio crashes my palm TX (soft reset). Before I installed b3 I removed all Pleco-related files from the TX memory, also deleted any left-over preferences using FileZ. Then I installed the plecoengine, the keyfile, as well as the two HWR files into TX memory, leaving the other stuff on the SD card.

When I tap on the loudspeaker icon nothing happens the first time (no sound), but the second time the TX is reset (soft/warm reset).
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
老马识途吗 - Thanks for the feedback. With the missing sound, are you sure your Pleco 2.0 license includes audio support? Changing the font is something we haven't implemented yet and aren't even sure if we will - it's been tough enough to get our new font system working with ZYSong, and particularly given the new bugs in Beta 3 and how far behind schedule we are in general, font selection is looking very much like something we'll have to save for 2.1 or some other future version.

Preferences not saving are something we're still working on - should finally have those fixed in beta 4. With handwriting recognition, are you sure it actually requires heavier pressure than before? There's not really any way our software can even figure out how much stylus pressure is required, Windows just tells it the stylus is down or moving or up and it responds to that - what happens if you draw at your normal speed / pressure? Try waiting a second or so after drawing each stroke, does that make things work more smoothly? (not that that's a real workaround, but it would make the problem clearer)

Copying/pasting definitions aren't actually a WM6 bug in 2.0, they're just something we haven't implemented yet (but certainly will). Import as ipsi suggested should be fixable if you go into Manage Cards and do a generic search. The flashcard functionality you mention is still there, we've just moved the checkbox - it's now in the "Modes" tab of the Settings dialog, the "Reveal self-scored fields separately" box - check that and do a self-scored test and you should get what you're looking for.

neilperks - they actually have to go in the /Palm/Launcher directory for 2.0, we'll put back the Pleco directory at some point soon but we haven't yet so they should go in Launcher for now. And again, are you sure this is about stylus pressure and not just waiting a second or so between strokes?

beirne - yes, they're new files, the bug relates to a change we made to the database file format which we didn't think would affect audio - and didn't in beta 2 - but came back to cause problems in beta 3. Though it seems like there's still some issue here that we haven't found yet - fortunately the changes in the database code since beta 2 are small enough that we don't have too much code to look through.

frank.thome - Did you by any chance change the filename of ZYSong when you put it on the card? Do other Pleco files on the card load correctly? Is ZYSong in the same directory as those files? Pleco's font system is independent of Windows', so if you wanted to use ZYSong in Windows you'd need to put a copy of it in the \\Windows\Fonts directory (which means it would have to go in internal memory, where there isn't enough space). There's no longer an option to change the font, as stated above - we'd like to add it back at some point, but it may not be doable for 2.0.
 
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