Beta 4 Bug Reports

[mikelove]

We continue to have several hundred bugs that we know about to work on, so the things we're interested in hearing about in this beta are mostly the same as with Beta 3.

We're specifically interested in hearing about:

- Lost / corrupted flashcard data, but only if it's in files newly created with Beta 4.
- Reproducible crashes, crashes severe enough to require a hard reset / wipe of your system's memory, or other bugs/problems which affect other software running on your system.
- Bugs which make the software *completely* unusable, in the try-to-launch-it-but-get-a-blank-screen-and-a-system-reset sense.
- *Severe* font issues, i.e. entire screens of text being corrupted / unreadable.
- Software failing to unlock / other issues with the now-nearly-finalized registration/ordering system.
- ZhuYin/BoPoMoFo; we haven't gotten a lot of feedback on this yet but we'd appreciate it if a few ZhuYin-proficient people would run the software in that mode for a while (enable it in the Display section of Preferences) and let us know if you see any characters with incorrect ZhuYin transliterations or ZhuYin search queries which return the wrong results.
- Serious screen layout issues, i.e. controls not showing up or being arranged so oddly as to be completely unusable.

And that's about it.

 

[Alexis]

Hard crash from Audio:
In the ABC dictionary: Select "ni3yi1yan2-wo3yi1fu3" Then press the Audio button. Causes a HARD CRASH requiring a reset.

I'm using a Tungsten T3.

 

[Alexis]

Hard crash from Audio:
In the ABC dictionary: Select "ni3yi1yan2-wo3yi1fu3" Then press the Audio button. Causes a HARD CRASH requiring a reset.

Hmmm.. I should have said a sOFT Reset (did not require a system wipe).

 

[ssaito]

thanks mike, it looks much better.

this bug is along the lines of registry/dictionary access: i'm still having the problem where pd b4 forgets that i've bought the rights for the guifan and 21st century dictionaries. the first time pd b4 consumes the key i can see the entire guifan dict. but if i exit then re-start the app, i get the "DEMO" filler lines. oddly, it remembers i bought access for the cheng&tsui.

thanks,
steve
at&t 8525 wm6

 

[grabolus]

I have a Treo 650.
The beta 4 crashes when I run it the second time. first time it was ok.
I think I deleted all old pleco files from the internal memory...

Bye

 

[Shadowdh]

This has been posted in the feedback thread but I would like to confirm that the "on" button does not turn "off" in regards to the character input screen when its in fullscreen mode.

 

[hairyleprechaun]

I figure you guys probably already know about this, but I will put it out there anyway.

With further regards to the handwriting recognizer, I have noticed that when writing in fullscreen (the dictionary defintions in the background becomed dimmed as one writes on top of the screen), often the strokes of the character one is writing with the stylus are not able to be completed because when writing over a definition in the background the characters that are dimmed out are sometimes highlighted by the stylus as it runs over them, causing the particular stroke one is writing to not be completed.

I can also confirm that the toggle "ON/OFF" button when in fullscreen handwriting mode is stuck in the "ON" position.

Hope this helps.

hairyleprechaun

 

[mikelove]

Alexis - whew, that's a relief, hard resets are the most frightening of all bug reports.

ssaito - we'll take another look at this one; sounds like it might not involve preferences storage after all but possibly just a glitch in the keyfile system.

grabolous - might be some preferences left over from the old version; they should have been overwritten but you can never be sure. I'd suggest another reinstall, but this time also use FileZ's View and Edit Preferences screen to delete all of your Pleco-related preferences. Make sure you get rid of any old 2.0 data files on your memory card, too.

hairyleprechaun - that's odd, once the definition field switches into that mode it should be directing all stylus movements to the handwriting recognizer without even looking at them first. We haven't seen this problem at all here - does this happen with only the first stroke or does it sometimes occur with later ones? Does it happen after you use the Undo command or does it happen even if you write an entire character in order without deleting/undoing any strokes?

 

[hairyleprechaun]

Hello Mike,

To anwer your questions regarding the issue with stylus movements highligthing characters in the dictionary definitions while using the handwriting recognizer:

1. It happens more often with later strokes
2. It happens both after using the undo command and also when writing an entire character without using the undo command.

 

[daniu]

HI!

Hard crash from Audio:
In the ABC dictionary: Select "ni3yi1yan2-wo3yi1fu3" Then press the Audio button. Causes a HARD CRASH requiring a reset.

I have no idea how you manage to enter such a long term in that field. I cannot ... and then - PD goes to ni3yi1yan2-wo3yi1yu3 and the audio comes out just nicely ...

In my ABC-dictionary there also is no ni3yi1yan2-wo3yi1fu3

Are you sure you read the whole instructions Mike wrote? Are you sure you deleted all files?

regards
Daniel

 

[sfrrr]

Mike--I just sent an email to support asking for a timer reset. Just FYI. And thanks.

Sandra

 

[grabolus]

After deleting all old pleco files (creatorid plde or plen) and installing the new files using hotsync the beta4 is now running at my Treo 650. I don't know exactly why. It looks like it it neccessary to hotsync and not just to copy to the card...
Thanks

 

[ipsi]

The bookmarks don't work *at all* for me on a Treo 680. They seem to display a different symbol each time I try and add one. It's also worth noting that your bookmarks use the default Palm font rendering stuff, as opposed to your own, so CJKOS works with it.

Everything seems to work, but I'm not sure about that. What's supposed to happen when I type in something in the 'name' field? And what's the 'replace' field used for? Either way, clicking on create does nothing at all.

Woops, they do work, but not with PDB (Palm Doc) files, only with the Story of 啊Q. I also see how the name / replace section should work, and I can assure you that it doesn't work like that when viewing a PDB file. Haven't tried a text file yet.

Very strange.

I'm glad that it's so much faster though . The pop-up definitions are fantastic as well! .

I also think there's a problem with the line spacing - despite the fact that (I think) I had no blank lines in the original text, every other line is a blank line in the document reader.

Finally, I think your EOL algorithm doesn't work properly - the text doesn't go all the way to the right side of the screen, despite there being enough characters that it decided to create a new line. There's more than enough room, so I'm not sure why it's doing that.

When I hide the Command Bar, it seems to work fine (that is, everything disappears, the text box moves up, etc), *except* that the dictionary icon is still there, in it's normal position. Though that position now corresponds to the text box, which makes things look pretty ugly. The text seems to be drawn underneath the dictionary icon, so you can't see it. The dictionary icon is fully functional though. Tapping changes dictionaries, tap+hold gives you a list, etc.

I can also say that full-screen handwriting works perfectly, and *does not* get stuck in the ON position. I can turn it on and off just fine, with no problems. I think it takes up too much space (more than the 1.0 version did anyway), which is kinda annoying, but not serious.

But yeah, it looks so much better, apart from some minor bugs. .

 

[Shadowdh]

Just confirming Hairys problem with the handwriting recogniser... it does the same for me, I write a character and sometimes (very randomly) it will highlight words in the definition field instead of writing the stroke, or it might just not write the stroke... its almost like the htc touchflo is interfering with it... except of course Hairy doesnt have that on his baby...

 

[mikelove]

hairyleprechaun - strange that it happens even without an undo, there must be some other trigger that can cause it to switch out of stroke capture mode - not sure what that would be but we'll see what we can find.

grabolous - glad to hear it! No idea why copying from the card wouldn't have worked - perhaps one of the old flashcard / user DB files was still there. (we really need a better format-validation system for those to prevent this sort of thing)

ipsi - glad to hear it's generally looking better. The "replace" option is because there are a limited number of bookmark slots (15 to be exact) available for a given document - once the slots run out there's no more "new" option in that list. It looks like there may be an issue with the bookmark command on the Jump screen, but jumping to a bookmark by tap-holding on the bookmark button seems to work consistently on our Treo 680 at least. PalmDoc files definitely sound like they need more testing. The line-wrapping algorithm doesn't seem to like some punctuation marks, we're still trying to figure out why.

With the non-reader issues, it sounds like the function that updates the dictionary icon isn't being told when the icon is hidden - putting the icon on the search bar and removing it from the command bar would probably be a good workaround. Glad that full-screen handwriting works correctly on Palm at least - not sure why it seems like it's taking up more space, it should be the exact same size that it was before except for the extra pixel or two for the resize bar. (which I suppose we could get rid of, actually, once we come up with a better way of toggling it into/out of fullscreen mode).

 

[ipsi]

On playing a bit more, it seems to work fine in Ah Q, but not in PalmDoc files. The jump-to button works fine in Ah Q, but, again, not at all in PlamDoc files.

Could your line-breaking algorithm be having problems with Tabs? I've got several in my own files. I'll try them without tabs when I get home.

The hand-writing thing seems to take up more space as there's more buttons, and, more importantly, it goes right across the screen, as opposed to stopping at the edge of the search results list.

There's also a couple of other things: I've had it freeze twice on exiting so far, requiring a SOFT reset. I think it may be when I hit {option} + messaging on my 680, which takes me to Chatter. Not sure if it's a problem with the buttons, Chatter or what. I'll play around some more and see if I can replicate it.

Finally, setting the up/down/left/right buttons doesn't seem to work. I want them to behave as they do for me in the current version of Pleco: Left/right moves the caret, up/down scrolls long entries and moves to the next entry. Not sure if those haven't been implemented or if I'm just not selecting the right options.

 

[TroiOi]

Finally, setting the up/down/left/right buttons doesn't seem to work. I want them to behave as they do for me in the current version of Pleco: Left/right moves the caret, up/down scrolls long entries and moves to the next entry. Not sure if those haven't been implemented or if I'm just not selecting the right options.

I agree with ipsi. It should be more keyboard friendly. Especially where the up/down arrows are too small for small screen like Treo. I would like to use up/down to scroll the text in the reader too.

 

[ipsi]

The options are there, they just don't seem to work yet, for whatever reason.

Agreed on the document reader scrolling. That'd be fantastic, and much more intuitive when you have a 5-way navigator.

Not sure what's causing the freezing. Tested what I was doing last time, and it worked fine. Maybe just a memory leak somewhere?

Also, why is there a limit of 15 bookmarks?

A brief (very brief) testing of flashcards reveals no problems. .

 

[stephanhodges]

Hard crash when exiting the document reader. I opened it twice, first time, fonts too small, so I closed it and the reopened it. I had opened it with large font document and definition. Looked up a couple words, then quit. It then crashed with blank screen and severe buzz on audio.

Before trying out the doc reader, I had run through a few characters to watch stroke orders, etc.

Running Tapwave in landscape mode.

Upon reset, the keyfile was missing, and it reverted to DEMO mode. After reinstalling the keyfile, it appears the latest preferences are still in place.

Tried to reproduce it quickly before going to bed, but it seems to be OK now.

I can't figure out (yet) how to adjust spacing on the toolbar.

Second, how to adjust to toggle large/small font display on definitions screen? I always look things up in small fonts, and then toggle to large if I need to see something or need to show to someone.

 

[ldolse]

Experiencing frequent crashes with Audio - hard crashes of the whole device, requiring a soft reset. It does work intermittently, but I've crashed it when listening to regular definitions, and in the document reader.

Running WM6 on an HTC Touch Dual.