We've just released the newest beta of Pleco 2.0. All major features are now implemented in this new beta, and the design in general is pretty well finalized, so aside from some missing / not-quite-working-correctly-yet minor features/settings and of course a whole lot of bugs this is pretty much what the finished Pleco 2.0 is going to look like.
This release is not, however, as stable as we would have liked it to be, so if you've been waiting to try the beta version until it becomes more stable we recommend that you continue to wait.
Download archive is available at: http://www.pleco.com/beta/pd2b4.zip
Audio files: http://www.pleco.com/beta/pd2b3audio.zip - we haven't changed these at all since Beta 3 so we're keeping b3 in the file name to avoid confusion.
Username and password for the beta directory are "plecobeta" and "beijingkaoya".
Note: this software is not finished, will crash on you frequently and may even damage your handheld, so use extreme caution when downloading/installing/using.
Rough installation instructions are included in the download. To obtain your Pleco 2.0 Beta keyfile, log on to the Beta My Orders page (use the above plecobeta username/password to access the page and your regular My Orders username/password to log in once the page is loaded) and activate your software. Choose Ordering from the Help menu in the 2.0 beta to get the required Machine ID code. To purchase new add-ons, activate your software on that Orders page and then click on the appropriate link for the add-on you'd like to purchase.
We continue to recommend that you NOT attempt to move your flashcards or other data over to this new version; while the flashcard database format itself is pretty much finalized, the dictionary data files are not, and the entry ID codes in those files which the flashcards link to are likely to change between now and the finished release, rendering your 2.0 flashcards unusable. That being said, the flashcard import/export system is now fully operational, so you should at least be able to dump your 2.0 flashcards to a text file for later reimport; we would advise against using XML format for this, since those files also rely on the soon-to-be-changed entry ID codes.
Make sure to delete ALL of your old Pleco 2.0 Beta data files before installing this; that INCLUDES your flashcards, as the database schema has changed again since Beta 3 and the software will most likely crash if trying to load an older-version flashcard file.
There are too many changes in this beta to list them all here, but among the many things which now actually work are full-text searches (type a # before your search query to do a full-text search), popup definitions in the document reader and on Windows Mobile, hardware button commands (though they're still a bit finicky on WM), dictionary reordering, flashcard management/import/export and several previously-unusable test modes, tap-hold stylus commands (the Menu option for that still doesn't work but Copy to Input and Popup Entry do), the recent query list, hiding the top toolbar, and separately remembering landscape and portrait-orientation screen layouts. We've also significantly sped up a couple of functions, especially the document reader on Palm, and redesigned some of the more confusing parts of the interface like the Preferences screens.
Please post feedback in the Beta 4 Feedback Thread and bug reports in the Beta 4 Bug Reports thread, and make sure to read the first posts in those threads first for info on what sorts of feedback we're looking for - we still aren't looking for reports of every minor problem, since there are several hundred of those that we're still chipping away on.
Beta 5 will be out once we've fixed almost all of the bugs that we know about, and at that point we'll really be looking for even very minor bug reports.
This release is not, however, as stable as we would have liked it to be, so if you've been waiting to try the beta version until it becomes more stable we recommend that you continue to wait.
Download archive is available at: http://www.pleco.com/beta/pd2b4.zip
Audio files: http://www.pleco.com/beta/pd2b3audio.zip - we haven't changed these at all since Beta 3 so we're keeping b3 in the file name to avoid confusion.
Username and password for the beta directory are "plecobeta" and "beijingkaoya".
Note: this software is not finished, will crash on you frequently and may even damage your handheld, so use extreme caution when downloading/installing/using.
Rough installation instructions are included in the download. To obtain your Pleco 2.0 Beta keyfile, log on to the Beta My Orders page (use the above plecobeta username/password to access the page and your regular My Orders username/password to log in once the page is loaded) and activate your software. Choose Ordering from the Help menu in the 2.0 beta to get the required Machine ID code. To purchase new add-ons, activate your software on that Orders page and then click on the appropriate link for the add-on you'd like to purchase.
We continue to recommend that you NOT attempt to move your flashcards or other data over to this new version; while the flashcard database format itself is pretty much finalized, the dictionary data files are not, and the entry ID codes in those files which the flashcards link to are likely to change between now and the finished release, rendering your 2.0 flashcards unusable. That being said, the flashcard import/export system is now fully operational, so you should at least be able to dump your 2.0 flashcards to a text file for later reimport; we would advise against using XML format for this, since those files also rely on the soon-to-be-changed entry ID codes.
Make sure to delete ALL of your old Pleco 2.0 Beta data files before installing this; that INCLUDES your flashcards, as the database schema has changed again since Beta 3 and the software will most likely crash if trying to load an older-version flashcard file.
There are too many changes in this beta to list them all here, but among the many things which now actually work are full-text searches (type a # before your search query to do a full-text search), popup definitions in the document reader and on Windows Mobile, hardware button commands (though they're still a bit finicky on WM), dictionary reordering, flashcard management/import/export and several previously-unusable test modes, tap-hold stylus commands (the Menu option for that still doesn't work but Copy to Input and Popup Entry do), the recent query list, hiding the top toolbar, and separately remembering landscape and portrait-orientation screen layouts. We've also significantly sped up a couple of functions, especially the document reader on Palm, and redesigned some of the more confusing parts of the interface like the Preferences screens.
Please post feedback in the Beta 4 Feedback Thread and bug reports in the Beta 4 Bug Reports thread, and make sure to read the first posts in those threads first for info on what sorts of feedback we're looking for - we still aren't looking for reports of every minor problem, since there are several hundred of those that we're still chipping away on.
Beta 5 will be out once we've fixed almost all of the bugs that we know about, and at that point we'll really be looking for even very minor bug reports.