Beta 5 Bug Report / Feedback Thread
- Thread starter mikelove
- Start date
Here's my next round of feedback. Glad the last round helped you find the root cause on some bugs:
1) The clock feature doesn't work during flashcards
2) The scoring feature seems super bugy. (i.e. not sure if score was decreasing on wrong answer) Especially on automatic scoring. I think after I changed to Manual it seemed to work better with my system.
3) When I check use "Repetitive-spaced" (don't even know what this means), all my flashcards are empty.
4) There is no setting for simply showing the flashcards in the order they were inputed in case I want to see flashcards in same order each time (vs random).
5) For Free Answer, if you input one character correctly but leave the 2nd one blank (on a 2 character word), it shows the first box green, but the 2nd box does not show red. It misled me to think I got the character right when I wasn't paying attention. (even though the scoring correctly marks it wrong)
6) For Free answer when it is a four character word, once you input the 4th character it automatically opens the card even if you have not yet inputed 1, 2 or 3. (of course marks it wrong, since 1 or more other field may have been blank)
7) Also for free answer, if you erroneously input a character, for example into 3rd box, when it's only a 2 character word, then it's impossible to clear that box before you open the card
8) Would be nice to have tones option within free answer, even if you were just scoring it yourself
9) It does not seem possible to copy and paste out of a flashcard session. With my HTC, the procedure is usually to highlight the word and hold it with the stylus until you get the drop-down menu to copy/paste. This does not work within flashcard session. In old version, with my palm trei, I could pull up menu and copy out of flashcards
10) Everytime I open up the flashcard module, it asks me whether I want to revert to a saved flashcard session, even if the last time I specifically clicked on Do Not Save flashcard, or even if I click No (delete), then restart the session, I again get the same pop-up dialogue box.
Hope that helps and sorry for some or all points already mentioned by someone else. I have had zero time to browse through the forum myself.
Thanks! K.
1) The clock feature doesn't work during flashcards
2) The scoring feature seems super bugy. (i.e. not sure if score was decreasing on wrong answer) Especially on automatic scoring. I think after I changed to Manual it seemed to work better with my system.
3) When I check use "Repetitive-spaced" (don't even know what this means), all my flashcards are empty.
4) There is no setting for simply showing the flashcards in the order they were inputed in case I want to see flashcards in same order each time (vs random).
5) For Free Answer, if you input one character correctly but leave the 2nd one blank (on a 2 character word), it shows the first box green, but the 2nd box does not show red. It misled me to think I got the character right when I wasn't paying attention. (even though the scoring correctly marks it wrong)
6) For Free answer when it is a four character word, once you input the 4th character it automatically opens the card even if you have not yet inputed 1, 2 or 3. (of course marks it wrong, since 1 or more other field may have been blank)
7) Also for free answer, if you erroneously input a character, for example into 3rd box, when it's only a 2 character word, then it's impossible to clear that box before you open the card
8) Would be nice to have tones option within free answer, even if you were just scoring it yourself
9) It does not seem possible to copy and paste out of a flashcard session. With my HTC, the procedure is usually to highlight the word and hold it with the stylus until you get the drop-down menu to copy/paste. This does not work within flashcard session. In old version, with my palm trei, I could pull up menu and copy out of flashcards
10) Everytime I open up the flashcard module, it asks me whether I want to revert to a saved flashcard session, even if the last time I specifically clicked on Do Not Save flashcard, or even if I click No (delete), then restart the session, I again get the same pop-up dialogue box.
Hope that helps and sorry for some or all points already mentioned by someone else. I have had zero time to browse through the forum myself.
Thanks! K.
The Duelist - good idea, and it would make the interface clearer, but too much work to implement for 2.0 unfortunately. We'll be doing a lot of retooling on the flashcard interface in 2.1, though. The confirm/cancel option is actually designed to deal with the fact that some definitions are too large to fit in the box, so I don't know if auto-scoring would really make sense there.
ipsi - found and fixed, turned out there was a difference in the way they were being rendered (basically the - replacement code was applying to all characters and not just Chinese ones).
kkuguru - #s 1, 4, and 10 have already been reported/fixed, on the others: for #2, have you unchecked the "only change score once per day" option in scoring settings? That might explain why they're not decreasing, though it should still decrease if you get it wrong after having previously gotten it right even with that option checked. With #3, are the flashcards blank or does the session just not come up / come up with an error message? I'm not sure what you mean with #8 - you can make tones optional in the Modes tab of Advanced Settings, is that what you were looking for? On #9, copy-and-paste is a bit tricky to get working with our custom text field system, so we generally only do it in screens where we think a lot of people are going to use it - we'll see what we can do about flashcard sessions, though.
ipsi - found and fixed, turned out there was a difference in the way they were being rendered (basically the - replacement code was applying to all characters and not just Chinese ones).
kkuguru - #s 1, 4, and 10 have already been reported/fixed, on the others: for #2, have you unchecked the "only change score once per day" option in scoring settings? That might explain why they're not decreasing, though it should still decrease if you get it wrong after having previously gotten it right even with that option checked. With #3, are the flashcards blank or does the session just not come up / come up with an error message? I'm not sure what you mean with #8 - you can make tones optional in the Modes tab of Advanced Settings, is that what you were looking for? On #9, copy-and-paste is a bit tricky to get working with our custom text field system, so we generally only do it in screens where we think a lot of people are going to use it - we'll see what we can do about flashcard sessions, though.
I apologize in advance-=-I haven't reread the previous posts because I'm in a time scrunch right now, so if this is repeating someone else's comments, just ignore me.
In addition to the recent words dropdown box skipping the most recent entry (it shows but won't go back there and, as of today, neither will the back arrow), I have noticed a couple of other things.
1. In the entry form for a new word or phrase in the user dict, the definition box's cursor blinks, but if I don't tap the definition box several times anyway, my letters will appear in the simplified box at the top of the form.
2. If I make an entry to my user dict, I can't edit it. I can only make the English definition box active. Can't correct or add to the Pinyin, Traditional, or simplified boxes.
Sandra
In addition to the recent words dropdown box skipping the most recent entry (it shows but won't go back there and, as of today, neither will the back arrow), I have noticed a couple of other things.
1. In the entry form for a new word or phrase in the user dict, the definition box's cursor blinks, but if I don't tap the definition box several times anyway, my letters will appear in the simplified box at the top of the form.
2. If I make an entry to my user dict, I can't edit it. I can only make the English definition box active. Can't correct or add to the Pinyin, Traditional, or simplified boxes.
Sandra
@sfrr Mike did mention in a previous post that that was intentional - the way the new SQL lite system works the headword/Pinyin aren't editable.
I've got to agree with you and the other posters about this being an issue - this might be ok in the short term but I think a dot release needs to change the interface to make this easier to manage, because this breaks workflows that worked with 1.0.
An example:
I asked someone the other day what the term for ATM is, 存款机. This word isn't in any of the dictionaries, so I decided to add it in as a user entry. Right now adding an entry really isn't that much different from 1.0, and this was my workflow then:
That was all fine with 1.0 (though cumbersome, to be sure), but 2.0 makes this impossible, which means you have to memorize all the characters and pinyin with tones for a new entry before you enter it, because there is only one chance to get it right. In my example I now have 存款机 in my dictionary as cun5kuan5ji5 because I didn't realize I needed to have the tones memorized. I haven't fixed it yet because it means starting over from scratch.
There are several options to mitigate this:
I've got to agree with you and the other posters about this being an issue - this might be ok in the short term but I think a dot release needs to change the interface to make this easier to manage, because this breaks workflows that worked with 1.0.
An example:
I asked someone the other day what the term for ATM is, 存款机. This word isn't in any of the dictionaries, so I decided to add it in as a user entry. Right now adding an entry really isn't that much different from 1.0, and this was my workflow then:
- Paste/enter the headword, or at least part of it, depending on where I got it from
- Enter the english definition.
- Save the existing entry If I don't have the full headword yet because of IME issues, or the need to reference another dict entry
- Get the rest of the headword and/or doublecheck it
- Return to the user dictionary, re-open the entry, fix the headword
- Add the Pinyin, typically without tones as I haven't memorized them yet
- Save the entry, go back through the dictionary lists and check all the tones for all the characters in my headword
- Return to the user dictionary, fix the Pinyin to match the tones
- Mistakes/Edits might cause additional cycles of the above.
That was all fine with 1.0 (though cumbersome, to be sure), but 2.0 makes this impossible, which means you have to memorize all the characters and pinyin with tones for a new entry before you enter it, because there is only one chance to get it right. In my example I now have 存款机 in my dictionary as cun5kuan5ji5 because I didn't realize I needed to have the tones memorized. I haven't fixed it yet because it means starting over from scratch.
There are several options to mitigate this:
- A different thread feature request discussed giving the user a way to copy the headword and Pinyin from an existing dictionary entry to a new user entry. If this feature existed I could have used that for the word 存款, which does exist in the dictionaries - that means I'd only need to have the pinyin memorized for 机, which would be more manageable. This still has limitations for larger or more unique words.
- Allow a user to duplicate a user entry, bringing up the edit dialog to change the pinyin/headword. This would allow a user to fix an existing entry, after which they manually could delete the bad one. This would probably be most practical in the short term.
- Make add/edit entry a floating window, much like pop-up definition. That could allow a user to drag the window around a bit by the title bar and search the dictionaries while making the entry
A replace feature, as Mike mentioned, is probably about the best we'll see. The other option would be for some enterprising soul to write a desktop application (The User Dictionary's SQLite, correct?) to enable edits, as it's far less constrained by performance and thus wouldn't have to worry about mucking up the optimisations done to get it working well on a handheld. It would also potentially be possible for the desktop application handle whatever Mike's talking about with regards to this: "there are also some new features we're thinking about for the future that would require entry IDs to permanently map to a specific headword".
Dunno though. Mike might tell me I'm dreaming.
Either way, a desktop app is less convenient but still a potential solution, if you can wait until you get home to fix it all up.
Dunno though. Mike might tell me I'm dreaming.
Either way, a desktop app is less convenient but still a potential solution, if you can wait until you get home to fix it all up.
On the noneditable user dictionary issue, the workaround we've settled on for 2.0 at least is adding an "Unlock" button to the edit entry screen, which makes those fields editable again after popping up a warning message that this will invalidate any flashcards linking to that dictionary entry. What it's actually doing behind the scenes is deleting the old entry and creating a brand new one (new entry ID) with the updated text when you tap the Done button, but this seemed a lot more elegant than that duplicate-entry idea. An alternative some people might find useful would be to create a new entry as a flashcard (which makes it freely editable), tweak away until you're happy with it and then tap on the "To User" button to make it into a user dictionary entry.
I admit none of this is ideal, and hopefully in another release or two it'll be fixed, but for right now even if we could work around the technical issues we really don't want to have a situation where the headword for a particular dictionary entry ID might change; it would screw up flashcards in 2.0 (since now you'd have a flashcard with a headword that disagreed with the dictionary entry it linked to) and could screw up all sorts of other things down the line (annotations, for example). Searching for / updating flashcards that linked to the entry would be very slow and wouldn't do anything for flashcards in XML export files. We probably need to add some sort of revision-tracking system so that those other items that link to the entry could update (or invalidate) themselves when they found that the entry had changed, but designing something like that would take quite a while and would need to factor in the also-not-yet-designed desktop / online sync protocols, so for the short-term a slightly-awkward editing procedure seems like a reasonable compromise.
sfrrr - not sure what's going on with that blinking cursor, it's only supposed to appear if the field has the keyboard focus - that whole area is kind of buggy at the moment, though, the main dictionary input field often doesn't get a cursor at all.
ldolse - the real way to fix that workflow would be for us to add a better built-in text editor, something that lets you pull up / insert words from dictionary entries, enter characters using Pinyin as with an IME, etc. Which is certainly something we'd like to do in a future release. In the meantime, though, the Edit Card screen would actually streamline this a bit, albeit in a way it was never designed to do; if you flip between the From Dict and Custom tabs in that, the text in the Custom section won't be updated when you look up a new dictionary entry (only when you actually save out the edited card), so you can look something up in the From Dict half, copy some text out of that, and paste it into the Custom half without ever leaving that screen. (and then use the To User button as I mentioned above) Just make sure that you're in Custom when you exit the screen.
ipsi - the user dictionary is indeed in SQLite, but given the ID consistency / flashcard-linking issues I mentioned above I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing anything in it that our own software doesn't do, since we can't promise that won't cause weird behavior in a future release. But we're still planning to release that "Desktop Preview" version I mentioned at some point in the not too distant future, and even though that won't have any sort of synchronization system built-in, it will use the same database format as the other versions, so you could move your databases over to your desktop, edit them on there with the benefit of a better IME and other desktop/online dictionaries (or, better yet, two simultaneously-running copies of Pleco) and hence be fully satisfied with the entry before saving it.
I admit none of this is ideal, and hopefully in another release or two it'll be fixed, but for right now even if we could work around the technical issues we really don't want to have a situation where the headword for a particular dictionary entry ID might change; it would screw up flashcards in 2.0 (since now you'd have a flashcard with a headword that disagreed with the dictionary entry it linked to) and could screw up all sorts of other things down the line (annotations, for example). Searching for / updating flashcards that linked to the entry would be very slow and wouldn't do anything for flashcards in XML export files. We probably need to add some sort of revision-tracking system so that those other items that link to the entry could update (or invalidate) themselves when they found that the entry had changed, but designing something like that would take quite a while and would need to factor in the also-not-yet-designed desktop / online sync protocols, so for the short-term a slightly-awkward editing procedure seems like a reasonable compromise.
sfrrr - not sure what's going on with that blinking cursor, it's only supposed to appear if the field has the keyboard focus - that whole area is kind of buggy at the moment, though, the main dictionary input field often doesn't get a cursor at all.
ldolse - the real way to fix that workflow would be for us to add a better built-in text editor, something that lets you pull up / insert words from dictionary entries, enter characters using Pinyin as with an IME, etc. Which is certainly something we'd like to do in a future release. In the meantime, though, the Edit Card screen would actually streamline this a bit, albeit in a way it was never designed to do; if you flip between the From Dict and Custom tabs in that, the text in the Custom section won't be updated when you look up a new dictionary entry (only when you actually save out the edited card), so you can look something up in the From Dict half, copy some text out of that, and paste it into the Custom half without ever leaving that screen. (and then use the To User button as I mentioned above) Just make sure that you're in Custom when you exit the screen.
ipsi - the user dictionary is indeed in SQLite, but given the ID consistency / flashcard-linking issues I mentioned above I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing anything in it that our own software doesn't do, since we can't promise that won't cause weird behavior in a future release. But we're still planning to release that "Desktop Preview" version I mentioned at some point in the not too distant future, and even though that won't have any sort of synchronization system built-in, it will use the same database format as the other versions, so you could move your databases over to your desktop, edit them on there with the benefit of a better IME and other desktop/online dictionaries (or, better yet, two simultaneously-running copies of Pleco) and hence be fully satisfied with the entry before saving it.
Hi Mike,
Regarding you question: I'm not sure what you mean with #8 - you can make tones optional in the Modes tab of Advanced Settings, is that what you were looking for?
I see that tones are possible in Free Answer mode for pinyin, but I wonder if you could add tones in Free Answer when testing "Headword" or the character itself.
Maybe it's too niche of a need. It's certainly something I always test myself on. In other words, even if I get the character written correctly, but I still have the wrong tone, I would still mark myself incorrect (if it was self-scored). In Free Answer, testing characters, I don't have that option. If I can write the character, generally it means I will get the pinyin right, but the tone is still difficult. If you can add this feature, great. If not, no biggie.
Thx - K.
Regarding you question: I'm not sure what you mean with #8 - you can make tones optional in the Modes tab of Advanced Settings, is that what you were looking for?
I see that tones are possible in Free Answer mode for pinyin, but I wonder if you could add tones in Free Answer when testing "Headword" or the character itself.
Maybe it's too niche of a need. It's certainly something I always test myself on. In other words, even if I get the character written correctly, but I still have the wrong tone, I would still mark myself incorrect (if it was self-scored). In Free Answer, testing characters, I don't have that option. If I can write the character, generally it means I will get the pinyin right, but the tone is still difficult. If you can add this feature, great. If not, no biggie.
Thx - K.
llammamama
探花
A few more suggestions / comments:
On my axim x50v, I don't seem to be able to set the instant access option "from button" to work from one of my application buttons (mail, calendar, home etc), even if I disable the functions of these buttons in the windows SE settings.
Also, it would be very nice if instant access worked from within flashcard sessions (using "on program activate" and "from taskbar icon"). When I get a flashcard that happens to have a character I don't know within the definition, I am not able to look that character up easily. As someone else said the ability to copy would also be nice there.
In the main dictionary screen, with the stylus tap action set to magnify and the magnify size set to 72, the dictionary entry screen does not refresh once the magnified character window closes (by taping it). The result is an empty white box where the character window used to be. Selecting and de-selecting the text fixes it, so I assume it's just not being re-drawn when the window closes.
Oh and during a flashcard session the tap-hold menus on the adjust score and add/remove category buttons are extremely useful! I wish I had known about them sooner - they kind of feel like Easter eggs.
Honestly I'm already convinced that Pleco 2.0 is absolutely must-have software for anyone who is serious about studying Chinese. The tightly integrated dictionary, flashcard, and audio components work together to make a whole that is considerably more than the sum of its parts. Add onto that the reader, as well as the open and encouraging development effort, and I have a hard time imagining anything better.
While at this stage pleco 2.0 may not quite manage to do a double-backflip with a twist through a burning hoop, for the moment I think a normal double-backflip through a burning hoop is enough =)
On my axim x50v, I don't seem to be able to set the instant access option "from button" to work from one of my application buttons (mail, calendar, home etc), even if I disable the functions of these buttons in the windows SE settings.
Also, it would be very nice if instant access worked from within flashcard sessions (using "on program activate" and "from taskbar icon"). When I get a flashcard that happens to have a character I don't know within the definition, I am not able to look that character up easily. As someone else said the ability to copy would also be nice there.
In the main dictionary screen, with the stylus tap action set to magnify and the magnify size set to 72, the dictionary entry screen does not refresh once the magnified character window closes (by taping it). The result is an empty white box where the character window used to be. Selecting and de-selecting the text fixes it, so I assume it's just not being re-drawn when the window closes.
Oh and during a flashcard session the tap-hold menus on the adjust score and add/remove category buttons are extremely useful! I wish I had known about them sooner - they kind of feel like Easter eggs.
Honestly I'm already convinced that Pleco 2.0 is absolutely must-have software for anyone who is serious about studying Chinese. The tightly integrated dictionary, flashcard, and audio components work together to make a whole that is considerably more than the sum of its parts. Add onto that the reader, as well as the open and encouraging development effort, and I have a hard time imagining anything better.
While at this stage pleco 2.0 may not quite manage to do a double-backflip with a twist through a burning hoop, for the moment I think a normal double-backflip through a burning hoop is enough =)
On the Palm at least, "CharInfo" works within the flashcard system, so you can click on characters and their character info (i.e. various encoding numbers, a brief definition, various compound words that the character is used) will appear. I would prefer that a regular definition would appear instead of the encoding numbers, but the short definition is enough for flashcard purposes, I suppose.
mikelove said:
This is what a few sentences look like in 1.0:
您貴姓; 你姓什麼; 你 的/(英文的) 姓是什麼 nin2 gui4 xing4; ni3 xing4 shen2me What is your last name
你(的)(英文) 姓/名字 怎麼 拼 pin1 ...
我 只有一直/一直只有 想一個女生 ... ...
After I import it into 2.0 this is what I get:
您貴姓; 你姓什麼; 你 的英文的) 姓是什麼 nin2 gui4 xing4; ni3 xing4 shen2me What is your last name
你(的)(英文) 姓字 怎麼 拼 pin1 ...
我 只有一直直只有 想一個女生 ... ...
It seem to delete the the slash as well as the character following the slash.
The slashes in the definition/pronunciation sections from these are unaffected:
你運動嗎 ... 我 打/玩 排求/羽毛求/網求
風景優美、保有(古文物)遺蹟的地方. 林家花園是臺灣一處名勝古蹟. yi2ji1, yi2chu4 antique, 保留/有, 歷史的東西而痕蹟, 風景的地點, 因有歷史的東西而很有趣的地點
民進黨是一個貪 污/(腐) 的政黨 tan1 wu1/fu3 貪心豆腐
Thanks Mike
llammamama/gato - we've actually changed this in Beta 6, we got rid of the preferences option to enable char info in flashcard sessions and instead we now just have a tap-hold popup menu: gives you copy (so kkurugu, that now works in flashcard sessions), magnify, char info, and popup defn, with the last two options unavailable before the card is revealed. This seemed like a reasonable compromise short of actually putting in a whole extra "Flashcard Stylus Options" configuration screen.
llammamama - we noticed the refresh issue, but it seems to have been fixed by the same thing that also fixed the tapping-to-exit-also-causes-the-thing-underneath-to-be-tapped bug. And thanks! The extra twist during the backflip looks like more of a 2.1 feature at this point.
weight - OK, that makes sense - fits with another problem daniel123 reported earlier with headwords in user dictionary entries having slashes / brackets stripped out; basically we were using the same algorithm that we use to clean up headwords in our dictionaries (in which chose /es always indicate an alternate character) to user-created ones.
Oh, and a new discovery which might help anyone experiencing crashes on exit on Palm: use FileZ to go in to your Palm's internal memory and delete any files with names beginning with "tmp_". These are temporary database files created during long operations, they're supposed to be deleted when the operation finishes but they seem to be getting left behind when the system crashes in mid-operation on Palm (which doesn't have a very good temporary file system built-in); it seems like the database system may have been trying to open them as regular databases, that part worked OK but when it then tried to close them that could sometimes cause a crash. We added a fix that checks for those tmp_ names and skips loading them (should probably eventually delete them too), but in the meantime deleting those files should stop the crashing.
llammamama - we noticed the refresh issue, but it seems to have been fixed by the same thing that also fixed the tapping-to-exit-also-causes-the-thing-underneath-to-be-tapped bug. And thanks! The extra twist during the backflip looks like more of a 2.1 feature at this point.
weight - OK, that makes sense - fits with another problem daniel123 reported earlier with headwords in user dictionary entries having slashes / brackets stripped out; basically we were using the same algorithm that we use to clean up headwords in our dictionaries (in which chose /es always indicate an alternate character) to user-created ones.
Oh, and a new discovery which might help anyone experiencing crashes on exit on Palm: use FileZ to go in to your Palm's internal memory and delete any files with names beginning with "tmp_". These are temporary database files created during long operations, they're supposed to be deleted when the operation finishes but they seem to be getting left behind when the system crashes in mid-operation on Palm (which doesn't have a very good temporary file system built-in); it seems like the database system may have been trying to open them as regular databases, that part worked OK but when it then tried to close them that could sometimes cause a crash. We added a fix that checks for those tmp_ names and skips loading them (should probably eventually delete them too), but in the meantime deleting those files should stop the crashing.
Couple of notes:
pTunes only seems to make things slow when streaming internet radio. Still usable though. Could just be the codec.
I've been using the flashcards daily (self-scored only), and they seem super-stable so far.
. Well, apart from the crash-on-exit after two+ sessions. Deleting the tmp file doesn't help, and it didn't come back. Odd. Oh well. Oh, and this is using the experimental version.
Category adds during a flashcard session are wonderful, as is the (almost) complete lack of duplicates and multiple categories per card. Best features!.
One thing that does bug me: Given that I have the fields to be displayed in a flashcard session tied to scores, I would much prefer it if marking a card as wrong reduced the score by some amount, rather than setting it to 100... There are cards where I know the meaning + pinyin, but struggle to write and I dislike having to go through the pinyin again before being tested on how to write it. Not sure how you would go about deciding how much to reduce the score by though.
pTunes only seems to make things slow when streaming internet radio. Still usable though. Could just be the codec.
I've been using the flashcards daily (self-scored only), and they seem super-stable so far.
. Well, apart from the crash-on-exit after two+ sessions. Deleting the tmp file doesn't help, and it didn't come back. Odd. Oh well. Oh, and this is using the experimental version.Category adds during a flashcard session are wonderful, as is the (almost) complete lack of duplicates and multiple categories per card. Best features!
.One thing that does bug me: Given that I have the fields to be displayed in a flashcard session tied to scores, I would much prefer it if marking a card as wrong reduced the score by some amount, rather than setting it to 100... There are cards where I know the meaning + pinyin, but struggle to write and I dislike having to go through the pinyin again before being tested on how to write it. Not sure how you would go about deciding how much to reduce the score by though.
Fleminator
举人
Thanks Mike...deleting the "tmp_" files seems to have gotten things working better. At least, now I can exit successfully from the Main Dictionary screen, I still get a soft reset when leaving the Statistics screen, but I think you said that more obscure screen will be implemented more fully in the next release.
Looking forward to Beta 6!
Looking forward to Beta 6!
On a Palm Treo 650, using the experimental Beta 5. I hope none of these are duplicates...
- When adding a flashcard that turns out to be a duplicate, I get a garbage entry added. (I have don't allow duplicate flashcards checked)
- It is really annoying that the only choices for handling duplicates are
1) Ignore them
2) Add them as a completely separate card
what I would like is
3) Add the current default category to the currently existing card. (Isn't this what "skip" does when importing flashcards?)
Without this it is really annoying to try to enter a new list of cards in a new category, some of which are duplicates of pre-existing cards and some of which are new. I have to remember which cards I added were flagged as duplicates, then go into flashcard management , track them all down, and add them to the category. Very time-consuming!
- Not hearing any audio. I don't see it listed in the ordering screen, either as paid or as a demo. The other features I paid for are listed and handled properly.
- Some stroke order diagrams consist of blocky rectangles instead of the nice brush-like strokes. Example: the traditional character for the measure word ge.
- The stylus actions are really finicky. I have a lot of trouble doing tap-select instead of tap-hold or tap char. Since the choices for each action are limited, it is hard to rearrange to get the possibilities I want (magnify char, char info, popup definition) in a way where I can consistently access them.
- I get repeat cards in flashcard sessions even if I have "don't repeat cards in session" checked.
- Repeated flashcard sessions seem to keep showing the same cards over and over again, in about the same order. I'm using "frequency adjust" with "automatic" scoring type, with 20 cards per session. I end up having to use filters to filter out cards I've seen over and over and over again.
- The audio flashcard tests that were in earlier betas seem to be gone?
- The experimental vfs beta is very unstable. It was constantly reseting my Palm when I exited Pleco. The non-vfs experimental beta seems perfectly stable. No resets with it.
On a positive note, with this beta things are working enough that I can use the flashcards much more deeply. I have to say, the free answer and stroke order modes rock! These are already a huge help for me in learning to write. The new flashcard and category management is great too. I'm impressed by how deep the new SQLite based flashcard management is, while still being easy to use. Great work! I'd also like to thank you again for the stroke order diagrams in char info mode. Having a complete stroke order dictionary in my pocket at all times, together with an ability to quiz myself, is absolutely invaluable in learning to write.
-Frederick
- When adding a flashcard that turns out to be a duplicate, I get a garbage entry added. (I have don't allow duplicate flashcards checked)
- It is really annoying that the only choices for handling duplicates are
1) Ignore them
2) Add them as a completely separate card
what I would like is
3) Add the current default category to the currently existing card. (Isn't this what "skip" does when importing flashcards?)
Without this it is really annoying to try to enter a new list of cards in a new category, some of which are duplicates of pre-existing cards and some of which are new. I have to remember which cards I added were flagged as duplicates, then go into flashcard management , track them all down, and add them to the category. Very time-consuming!
- Not hearing any audio. I don't see it listed in the ordering screen, either as paid or as a demo. The other features I paid for are listed and handled properly.
- Some stroke order diagrams consist of blocky rectangles instead of the nice brush-like strokes. Example: the traditional character for the measure word ge.
- The stylus actions are really finicky. I have a lot of trouble doing tap-select instead of tap-hold or tap char. Since the choices for each action are limited, it is hard to rearrange to get the possibilities I want (magnify char, char info, popup definition) in a way where I can consistently access them.
- I get repeat cards in flashcard sessions even if I have "don't repeat cards in session" checked.
- Repeated flashcard sessions seem to keep showing the same cards over and over again, in about the same order. I'm using "frequency adjust" with "automatic" scoring type, with 20 cards per session. I end up having to use filters to filter out cards I've seen over and over and over again.
- The audio flashcard tests that were in earlier betas seem to be gone?
- The experimental vfs beta is very unstable. It was constantly reseting my Palm when I exited Pleco. The non-vfs experimental beta seems perfectly stable. No resets with it.
On a positive note, with this beta things are working enough that I can use the flashcards much more deeply. I have to say, the free answer and stroke order modes rock! These are already a huge help for me in learning to write. The new flashcard and category management is great too. I'm impressed by how deep the new SQLite based flashcard management is, while still being easy to use. Great work! I'd also like to thank you again for the stroke order diagrams in char info mode. Having a complete stroke order dictionary in my pocket at all times, together with an ability to quiz myself, is absolutely invaluable in learning to write.
-Frederick
ipsi - the internet radio slowdown makes sense, uses considerably more system resources than just decoding an MP3 stream. Does the crash-on-exit happen anytime you run more than two sessions, or just with specific session types? (audio, for example)
The only way to get around that score reduction to 100 would be to use Manual scoring instead; really it's not such a good idea to use the Automated system with score-based field selection anyway, since the score increases are (by design) different for every card - a card that you really knew well might potentially vault over a particular scoring tier completely, while another card that you had a lot of trouble with might remain mired in the same tier for several successive repetitions. So Manual is probably a better bet, since with it you can make sure that there's a nice orderly progression from one field type to another. (say a doubling of the score on a correct answer and a halving of it on a wrong answer)
Way back with PlecoDict 1.0 we actually designed a manual scoring system that was rules-based and could even include extra variables like the "difficulty" factor in 2.0 - never got around to implementing it, but we might look at reviving it in 3.0 depending on the response we get to 2.0's system. (along with providing an easy way for people to share / download sets of flashcard settings, of course)
Fleminator - glad that deleting those files helped. We also fixed another flashcard crash-on-exit issue, though it only affects databases created with the non-experimental Beta 5 - people whose flashcard databases were created in that may want to consider exporting / reimporting them in Beta 6 just in case there are any other issues we haven't found yet.
FUmminger - do these garbage entries show up on imports or only when creating a new card in the main dictionary interface? What does the garbage look like - random characters, parts of other entries, or just lots of blank space? The option to add categories for duplicate cards has already been added for the next beta, there's now a "duplicate handling" popup menu in flashcard preferences just like there is in the import screen.
The blocky stroke order diagrams for traditional characters are an issue with the original data files, unfortunately - not much we can do about them for the time being. With stylus actions, it's really tough for us to get the system to consistently differentiate between all of those different possibilities - we're doing what we can on that, but the main reason we offer so many stylus actions is so that people can choose the ones that work easiest for them, rather than assigning each one to a different command - to access a lot of different commands the best bet would probably be to use the tap-hold menu option. (which in Beta 6 will have all three of those possibilities you mention)
There's a bug in the experimental betas which almost completely disables the random card selection in frequency-adjusted sessions, so that's probably why you're seeing those repeated cards. With the VFS versus non-VFS, the code in those is actually virtually identical aside from a little flag on startup telling it where to create its flashcard files - when you switched between them, did you delete your flashcard files or did you leave them intact? Glad you're liking the new test modes, free-answer can be absolutely brutal (especially with characters) but really helps hammer your memory in a way that the other modes usually don't.
The only way to get around that score reduction to 100 would be to use Manual scoring instead; really it's not such a good idea to use the Automated system with score-based field selection anyway, since the score increases are (by design) different for every card - a card that you really knew well might potentially vault over a particular scoring tier completely, while another card that you had a lot of trouble with might remain mired in the same tier for several successive repetitions. So Manual is probably a better bet, since with it you can make sure that there's a nice orderly progression from one field type to another. (say a doubling of the score on a correct answer and a halving of it on a wrong answer)
Way back with PlecoDict 1.0 we actually designed a manual scoring system that was rules-based and could even include extra variables like the "difficulty" factor in 2.0 - never got around to implementing it, but we might look at reviving it in 3.0 depending on the response we get to 2.0's system. (along with providing an easy way for people to share / download sets of flashcard settings, of course)
Fleminator - glad that deleting those files helped. We also fixed another flashcard crash-on-exit issue, though it only affects databases created with the non-experimental Beta 5 - people whose flashcard databases were created in that may want to consider exporting / reimporting them in Beta 6 just in case there are any other issues we haven't found yet.
FUmminger - do these garbage entries show up on imports or only when creating a new card in the main dictionary interface? What does the garbage look like - random characters, parts of other entries, or just lots of blank space? The option to add categories for duplicate cards has already been added for the next beta, there's now a "duplicate handling" popup menu in flashcard preferences just like there is in the import screen.
The blocky stroke order diagrams for traditional characters are an issue with the original data files, unfortunately - not much we can do about them for the time being. With stylus actions, it's really tough for us to get the system to consistently differentiate between all of those different possibilities - we're doing what we can on that, but the main reason we offer so many stylus actions is so that people can choose the ones that work easiest for them, rather than assigning each one to a different command - to access a lot of different commands the best bet would probably be to use the tap-hold menu option. (which in Beta 6 will have all three of those possibilities you mention)
There's a bug in the experimental betas which almost completely disables the random card selection in frequency-adjusted sessions, so that's probably why you're seeing those repeated cards. With the VFS versus non-VFS, the code in those is actually virtually identical aside from a little flag on startup telling it where to create its flashcard files - when you switched between them, did you delete your flashcard files or did you leave them intact? Glad you're liking the new test modes, free-answer can be absolutely brutal (especially with characters) but really helps hammer your memory in a way that the other modes usually don't.
Mike,
In the search screen I'm trying to find only the flash cards that are in both 2 categories "A" and "Rank12". So in order to be listed in the results a card would have to have both the categories "A" and "Rank12".
Using either "A AND Rank 12"or "A OR Rank12" both seem to do the same thing (but list it in a different order): give me cards that are either in "A" or "Rank12", but not only in both.
Is this possible?
Thanks
In the search screen I'm trying to find only the flash cards that are in both 2 categories "A" and "Rank12". So in order to be listed in the results a card would have to have both the categories "A" and "Rank12".
Using either "A AND Rank 12"or "A OR Rank12" both seem to do the same thing (but list it in a different order): give me cards that are either in "A" or "Rank12", but not only in both.
Is this possible?
Thanks
i have reader and instant access issues.
with the reader, if i'm correct the up/down function is by line (not by page) but when it gets to the end of a paragraph it does a full page down. if this is what the final version will be let me say that i don't like it. i'd MUCH rather have a full page scroll when hitting the down key (or scroll wheel) because for selecting characters touching the screen is so much more useful than clicking around with the d-pad, and scrolling line by line is tiresome when reading long books (which is all i do). of course i'd live with it if this is going to be the final way (i don't really have a choice) but at least there could be an option (maybe a reader tab in preferences).
also i still can't get the position to be automatically be saved, though the bookmarks now seem to work right. when i close the reader and pleco and open up the same file again, i'm getting the start of the document.
ALSO, the reader window seems to act as a separate program now in wm. i use an alt-tab feature which lets me switch around my open programs. when i switch from the reader and then back to it, the wm title bar remains on top. i have to click on something within the reader like the bookmarks to make it go away. having a "fullscreen" on/off feature might be nice. also an option to hide the arrows on the side would be nice (if hardware page down was possible as well)
with instant access, i'm not getting an auto-paste of the clipboard into pleco even though i have "on program activate" in the prefs section.
the functionality otherwise is great. thanks!!!
with the reader, if i'm correct the up/down function is by line (not by page) but when it gets to the end of a paragraph it does a full page down. if this is what the final version will be let me say that i don't like it. i'd MUCH rather have a full page scroll when hitting the down key (or scroll wheel) because for selecting characters touching the screen is so much more useful than clicking around with the d-pad, and scrolling line by line is tiresome when reading long books (which is all i do). of course i'd live with it if this is going to be the final way (i don't really have a choice) but at least there could be an option (maybe a reader tab in preferences).
also i still can't get the position to be automatically be saved, though the bookmarks now seem to work right. when i close the reader and pleco and open up the same file again, i'm getting the start of the document.
ALSO, the reader window seems to act as a separate program now in wm. i use an alt-tab feature which lets me switch around my open programs. when i switch from the reader and then back to it, the wm title bar remains on top. i have to click on something within the reader like the bookmarks to make it go away. having a "fullscreen" on/off feature might be nice. also an option to hide the arrows on the side would be nice (if hardware page down was possible as well)
with instant access, i'm not getting an auto-paste of the clipboard into pleco even though i have "on program activate" in the prefs section.
the functionality otherwise is great. thanks!!!