Beta 6 Bug Report / Feedback Thread

[llammamama]

I'm using frequency adjust, endless, self-scored, automatic scoring, and a subset of about 20 cards.

The frequency adjust behavior is much better than it was, however it is still a little bit strange. It seems to give a subset of three or four cards and cycle through those cards two-three times, then it moves on to another small set of cards and cycles through them, and proceeds in that fashion occasionally giving me cards which were reviewed earlier. However, it seems as though cards with a score of 500 are coming up much more often than 1/5th of the frequency of cards with a score of 100. This might be due to the small subset I am using?


Also, when I try to use a card filter of "score less than xxxx" it seems to add an extra character 8 onto the end of the xxxx if I try to use a number higher than 999. So when I put in 1200 it changes to 12008 when I leave the screen.


One of my flashcard profiles (Default) is having issues with the category select screen (the one right before you begin a flashcard session). It seemed to be choosing from all cards regardless of what I checked or un-checked in that screen. I am working around this with the two "exclude category" filters.


Its also worth noting that if you have a parent category with sub-categories, it is not possible to search for (or study) ONLY the parent category. This can also be worked around using the exclude category filters, but it seems a little big strange. Maybe "checking" a parent category should also put a check on the sub-categories, however when these sub-categories are un-checked I would expect a flashcard session Not to include them and only use the parent category. There's probably already an option for this hidden somewhere...


I also bound my left/right/center buttons to screen left/right/center on my Axim X50v, and I am getting Double taps whenever I use the hardware buttons, regardless of how lightly or quickly I press them. I am using self scored, prompt for answer quality, repetition spaced, reveal fields separately, automatic scoring, etc.

 

[mikelove]

FUmminger - OK, double-checked and it definitely looks like the fix I mentioned in my previous post fixed that repeating bug - let me know if it still comes up in Beta 7 but I'm pretty sure we got it. I think I'm seeing this custom search problem too - not sure how we missed it before but should be easy enough to eliminate.

The issue with dictionary management basically is that we didn't have time to create a dedicated dictionary import screen / import format for 2.0; we wanted to do it but it's just not an important enough feature to justify the (significant) delay involved. So we linked the flashcard importer to the user dictionary system so that people would have at least some way to get user dictionaries imported into Pleco, and put the Undo buttons on separate screens so that people could undo the flashcard parts of those dictionary imports without losing the dictionary parts.

In 2.1 we plan to add an actual dictionary import screen, and sometime between 2.0 and 2.1 there should also be a nice new MakePlecoDict utility that uses the new SQL-based format (with an extra index to enable faster scrolling through entries, something that gets really slow without an index once you get past the 20,000 entry mark or so) and is open-source to allow other people to improve on our rudimentary interface.

2.1 is also when we might be making improvements to the popup definition window - some sort of cross-referencing feature makes sense. For 3.0 we're considering something more like a tabbed web browser, where you can have multiple screens displaying different things (flashcard sessions, reader windows, dictionary screens, with the dictionary and reader parts at least supporting more than one at a time) so that would probably be the ultimate place to go with this.

stephanhodges - noted / fixed, I don't think we'd actually looked at those since Beta 2 or Beta 3 so thanks for the reminder.

llammamama - we found a couple more bugs with frequency-spacing today, bugs which would only screw things up a little bit with a large group of cards but could wreak complete havoc with smaller groups (really embarrassing how many bugs there are in that system, if it had been written by someone other than me I'd give him/her a stern lecture on proper code auditing) so I think in Beta 7 frequency spacing should finally start to behave truly normally.

We've still never seen this extra 8 bug here even once, strangely enough - is it applying to the actual filter too, i.e. it's saved out and the filter then allows cards that are higher than 1200 but lower than 12008, or does it only appear when you reopen the screen? With the default profile issue, could you send along your flashcard database again? Should be easy enough for us to isolate the problem here.

Good point on category trees, though we may have to leave them in their current not-quite-perfect format for 2.0 at least. Not sure what's happening with those double-taps, we're not seeing the same behavior on an Axim here - did this happen in Beta 5 too?

 

[llammamama]

Yes, the extra 8 bug was actually saving out to the filter, which is how I noticed it. I saw several cards get as high as 7000 with the filter engaged but I never tried getting a card above 12008; I assume it would have filtered them out properly at that point.

So far as the double-taps are concerned, I never actually tried using hardware buttons in beta5, so I can't really be sure.

I've sent you my flashcard database file as well as another strange file which was in my my-documents folder (PlecoCUser#####.pqb). Just for my information, should I have exported my flashcards as XML then re-imported them for the new beta? I just went ahead and used my old beta5 database / settings files hoping that everything would still work.


I'd also like to add that I'm very glad (and somewhat surprised) that the program is able to dynamically apply the score filter to an endless session which is in progress. I did happen to notice another bug where an endlessly looping frequency-based repetition session will end prematurely once there are only two or three cards left below the filtered maximum score, but this isn't really that big of a deal. Starting a new session once or twice until all of the cards are past the filter is a viable work-around.

 

[ipsi]

Much happier: I can now force it to display only simplified characters, the timer works, the clock works (though it currently says 5:42 pm, and the 'm' is a little cut off), the font choices stick! I'm also getting better results for tap-select, which is good to see.

Document reader scrolling is much better , but the file browser has actually made it less useful, as it doesn't traverse subdirectories... e.g. I have a file called yc.txt (野草, by 鲁迅), in /Chinese/yc.txt, but the Document reader doesn't list it. I have to move it to /yc.txt, and at that point I lose all my bookmarks as they're tied to the absolute path, rather than the filename... Oops.

Ok, I'm actually wrong on the following, though I'll swear it happened a couple times, but those steps no longer reproduce it. I'll keep trying, see if I can. Otherwise, mark it as solved.

Wait, no, it's still happening, but I need CJKOS turned on before it occurs. Very odd - maybe a memory issue? And those exact steps will do it every time, provided I turn on CJKOS.

Oh wait, that's still not it. Good god.

Hmmm.... Let's try this: On reboot, CJKOS is turned off (not sure why) by default. If I start Pleco, I can run two flashcard sessions without a reboot on exit. If I then turn on CJKOS, it works as expected. If I turn on CJKOS *before* doing that, I get a reset on exit. I don't imagine it's an issue with CJKOS as such, but CJKOS is fairly memory-intensive... Anyway, that's what I'm getting at the moment. Hopefully you guys can reproduce this one. I've also got one or two resets when starting/stopping a flashcard session, but they're quite rare.

However, the crash-on-exit is still happening, and in exactly the same way (Start Pleco -> Flashcards -> New Session -> Start Session -> Stop Session -> New Session -> Start Session -> Stop Session -> Done -> Exit == crash). It happens every single time. It's never *not* happened, basically. There's a list of apps I have running in the background in my sig - only CJKOS, Chatter, Call Block, and ResetDoctor were active at the time. Reset Doctor just says "Fatal Error", which isn't much help. Sometimes I've gotten a message saying "System Error" before it dies, but I just hit ok until it resets.

EDIT: Yeah, this has kinda rebooted my phone a lot .

 

[stephanhodges]

To show what I meant in a previous message, I've created a temporary page on the wiki
http://china.panlogicsoftware.com/pleco/pleco2:stuff

Bug #2 on the page shows how editing the flashcard card, and trying to change the dictionary selects the wrong definitions.

Bug #1 on the page shows another item.

When I click on a hyperlink within a definition (a "see also" link), it brought me to the wrong definition. If I hadn't already known that word, I would have been mislead. I was looking at Jiao, and it also linked to Jue, etc. But, it went to entry #1 when it should have gone to entry #4.

 

[stephanhodges]

Palm, Tapcis

The screen rotation (soft) button sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. Often I need to start a different program to "enable" it, and then it will still be enabled when I start Pleco2. Looking at stroke orders seems to disable it "permanently" from within Pleco. Once it stops working, it NEVER works until I exit the program, and run something else to re-enable it (such as Doc Viewer).

Char Info screen stuff

Playing Stroke Order, the speed is always the same regardless of Slow, Medium, Fast selection. What should the timing be for the different speeds? If I press the double right arrow, it is very very fast, so I know it can be fast.

In portrait mode, it does not allow full screen, but only the 2x2 display.

Details screen, to the right of character are 4 "short lines" and below are 4 wide lines. But, it appears that there is only one piece of data that would use the entire "wide" line, and that is the definition. You could give the definition 2 lines of data by redfining one of the below choices into a "left | right" pair. Left would be selection name, right would be value. Example "Mandarin Shi3 Shi4

Selecting "de" (的） and then clicking to get the Char Info screen makes the screen background two different colors. If I select the Compounds tab and then reselect the Details tab, the background is fixed. You have to look a little close in this picture (light blue-gray versus white), but it's very very clear on the device. It happens regardless of which tab will be first selected.

Char Info screen. If I select "All Details", the hardware buttons don't work to scroll data up and down.

For "All Details" on the Details tab, it does not make sense to alphabetize the details. All of the pronunciations should be together, and they should be NEAR the definition. This is foremost a Chinese dictionary, so I want to see both the pronunciation and definition on the same page. Right now I can't since "Mandarin" is near the other end of the list from "Definition". You could fit frequency and Grade Level on one line too.

Selecting "Compounds" tab sometimes goes away for 15+ seconds. Couldn't you put a message up like "Finding Compounds", etc? The small extra time to show this status message would still make it appear much faster than now, when I don't know if it's hung or not...

Clicking a character in the definition screen should always bring up the Char Info with either "Stroke Order" or "Details" tab selected. I vote for "Stroke Order" as I will explain below. Or, at a minimum, it should NEVER come up with the Compounds tab selected. Two reasons. 1) If I accidentally click a character and Compounds is the first choice, I might have to wait 10-15 seconds before I can get back to my definition. With the other two tabs, I can return almost immediately. Secondly, I judge the stroke order screen as the most important and most often used, which is why I think it should always be the first one chosen.

In the details screen, could you add the radical (and the radical's name)? It could be combined with the stroke count (it's a logical connection).

All said and done, I would vote for more frequent betas now rather than fixing all known problems between steps.

 

[ipsi]

One note on your Bug 2, I note there's a search button (搜) next to the headword, does that not actually do anything useful? On mine it works fine, I think, and provides up/down arrows for searching through the various entries, provided there's more than one that matches.

 

[ipsi]

Also, on the document reader searching: Changed the paths to search in Preferences/Search Paths, and it now finds it just fine. Not sure where my bookmarks went though. Oh well, not a major loss.

It would be nice if I could set a particular line of text to appear at the top of the screen when I create a bookmark though (e.g. select chapter title, create bookmark, and it now jumps to the selected text, rather than to the page, if you see what I mean...), but I can also see it causing a huge amount of confusion from people selecting string A, then moving on a couple of pages (they know all the words, and don't need to look anything up), then creating a bookmark and wondering why it's jumping back two pages...

 

[stephanhodges]

One note on your Bug 2, I note there's a search button (搜) next to the headword, does that not actually do anything useful? On mine it works fine, I think, and provides up/down arrows for searching through the various entries, provided there's more than one that matches.

Was that for me? If so, perhaps you meant #1? Number two shows how editing a flashcard to change the source dictionary scrambles the definition portion of the card.

If you did mean #2, then I would argue it's still a bug, since all I was doing was changing the dictionary that the flashcard would pull the meaning from.

To be honest, however, I didn't recognize the search button character, hence, I didn't know it's meaning. Thanks.

 

[llammamama]

If you did mean #2, then I would argue it's still a bug, since all I was doing was changing the dictionary that the flashcard would pull the meaning from.

To be honest, however, I didn't recognize the search button character, hence, I didn't know it's meaning. Thanks.

I think you are talking about the same bug I mentioned in the beta 5 thread :

It does not seem possible to quickly change the dictionary mapping of a flashcard in the information>edit card screen.
With card text "from dictionary" selected in the edit card screen, simply clicking the color-coded dictionary toggle button does not properly toggle through the dictionaries for that specific word - instead it cycles through seemingly random words in the other dictionaries untill it comes back to the original dictionary/entry. At the moment it is neccesary to copy/paste the word into the search box (next to the search button), click search, and then toggle through the dictionaries.

I think Mike is aware of this bug, and he responded to my first post with a comment that the search field should at least be populated by the headword, which would make changing the dictionary much easier.

 

[ssaito]

I just thought I'd note that a pre-beta 6 bug still persists. When I install beta 6 including the keyfile, it accepts the keyfile upon opening (but it still says "Your keyfile has been accepted, but some of the dictionaries or other components you purchased were not found...") and I can use the stuff I paid for like the Cheng&Tsui, 21C, and GuoFan. However, if I close Pleco (Menu->Quit) and re-open, it has amnesia and 21C and GuoFan revert to "Demo" mode. Oddly, Pleco remembers I purchased C&T.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Steve
AT&T 8525 (HTC) WM6, 2G SD card on which Pleco is installed

 

[mikelove]

llammamama - thanks for the database file, with your help I think we've finally licked this '8' issue but if anyone still sees that sort of behavior in Beta 7 please do let us know. No need to export and reimport your flashcards on Pocket PC for Beta 6; on Palm there's a small benefit to doing so if you're storing your flashcards as a PDB (as opposed to a .pqb / flash memory file), since we made some tweaks to the block sizes for those that should help performance / reliability a bit, but for Pocket PC the Beta 5 / 6 flashcard files are completely identical.

Glad you're liking the dynamic filter - a lot of Endless session fans asked for that in 1.0, actually, and it turned out to be surprisingly easy to implement in 2.0. And good catch on the cards-running-out issue - that's happening because of the "penalty box" that keeps frequency-adjusted cards from reappearing until you've gone through a few other cards, but there's no reason that box can't empty out / delete itself once it gets to a point where there are no cards left other than those in the box.

ipsi - glad things have (mostly) improved. We'll definitely be adding subdirectory search to that file browser for Beta 7, and possibly also restoring the option to have a path field (not a new checkbox, just an extra item in the popup list) in case it still doesn't work. We're going back and forth about storing absolute paths versus just filenames in bookmarks - it stores / checks the file size and modification date too, so storing just the name wouldn't cause it to accidentally open another file with the same name. Though of course making that change would pulverize everyone's old bookmarks... clearly bookmarks are something we're going to need to put in a lot more time on in 2.1. (good idea on selecting the specific line, but that would indeed confuse people so we'll have to make it optional)

Still no luck on reproducing that crash-on-exit, even on a Treo 680 with CJKOS - does this happen regardless of where the flashcard database is stored? Is this CJKOS 4.63 or an earlier version? And I assume pTunes wasn't running at the time?

stephanhodges - thanks for putting those screenshots up, now I see exactly what you mean - looks like the search engine didn't know the input field had been updated and so went with whatever the last thing it tried to search for was. Anyway that should definitely be fixed for B7. The 搜 button as ipsi mentions fixes it too, since that tells it there's a new search query, so you can use that as a workaround in the meantime.

The ABC link jumping is a known issue; originally we just jumped to the result corresponding to that number (first result for 1, second for 2, etc), but that turned out to be unreliable in some cases (thanks to the way we re-sorted the dictionary from its original order) so now we have to write some new code to go through and check all of the results for a correct number match. (or just have those links to jump to exact UIDs, but I think it's nicer to have the link text right in the Input Field)

The screen rotation bug is something we've seen on our Zodiac here a few times - seems to be confined to just that system, though, so not necessarily something we can invest a lot of time in (though it'll get another look for 2.0.1 at least). Stroke order speed is a new one, though one I'm seeing here too now - don't know how that got screwed up, it was definitely working before. Char Info doesn't support display resizing yet, doing that is really complicated so we've only implemented it in a few screens so far.

We've seen the background discoloration issue in Char Info too but it's another item in the category of things-we-don't-necessarily-need-to-fix-before-2.0 (like almost any graphical glitch at this point). Good idea about rearranging it with two items on one line. All Details is sorted oddly because that's the way the fields appear in the original UniHan data file - rearranging them would be kind of tricky but we'll consider it for 2.1 at least. Good point on Compounds, that shouldn't be possible to hit accidentally, though I do think Details is useful enough to be worth remembering / returning to that. Radical numbers and stroke counts are already available in Details with RSUnicode / RSKangxi etc, though we probably should try to find a way to add the radical characters to those fields along with the numbers (at least for one or two of them).

And yes, betas will definitely get more frequent from now on, since we'd really like to get this wrapped up before the school year is too far along.

ssaito - that bug's still there? Strange, I thought we'd gotten it a few betas ago... could you send me a copy of your keyfile? Perhaps there's something wrong with that.

 

[ipsi]

Good to hear, and the 'Last Modified Date' also explains why my bookmarks vanished, I think. I guess it must mark the file as modified when it's moved (Something similar, involving modification times, caught me out at work this week...)? Is 'bookmark selected line' something I could reasonably expect in Beta 7, or will it have to wait until 2.1? Given that it sounds like a fair amount of work, I'm expecting 2.1.

On the crash on exit, I'm fairly sure it's a memory thing, so try this: Install as many background processes as possible. Things like ChatterEmail, CJKOS, 3rd part Launchers, etc, then start streaming Internet Radio via Pocket Tunes. If it still doesn't crash, then I'm going to assume it's a problem with my phone. At that point, the only option is for you to send me a Treo Pro, and I'll send you back my 680 . Then you can test to your hearts content.

 

[weight]

Hi mike,

I've tried several times to use both the b5 and b6 converter utility, but all I get are crashes usually before the 1000 mark. I've done a factory reset and completely reinstalled pleco to no avail; the only thing that remains the same is the machine and the user database and flashcards. The only way to get the converter utility working (strangely) is to first go into 1.0, export my cards and then immediately go into the b5/b6 converter utility and export from there; if I should reset in the middle of this procedure, again the converter utility will not be able to make it through the export without crashing. It would also be really helpful if the converter utility didn't reset the device after it finished converting but rather displayed some kind of success message and the number of cards converted, or is this a bug as well?

 

[ipsi]

The converter resetting the device on finish is definitely a bug - it didn't do that for me.

 

[Fleminator]

OK , I'm just loving the new beta, but here are the issues:

1. Most of the time (in B6), when I'm on the main dictionary screen, I have trouble selecting a portion or all of what has been entered in the search field. This is important for when I make a typo and my Palm graffiti input palette is hidden in favor of using full screen character entry mode, if I make a type, can't select the typo to replace it. When I try to select, it looks like it is selecting, but when I pick up my stylus, the highlight to indicate the selection disappears. It usually lets me select one item the first time I enter the program, but every time after that, it won't allow selection

2. Big problem in the PlecoFlash (strange name for a dialog box)/Flashcard Profiles Screen. I tried to delete a profile for the first time from a list of 4 profiles (e.g. Profile1, Profile2, Profile3, Profile4). I selected Profile2, tapped Delete, and confirmed. But instead, Profile4 disappeared. I wasn't 100% focused that time, so I tried again, selecting Profile2 and deleting, but Profile3 disappeared. It seemed to be deleting from the bottom of the list. I was really bummed because Profile4 wasn't important but Profile3 was. After eating dinner, I went back having completely left the the program for a bit. When I came back Profile3 and Profile4 had reappeared, but Profile2 was gone. So, in the end, everything worked the way it was supposed to, but a display error caused me a lot of grief early on. Those lists of profiles always populate so slowly, is there a reason for that?

3a. Another thing I want to confirm is that Score Files MUST be deleted separately from Profiles. That is the way it should be, anyway. I don't want my scorefiles (hundreds of hours of work, sometimes) being deleted just because I didn't realize it was linked to a particular score file (which only take about 10 minutes max to re-setup, so I'll probably be experimenting with them more)


3b. Several times (I've only noticed it three times on Beta6), I get all my answers correct for the first few cards of my flash card session, then I exit the session, saving the session for later. Then I look up something, then I return to the session, then exit again saying that I don't want save it that time...at that point it freezes for a few seconds and does a soft reset...It may have something to do with the newly added feature to have a final drill option even if a session is ended early. Sorry. It hasn't been consistent (not reproducible), but it has happened twice in the last 24 hours.

4. I'm no spelling champ, but my web browser keeps telling me (along with spellcheck.net) that Flashcard (no space) is not a word. It should be Flash Card Thats a lot of misspellings in your program, and not to important, but I want to be a faithful Beta tester.

5. I'm am noticing mismatched sounds as well, but I hadn't come across it in previous betas (probably because automated audio was disabled in flash card session due to memory constraints). Almost any entry beginning with 皮 pi2 is pronounced pi1zhun3 followed by the rest of the entry 皮尺 is pronounced pi1zhun-(pause)-chi3. However 皮带 is pronounced pi2cao3. The problem is present in the main dicitonary screen and flash card sessions. Could it be something about how you reconfigured the ABC dictionary for Beta6? Also, I hope you planning on a pretty thorough of the complete audio before public release...it seems pretty inconsistant right now.

6. Under Manage Flash Cards/Search Settings, I want to search for all cards where category=CatagoryA AND category!=CatagoryB. However there is not a != option for categories. A session Filter has the option to include catagoryA and exclude categoryB, but if I want to Mass Edit that large set of cards, I can't figure out how to access them under Manage flash cards. I know you said no new buttons, but just add a =/!= drop down menu for the category search tool. Similarly, you might at =/!= to define what dictionary assignment to look up (e.g. dictionary!=USR), but this is more important for categories.

7. The default dates in the Manage Card Screen are still 1/1/70. When I search with them, I no longer get a soft reset (thank goodness), but the default should be today's date.

8. HELP. Is there a way to get rid of the THOUSANDS of duplicates in my USR dictionary quickly? I don't know what caused the problem, but I don't think it will be re-occurring, but I can't waste the hours of going through each entry individually, pressing delete and then confirming. I don't want to destroy all my PD2 flash card work by re-importing them from 1.0.3 again. Maybe just re-importing my USR dictionary file again? how should I tackle this one?

9. This only happened once so far in B6, I got a soft reset while in Statistics, and when I re-opened Pleco, it had created a new flash card database on the BuiltIn memory that was empty. again, I just when and deleted it with FileZ, and Pleco found the one that was in my SD card. Did I do this right? when B6 opened for the first time, I went with the recommended location to save that thing (I don't remember specifically), but it ended up on my SD card, which is now clearly not a preferred location, because if the SD card is a little loose, Pleco can't find the file and creates a new one and I have to do the FileZ business all over. Should I move it to Internal memory? BuiltIn memory? its a .pqb file.

10. OK, now I'm in the process of trying other things to crash your program. when looking at card statistics, other than All, I press the Home hardware button to go to another application. It took me instead to the PlecoFlash main screen and is frozen there or goes white and is frozen there, both requiring a soft reset. This problem has been reproducible every time.

11. Under Preferences/Flashcards when the Pop lists show only top-level cats is selected, I anticipated that only changing the category toggle-tap-and-hold functionality. I really like that, because I have well over 100 sub-categories, and scrolling through them all was a pain. I also like that I can click the Info-"i" in a session and still click "edit" to access those sub-categories. However, under Manage Flashcards, at least when I am doing and Advanced... category search, it should still give me all the cards. I wouldn't be upset if that check-box in the prefs only applied to the drop-list in actual sessions.

12. Sometimes, after I've done an advanced search, then I want to go back and do a simple category search without going to the Search Settings screen, there is a display glitch where I can't get the "Configure" button out of the way

13. Under Character Info, where does the Frequency data come from and what does it mean?

Really enjoying it. Its close.

 

[ldolse]

Beta 6 is looking better than ever, but here's my feedback:

Crashes/Hangs

• I tried everything we discussed previously regarding the audio hang - no dice. Attempting to Play audio still Frequently locks up my whole PDA. After replacing the files I was able to play audio a few times, but it crashed after the fifth time. Even if it's a bad sector on the flashcard I don't think this should be hanging the whole PDA. Since you can't reproduce this at all is there any sort of special debug code you have to diagnose the issue better? I'd be happy to run it.
  
• Clicking 'play' in stroke order for a character which doesn't exist in the DB crashes Pleco - leftover from the B5 feedback.
  
• Crashed Pleco when selecting all of a large/complete 21st century or Guifan entry and copying it into the input field - it didn't crash immediately, but shortly after attempting to manipulate the text in the box.

Reader Hang
I believe I figured out the bug with the reader. It seems to be associated with "Look up clipboard on non-IA activate". I use that feature to copy sms, etc into the reader quickly. The feature does work, but the problem is that you can use this method to open an infinite number of reader windows. I've seen two different ways to screw up Pleco via the reader, and I think both are connected to that issue. Pleco must also be set to launch from a hardware button.

• Problem 1:
  • From the main Pleco window, copy a dictionary entry. Launch the reader via the menu, choose the clipboard as the source, then click start. Once you're in the reader, click the hardware button. Now close the reader, and you should see the reader launch window, and it will be impossible to close it. Only way to get Pleco back is to kill it via the task manager. I suspect that it gets in this state because there is a duplicate reader window (launched via hardware button) hiding behind the displayed screen.
  
  Problem 2:
  • Copy some chinese from some other application i.e. NOT from Pleco. Then click the hardware button. THis should launch the reader directly. Now click the hardware button a few more times. It will launch one reader window for every time you click it (though you won't see it other than a flicker). When you try to close the reader it seems like the system is hung because there are a bunch of duplicates of the same window, and the reader won't let any other WinMo window come up. I think when I reset my PDA before it was because there were a LOT of duplicate windows, and I just never closed them all. If there is a real bug that can hang the system then I haven't found the reproduction case.

Unless I marked it as a BUG in red, then most of this is just feedback, it can wait for a later release.

Editing the User Dictionary
I like the lock option, much easier to fix an entry now.

• BUG - ZTA4 is my favorite and default IME for input, and unfortunately the space button in ZTA doesn't work with the add/edit entry interface. What's really strange is the ZTA space button works fine in the normal Pleco query dialog. Since Pleco doesn't support the Touch keyboard either this really sucks.
  
• Allowing the pop-up dictionary to be called up while creating an entry would be very cool, very helpful for getting the Pinyin right while you write the headword, also for reviewing other entries while writing your own.

Full Text Search
I added the full text search toggle to the toolbar, with this added full text is MUCH more usable.

• I thought this might be a bug, but I see now in the first post that it's intentional. Chinese full text search won't work with a single character search, would be very nice if it could.
  
• I'm able to flip to normal pinyin headword search by clicking the 中／英 icon even though the pound sign is in the text box - this seems confusing... I could understand if changing language deleted the pound sign, using it as a formal toggle to disable full text, but keeping the pound sign seems a bit bizarre. I remember your explanation from the B5 thread why you did this, but still seems confusing.
  
• With the 'Keep on clear' option, I like that a normal click of the erase button leaves the pound sign in place while erasing the query. However, it would be a bit more intuitive if highlighting the pound sign or pound+query and then clicking the erase button, or double-clicking the erase button provided other ways of getting rid of it.

Flashcards

• BUG - Clicking the dictionary icon in the Card Info->Edit Card window brings up seemingly random entries for all the dictionaries except the original. It's not until you click the 搜 icon that it works as one would expect. I don't understand the purpose of having two icons here, seems like 'just' the dictionary icon could do the desired job.
  
• BUG - Took me about 5 trys to get Pleco to save the 'reveal fields separately' preference. Every time I saved it it would become unchecked again. Only after also selecting 'show sketch box' did it finally save the pref.
  
• BUG - The 'Skip Duplicates' option under import does not work if there are multiple/ambiguous dictionary matches found during the import process. With 'Skip Duplicates' all duplicates should be skipped, but instead duplicates which match multiple dictionary entries cause you to be prompted to choose a match. If you choose a different match than from the previous import then a duplicate entry will be created. I tested with the same file several times in a row before I figured this out, so it created a lot of duplicates.
  
• The manage cards screen should sort search results alphabetically by Pinyin. (would help me find those dupes )
  
• Guifan should NOT be the second dict in the default import list, I think it shouldn't be included in the list by default at all - should be on the right side with removed dicts by default.
  
• A way to cancel an import session would be nice.
  
• I saw the B5 discussion about adding a carriage return after the headword - I'm going to have to side with adding a carriage return. In addition to the previously mentioned concern, not including it means that line wrapping can completely change the layout, which is not elegant at all. Two character and three character headwords will probably be much more be the most common case, so this is where I would expect it to work best.
  • Example:
    
    Start with:
    --------------------
    谢谢［謝謝]
    --------------------
    On reveal this becomes:
    --------------------
    谢谢［謝謝
    ] xiexie (PHRASE) Thank
    You
    --------------------
    Note where the trailing ] would up. It would have looked much better as:
    --------------------
    谢谢［謝謝]
    xiexie
    (PHRASE) Thank You
    --------------------
    
• When you quit a session and DON'T save it it exits you all the way back to the main Pleco window - this is somewhat annoying, I would have expected the flashcard interface.
  
• Editing cards during a flashcard session - I ran into a number of cards where I didn't like the definition the import routine had used, so of course I wanted to change it mid-session so I wouldn't forget. That was when I discovered that Pleco locks you out of the rest of the flashcards interface during a session. I see in the B5 thread that this was intentional, and the suggested workaround was to create a 'To Fix' category. I think this workaround is fine, but I think this should be made an actual part of the GUI - just put a little 'Fix later' checkbox in the card info screen, then after the session Pleco can prompt you to fix the marked cards, automatically unmarking them once fixed. Reason being I believe discovering cards which need fixing mid-session is a problem everyone has to deal with.
  
• In the manage flashcards list it's a bit cumbersome to go down to the edit card icon after a search - clicking the selected card or double clicking a card in the results list does nothing right now, would be really nice if this action automatically went to the edit card screen.
  
• I saw this was a maybe, but hope you can get in hardware button support for scrolling the manage flashcards interface, and along the lines of the stylus select above it would be great if the select hardware button brought up card info.
  
• Would be nice if the first Card Info screen showed you which dictionary was used for the card. Same for the card info screen from that's displayed during a flashcard session.
  
• Once the card has been revealed it would be great if Pop-Up definition was supported to review example sentences in the definition.

Copy/Paste/Clipboard handling
edit: The first two are pretty minor since they were both attempts to get the entry into the reader, and I didn't know about the menu option when I wrote them.

• When I crashed Pleco with that 21st century entry at the top of this entry I was attempting to use the feature for automatically opening large amounts of clipboard data straight into the reader. This feature works when Pleco is activated via hardware button, but it doesn't work under other scenarios, like copying and pasting a ton of data into the input field.
  
• Scrolling while selecting doesn't work, and there is no 'select all' for an entry. This makes it impossible to get large entries into the clipboard. "Paste up" in 21st century dictionary is a good example of a long entry.
  
• Can't copy/paste from the character info Full details window - would be useful to copy some of the character variants that pop up there. Select is allowed there, so a tap'n'hold option seems like it would be sufficient

Query Interface

• When I increase the list font size to read the headwords better the Pinyin gets much bigger/bolder than the headword, looks weird and isn't really providing the desired effect. I can read english just fine, it's the chinese characters that I want to get bigger faster.
  
• BUG - Up/Down button always scrolls in the list view, even when the history drop-down is displayed/has priority - when the history drop-down is displayed then up/down hardware buttons should be working there.
  
• It would be nice to have a context menu option to send an entry to the reader, particularly for 21st century and Guifan. The edit menu option Ipsi just pointed out makes it a bit less important.

Superscript handling in Guifan headwords

• Minor Nit - Some headwords in Guifan, such as 向 have a superscript 1 or 2 after the simplified headword, but not after the traditional - is the superscript supposed to be after the full headword? looks a bit odd flipping from simplified to traditional and back. I think it might be screwed up, because the superscript appears to be counting the definition variants - the simplified includes the superscript in the list view, but the traditional doesn't. 出 is another example. ABC doesn't have this problem with superscript, which is being used in the same manner.

 

[ipsi]

Flem:
On #2, the profiles populated slowly because they weren't being cached, I believe, thus it need to look them up each time (very slow...), however, they seem to be a lot faster on mine now...

On #5 (You have two #3's by the way...), I'm getting that too, but only with the male voice.

On #9, You can use the PlecoMover utility to move stuff between internal and external and suchlike. If that doesn't work, then move the file, using FileZ, to the BUILTIN folder. Assuming it's PQB. If it's PDB, then move it to Internal.

Idolse:

Copy/Paste/Clipboard handling

• When I crashed Pleco with that 21st century entry at the top of this entry I was attempting to use the feature for automatically opening large amounts of clipboard data straight into the reader. This feature works when Pleco is activated via hardware button, but it doesn't work under other scenarios, like copying and pasting a ton of data into the input field.

On Palm, Pleco has a menu option for sending the current dictionary entry to the reader - does that not exist on WM or something? That seems like the most elegant way to open up the definition in the reader, unless I'm misunderstanding what you want to do.

 

[ldolse]

Thanks Ipsi, I didn't see it as it's hiding in the edit submenu. I do recall looking for it before, but I may not have thought to look in that particular submenu. Seems like several of the things under the edit menu don't really have to do much with editing - maybe they should be in the Dict submenu???

 

[ipsi]

Yeah, I think that would make slightly more sense. Thankfully, there aren't many menu items, so I just had a flick through them .