Pleco 2.0 Beta 7, which for the sake of continuity I'm going to call the "everything pretty much works, plus some new goodies" release, is now ready for download. And for the first time we're hosting it on our Hong Kong mirror server along with our US-based main server, which should provide faster downloads for users in Asia.
Basic download archive is available at http://www.pleco.com/beta/pd2b7.zip (130.1 MB) (HK mirror here)
The new application programs are available by themselves at http://www.pleco.com/beta/pd2b7-apps.zip (2.4 MB) - several of the dictionary databases have received minor corrections, though, so we'd recommend reinstalling the full set if possible. (but the old files shouldn't cause any crashes for those of you with slow download speeds) (HK mirror here)
The free dictionaries (see below, now in their own data file) are available at http://www.pleco.com/beta/pd2b7-freedicts.zip (37.0 MB) (HK mirror here)
The basic set of audio files are available at http://www.pleco.com/beta/pd2b7-audio.zip (65.3 MB) (HK mirror here)
The extended set of audio files (see below, install these ALONG WITH the basic ones) are available at http://www.pleco.com/beta/pd2b7-extaudio.zip (224.0 MB) (HK mirror here)
And finally, the new Windows Mobile automated installer is at http://www.pleco.com/beta/pc2b7.exe (181.6 MB) - this includes the basic but not the extended audio files, so if you download this you'll want the extaudio and freedicts zip archives too. (it dumps all of its data files to a \\Program Files\Pleco folder on your hard drive, so even if the install fails you'll have the files right there and won't have to download them again)
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.
Expiration date: 11/1/08
Rough installation instructions are included in the download - instructions for some parts of the software are available on the fabulous DocuWiki and floating around the forums, a full user manual should finally be out with the next release.
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.
The big news in this release is that we're now shipping it with the full set of data files we expect to offer in the finished version. This means that the complete, 30,000+ recording audio files are now available - that still only covers 1/6 or so of the ABC dictionary, but it's the most commonly-used 1/6, and if you switch to Oxford you should find that almost every entry in that has a recording.
It also means that we've added not 1, not 2, not 3, but FOUR new dictionaries. Three of them were also available in 1.0: the LDC English-Chinese wordlist, which is pretty much unchanged (but may work slightly better with traditional characters than before and of course gets full-text search), CEDICT, for which we're now using the much-improved CC-CEDICT version from mdbg.net, and HanDeDict, a Chinese-German dictionary that's been available unofficially for a while but which finally gets an official Pleco release.
The fourth new dictionary, and probably the most exciting (at least for those of you who don't speak German), is the Tuttle Learner's Chinese-English dictionary, a new paid add-on dictionary that has a relatively small vocabulary (about 3600 entries, though several times that many words) but lengthy definitions / usage notes and copious example sentences. We haven't gotten around to cleaning up the Pinyin in the examples yet (there were some issues with those in the original printed version), so there may still be some mistakes in there, but we've corrected some errors in the headwords and feel that it's in good enough condition to release now and offer initially with 2.0. (the Wiseman TCM dictionary has proven extremely complicated to convert, thanks to its being in heavily-cross-referenced TeX and the can't-live-without-it-ness of several of the appendices, so that won't be available until after 2.0 is done)
The Tuttle dictionary is available as a paid add-on through the 2.0 My Orders page at a cost of $29.95, but as a thank-you for all of your help with beta-testing we've credited free copies of it to the top 34 bug reporters (there happened to be a natural cutoff at 34), so if you log in to your account there's a good chance you'll see it already listed in there. In which case you can just download your new keyfile and Tuttle away. If you've sent in a lot of bugs and don't see your free copy, or if you have more than one license for Pleco and we've credited it to the wrong one, send me an e-mail and I'll make sure that gets fixed.
One other new item: we've now finished the first test release of our new automated installer program for Windows Mobile, so that's available too - if you're a Windows Mobile user you can download that and hopefully streamline the installation process a bit. Unlike our old installer, this one copies files directly to your Pocket PC's memory, no fiddling around with .cab files and security warnings and the like, and on top of that it'll also install your keyfile for you if you ask it to, so it should be a big improvement over the old system. There's no uninstaller yet, but that should be added in the finished release - we're also considering integrating Palm support (so you only have to download one installer for both) and possibly even a feature to automatically re-download your keyfile for you.
Other changes are mainly bug fixes: as in Beta 6 we've fixed or attempted to fix every bug posted here, including a fix for a nasty heap corruption bug that mostly affected Palm OS but could potentially cause crashes on Windows Mobile too, a fix for a serious crashing bug in audio playback on WM, a rare-but-troubling filesystem stability issue on WM, and many many fixes to the flashcard system internals. Some other changes:
-- The window management system on Windows Mobile was completely redone, so you should no longer run into situations where multiple copies of the same window come up or where windows get sent to the background / made unavailable when you switch out of Pleco. PlecoLaunch also now should work correctly from a cold (Pleco-not-running-in-the-background) startup.
-- The reader/importer file search on Palm can now list more than 3 files, and checks subdirectories as well as the directories themselves. (we don't check subdirectories on regular Pleco startups for performance reasons)
-- Clipboard-lookup-on-open now checks to see if the clipboard is the same as it was the last time you launched / activated Pleco, and won't look it up again if that's the case.
-- The Recent Query list now registers language switches correctly, so if you look up something in the wrong language and switch it you'll be taken back to that language if you return to the query later.
-- The document reader now supports direct reading of UTF-8 text files, so there's no more long wait for those to open; we've also doubled the bookmark count / number of bookmarked documents limits to 32 each, and bookmarks are now keyed only to a file name rather than to a name + directory + size + modified date.
-- Custom dictionary searches were heavily modified and should now no longer give you lots of not-exactly-matching results (two character searches resulting in three characters with the first and third being the ones you wanted, etc) - they should also work correctly in the document reader now.
-- Length-based sorting of search results now sorts toneless Pinyin search results of the same length by index order, rather than the order they appear in the dictionary - this should make them a bit less of a random jumble than they are now.
-- Full-text search now correctly handles non-English letters, so those of you using the new HanDeDict should be able to search it for German words in full-text.
-- Flashcard category selection trees now behave in a more properly hierarchical manner, i.e., if you check a parent then all of its children will be checked too, and if you uncheck one of those children the parent will also be unchecked. Trees will also now ensure that all checked categories are visible on open, so you'll no longer be presented with a list of unchecked boxes not knowing which of their child categories might be checked.
-- The Stylus Actions stack is now fully implemented in flashcard review sessions and document reader definitions (even with the reader set to bring up definitions in a popup window). Except for Copy to Input, since that wouldn't make sense anywhere but the main screen.
-- The About box now works, so if you enjoy reading copyright notices you should have a fun time with that.
-- The Help screen was implemented on Palm (though it currently only contains abbreviation summaries for ABC/NWP/Oxford); on Pocket PC we removed the menu option for it, as we're now planning to use the built-in Start Menu help system instead (but haven't added the document files for that yet, so right now you get nothing).
-- Menu bars were reorganized a bit.
-- Input screen keyboards were reorganized a bit.
-- The Edit Card screen will now warn you if you're about to create a duplicate card (and offer the option to override it), and remapping cards will no longer fail because of duplicated cards (it always overrides them).
-- Import now offers you the option to cancel an import from the ambiguous/duplicate entry prompt screens, and should be a bit quicker on responding to Stop button taps too (particularly with XML). It may also run a bit faster now thanks to a change we made to the text buffering system.
-- Demo version warnings were added in many of the places they weren't in before, and thanks to a recent license amendment with Wenlin/UH the demo version of the ABC dictionary will now display headwords and Pinyin for all dictionary entries (and full definitions up through the 'c's, I believe). Stroke order isn't available at all in the demo version (that unfortunately won't be fixable until the new stroke data comes out with 2.1), audio now is but only for single-syllable words (and the string-a-bunch-of-single-syllables-together thing doesn't work in the demo).
-- Backspace button option added to the toolbar.
-- Ignore Answer option added to the score setting command button popup list in flashcards.
-- We actually did manage to get popup lists to resize correctly on Palm, so the add-to-flash button and the category toggle list in flashcard sessions should be a lot longer now.
-- Superscript digits are now correctly factored in in links, so all of those 2zhi1's and such will now do what they're supposed to do.
-- Session correct % and correct:incorrect ratio options added to flashcard top fields, along with card difficulty ratings.
Assuming this release is relatively bug-free we should hopefully only have to do one more beta, so keep those bug reports coming.
Basic download archive is available at http://www.pleco.com/beta/pd2b7.zip (130.1 MB) (HK mirror here)
The new application programs are available by themselves at http://www.pleco.com/beta/pd2b7-apps.zip (2.4 MB) - several of the dictionary databases have received minor corrections, though, so we'd recommend reinstalling the full set if possible. (but the old files shouldn't cause any crashes for those of you with slow download speeds) (HK mirror here)
The free dictionaries (see below, now in their own data file) are available at http://www.pleco.com/beta/pd2b7-freedicts.zip (37.0 MB) (HK mirror here)
The basic set of audio files are available at http://www.pleco.com/beta/pd2b7-audio.zip (65.3 MB) (HK mirror here)
The extended set of audio files (see below, install these ALONG WITH the basic ones) are available at http://www.pleco.com/beta/pd2b7-extaudio.zip (224.0 MB) (HK mirror here)
And finally, the new Windows Mobile automated installer is at http://www.pleco.com/beta/pc2b7.exe (181.6 MB) - this includes the basic but not the extended audio files, so if you download this you'll want the extaudio and freedicts zip archives too. (it dumps all of its data files to a \\Program Files\Pleco folder on your hard drive, so even if the install fails you'll have the files right there and won't have to download them again)
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.
Expiration date: 11/1/08
Rough installation instructions are included in the download - instructions for some parts of the software are available on the fabulous DocuWiki and floating around the forums, a full user manual should finally be out with the next release.
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.
The big news in this release is that we're now shipping it with the full set of data files we expect to offer in the finished version. This means that the complete, 30,000+ recording audio files are now available - that still only covers 1/6 or so of the ABC dictionary, but it's the most commonly-used 1/6, and if you switch to Oxford you should find that almost every entry in that has a recording.
It also means that we've added not 1, not 2, not 3, but FOUR new dictionaries. Three of them were also available in 1.0: the LDC English-Chinese wordlist, which is pretty much unchanged (but may work slightly better with traditional characters than before and of course gets full-text search), CEDICT, for which we're now using the much-improved CC-CEDICT version from mdbg.net, and HanDeDict, a Chinese-German dictionary that's been available unofficially for a while but which finally gets an official Pleco release.
The fourth new dictionary, and probably the most exciting (at least for those of you who don't speak German), is the Tuttle Learner's Chinese-English dictionary, a new paid add-on dictionary that has a relatively small vocabulary (about 3600 entries, though several times that many words) but lengthy definitions / usage notes and copious example sentences. We haven't gotten around to cleaning up the Pinyin in the examples yet (there were some issues with those in the original printed version), so there may still be some mistakes in there, but we've corrected some errors in the headwords and feel that it's in good enough condition to release now and offer initially with 2.0. (the Wiseman TCM dictionary has proven extremely complicated to convert, thanks to its being in heavily-cross-referenced TeX and the can't-live-without-it-ness of several of the appendices, so that won't be available until after 2.0 is done)
The Tuttle dictionary is available as a paid add-on through the 2.0 My Orders page at a cost of $29.95, but as a thank-you for all of your help with beta-testing we've credited free copies of it to the top 34 bug reporters (there happened to be a natural cutoff at 34), so if you log in to your account there's a good chance you'll see it already listed in there. In which case you can just download your new keyfile and Tuttle away. If you've sent in a lot of bugs and don't see your free copy, or if you have more than one license for Pleco and we've credited it to the wrong one, send me an e-mail and I'll make sure that gets fixed.
One other new item: we've now finished the first test release of our new automated installer program for Windows Mobile, so that's available too - if you're a Windows Mobile user you can download that and hopefully streamline the installation process a bit. Unlike our old installer, this one copies files directly to your Pocket PC's memory, no fiddling around with .cab files and security warnings and the like, and on top of that it'll also install your keyfile for you if you ask it to, so it should be a big improvement over the old system. There's no uninstaller yet, but that should be added in the finished release - we're also considering integrating Palm support (so you only have to download one installer for both) and possibly even a feature to automatically re-download your keyfile for you.
Other changes are mainly bug fixes: as in Beta 6 we've fixed or attempted to fix every bug posted here, including a fix for a nasty heap corruption bug that mostly affected Palm OS but could potentially cause crashes on Windows Mobile too, a fix for a serious crashing bug in audio playback on WM, a rare-but-troubling filesystem stability issue on WM, and many many fixes to the flashcard system internals. Some other changes:
-- The window management system on Windows Mobile was completely redone, so you should no longer run into situations where multiple copies of the same window come up or where windows get sent to the background / made unavailable when you switch out of Pleco. PlecoLaunch also now should work correctly from a cold (Pleco-not-running-in-the-background) startup.
-- The reader/importer file search on Palm can now list more than 3 files, and checks subdirectories as well as the directories themselves. (we don't check subdirectories on regular Pleco startups for performance reasons)
-- Clipboard-lookup-on-open now checks to see if the clipboard is the same as it was the last time you launched / activated Pleco, and won't look it up again if that's the case.
-- The Recent Query list now registers language switches correctly, so if you look up something in the wrong language and switch it you'll be taken back to that language if you return to the query later.
-- The document reader now supports direct reading of UTF-8 text files, so there's no more long wait for those to open; we've also doubled the bookmark count / number of bookmarked documents limits to 32 each, and bookmarks are now keyed only to a file name rather than to a name + directory + size + modified date.
-- Custom dictionary searches were heavily modified and should now no longer give you lots of not-exactly-matching results (two character searches resulting in three characters with the first and third being the ones you wanted, etc) - they should also work correctly in the document reader now.
-- Length-based sorting of search results now sorts toneless Pinyin search results of the same length by index order, rather than the order they appear in the dictionary - this should make them a bit less of a random jumble than they are now.
-- Full-text search now correctly handles non-English letters, so those of you using the new HanDeDict should be able to search it for German words in full-text.
-- Flashcard category selection trees now behave in a more properly hierarchical manner, i.e., if you check a parent then all of its children will be checked too, and if you uncheck one of those children the parent will also be unchecked. Trees will also now ensure that all checked categories are visible on open, so you'll no longer be presented with a list of unchecked boxes not knowing which of their child categories might be checked.
-- The Stylus Actions stack is now fully implemented in flashcard review sessions and document reader definitions (even with the reader set to bring up definitions in a popup window). Except for Copy to Input, since that wouldn't make sense anywhere but the main screen.
-- The About box now works, so if you enjoy reading copyright notices you should have a fun time with that.
-- The Help screen was implemented on Palm (though it currently only contains abbreviation summaries for ABC/NWP/Oxford); on Pocket PC we removed the menu option for it, as we're now planning to use the built-in Start Menu help system instead (but haven't added the document files for that yet, so right now you get nothing).
-- Menu bars were reorganized a bit.
-- Input screen keyboards were reorganized a bit.
-- The Edit Card screen will now warn you if you're about to create a duplicate card (and offer the option to override it), and remapping cards will no longer fail because of duplicated cards (it always overrides them).
-- Import now offers you the option to cancel an import from the ambiguous/duplicate entry prompt screens, and should be a bit quicker on responding to Stop button taps too (particularly with XML). It may also run a bit faster now thanks to a change we made to the text buffering system.
-- Demo version warnings were added in many of the places they weren't in before, and thanks to a recent license amendment with Wenlin/UH the demo version of the ABC dictionary will now display headwords and Pinyin for all dictionary entries (and full definitions up through the 'c's, I believe). Stroke order isn't available at all in the demo version (that unfortunately won't be fixable until the new stroke data comes out with 2.1), audio now is but only for single-syllable words (and the string-a-bunch-of-single-syllables-together thing doesn't work in the demo).
-- Backspace button option added to the toolbar.
-- Ignore Answer option added to the score setting command button popup list in flashcards.
-- We actually did manage to get popup lists to resize correctly on Palm, so the add-to-flash button and the category toggle list in flashcard sessions should be a lot longer now.
-- Superscript digits are now correctly factored in in links, so all of those 2zhi1's and such will now do what they're supposed to do.
-- Session correct % and correct:incorrect ratio options added to flashcard top fields, along with card difficulty ratings.
Assuming this release is relatively bug-free we should hopefully only have to do one more beta, so keep those bug reports coming.