Demo for stroke order

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DNinNYC

Member
Hi, I wanted to check out the demo for stroke order, but the screen just says "DEMO VERSION - random character" and nothing happens. Is there something else I need to do? I've been using MDBG for stroke order questions, but would like to have something on my phone.
Thanks!

P.S. I used the free version on a recent trip to China after many years of not studying, and it was a great help! One word that was not in the free dictionary was arugula (apparently it is 芝麻叶, at least according to a shop in Beijing). This was my test to see if any of the add-on dictionaries would be useful to me, and I wasn't able to find it in the two demos I downloaded, do you know if I overlooked the word? Otherwise, the free dictionary was quite good.
 
alex_hk90

alex_hk90

状元
Not sure about the stroke order demo as I have already bought the add-on for it, but Argula is in the 21C E-C Pleco add-on dictionary - it lists the Chinese as 芝麻菜.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
DNinNYC said:
Hi, I wanted to check out the demo for stroke order, but the screen just says "DEMO VERSION - random character" and nothing happens. Is there something else I need to do? I've been using MDBG for stroke order questions, but would like to have something on my phone.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
So no character appears? What brand / model of phone and version of Android are you using?

DNinNYC said:
P.S. I used the free version on a recent trip to China after many years of not studying, and it was a great help! One word that was not in the free dictionary was arugula (apparently it is 芝麻叶, at least according to a shop in Beijing). This was my test to see if any of the add-on dictionaries would be useful to me, and I wasn't able to find it in the two demos I downloaded, do you know if I overlooked the word? Otherwise, the free dictionary was quite good.
Click to expand...

Pretty rare one, but yeah, seems to be in 21C at least.
 
H

Howard

Member
I was using a Samsung Galaxy Relay (SGH-T699), with Android 4.0.4, and had the exact same problem with the stroke order demo.
 
D

DNinNYC

Member
mikelove said:
So no character appears? What brand / model of phone and version of Android are you using?
Hi, I'm using a Galazy Nexus, Android version 4.2.2. I just purchased the stroke order add-on, and nothing has changed. I very well could be missing something, but the add-on doesn't seem to respond to anything I do.


Pretty rare one, but yeah, seems to be in 21C at least.
Click to expand...
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Well we can certainly refund it for you if it doesn't work, but this is very odd as we have a Galaxy Nexus with 4.2.2 here and it works beautifully on that - are you running the stock firmware or a custom one? And is this the latest version of Pleco? (2.4.9)
 
M

Michal

秀才
I am struggling with the same thing. I have an Asus Transformer ft700t with Ice Cream Sandwitch. When I try the demo, the advertised random character does not appear. Nothing happens when I hit the arrows. Can anyone help? Alternatively, is there anyone who had this problem with the demo and can tell me if the problem extends to the purchased product? Thanks.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
If you're seeing the problem in the demo then you'd definitely see it in the purchased product as well. As far as why: could you try turning the tablet into portrait (tall) instead of landscape (wide) orientation and see if that helps matters any? There might be some sort of issue with your tablet's graphics drivers.
 
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DNinNYC

Member
Michal said:
I am struggling with the same thing. I have an Asus Transformer ft700t with Ice Cream Sandwitch. When I try the demo, the advertised random character does not appear. Nothing happens when I hit the arrows. Can anyone help? Alternatively, is there anyone who had this problem with the demo and can tell me if the problem extends to the purchased product? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Hi, I posted the initial query, and though I had a problem with the demo, I have been happily using the paid product without problems. It took me a while to figure out how to use it (or more accurately, bother to read the instructions), but it's been great for the month I've been using it. I have a galaxy nexus using android 4.2.2. Also, when I was having problems figuring things out, Pleco offered to refund the purchase price, so if you purchase and continue to have problems, they'll likely refund you as well.

Hope this helps!
 
M

Michal

秀才
DNinNYC:
Thanks for the positive info. Judging by the product itself and this forum, Plecos commitment to good customer service seems solid. I am not too worried about losing five bucks. But I would definitely like to get the feature to work. I am in fact more interested in the character decomposition that is supposed to go with it than the stroke order itself.

mikelove:
Turning the tablet into portrait orientation does not seem to change anything. Given what DNinNYC is saying, could not something be wrong with the piece of code that is generating the random character? Just speculating...
 
D

DNinNYC

Member
Michal said:
DNinNYC:
Thanks for the positive info. Judging by the product itself and this forum, Plecos commitment to good customer service seems solid. I am not too worried about losing five bucks. But I would definitely like to get the feature to work. I am in fact more interested in the character decomposition that is supposed to go with it than the stroke order itself.

mikelove:
Turning the tablet into portrait orientation does not seem to change anything. Given what DNinNYC is saying, could not something be wrong with the piece of code that is generating the random character? Just speculating...
Click to expand...

Hi Michal, the character decomposition works as well. Good luck.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
The character decomposition is very unlikely to be impacted by the stroke order rendering issue, but certainly if it is we'll be happy to refund your order.

As far as the general problem, though: I'm pretty sure this has to do with ICS' hardware acceleration system; the stroke order diagram is apparently too big a texture to render in hardware. The specs say that the maximum texture size should be at least as big as the device's screen size, but not everyone follows the specs... if you try to bring up the popup reader (tap on any character in any dictionary entry), does the background "bubble" for that render correctly or do you just see text awkwardly superimposed on the screen?
 
D

DNinNYC

Member
mikelove said:
The character decomposition is very unlikely to be impacted by the stroke order rendering issue, but certainly if it is we'll be happy to refund your order.

As far as the general problem, though: I'm pretty sure this has to do with ICS' hardware acceleration system; the stroke order diagram is apparently too big a texture to render in hardware. The specs say that the maximum texture size should be at least as big as the device's screen size, but not everyone follows the specs... if you try to bring up the popup reader (tap on any character in any dictionary entry), does the background "bubble" for that render correctly or do you just see text awkwardly superimposed on the screen?
Click to expand...
With the demo, absolutely nothing happens. You don't get a character or a bubble, just the screen that says that a random character should be appearing.

The bubble definitions render clearly within the dictionary, so I don't think the hardware acceleration system is the problem.
 
M

Michal

秀才
While I was discussing this with you guys I was also evaluating the available dictionaries. In the end I bought myself a big bundle and a Tuttle on top. So I now have a purchased version of the stroke order and it works fine.

Thank you DNinNYC for letting me know how things worked for you.
Thanks to Pleco for making the product, I really like it and I also think the business model (what is offered for free and what you ask money for) is remarkably sane. I hope you can figure out the bug in the demo so that no one is discouraged from getting the paid version.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Great! Very odd that only the demo doesn't work, we'll certainly investigate that.

We're very happy with our business model, yes - our product was already complicated and modular back in the Palm / Windows Mobile days so splitting it up into various paid add-ons made a ton of sense, and it's allowed us the flexibility to keep licensing and launching new dictionaries and other features.
 
C

charliechrisman

Member
I just downloaded the stroke order demo add-on and am having the same issue: no character or strokes appear in the middle of the screen; just the text "DEMO VERSION - random character" centered at the bottom. In settings I changed the background to a 2x2 grid (or any of the other grids) and that only shows up after I press the start (
strokerew.png
) button. I've got an HTC One running stock 4.3. Pleco version 2.4.14.

seems like the paid version is working for everyone, so I think I'll just buy it and hope it works...
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
That one's a known bug but oddly enough not one we've been able to reproduce here - consistently works fine on all of our test devices.

Did you download stroke order in-app through the Add-ons screen, or from the 'direct download' page on our website?
 
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