Dictionary intent not available anymore?

aless

Member
I have updated Pleco on two devices running Android 14 and 15 (Sony phone and Xiaomi tablet) from 3.2.94 to 3.2.99 (apk download). On version 3.2.94, I could select Chinese characters in other apps and share the text to either the dictionary or the reader. In version 3.2.99, only the reader intent is available. To make sure, I downgraded Pleco to 3.2.94 on one of the devices, and got back the share to Pleco dictionary option.

Was this change intentional? I couldn't find anything relevant in the changelog (this one only gets to version 3.2.90).

Sharing a word to the reader requires another tap to get the popup with the definition.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Actually I'm embarrassed to say that we didn't know that was supported in 3.2.94 - checking the logs it seems like it was an unintentional side effect of the dictionary launcher shortcut we used to offer, which we got rid of in 3.2.95 when it stopped being possible to create shortcuts like that on newer Android versions.

The intended way to share text with the regular Pleco dictionary search box is the "Pleco" option that should appear at the end of the text selection menu. Is that not appearing on your device? Maybe next to or under 'web search'?
 

aless

Member
I've checked, and the Pleco option in the text selection menu is present also in 3.2.94. It seems that the apps I am using use the share intents, and not the option in the context menu. One app is a markdown editor/viewer called Markor, the selection menu is customized and the Pleco option does not appear. The other one is an ebook reader called KOreader, it has an option to select which dictionary app to share the selection to, but it seems to source the list from the share intents, because if I use version 3.2.94 I can choose Pleco dictionary, but in later versions only the reader option is available. Other apps, like Firefox for example, show the Pleco option under the three dots menu.

I've found a post on Reddit where a user says some apps (including Pleco) disappeared from its context menu (under the three dots) while using AnkiDroid.

So the issue seems to depend on each app.
 
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