Flashcard Priority Search, I miss something.

Natasha

Member
Hello,

I create a lot of flashcards containing phrases to be sure to use my new vocabulary correctly. The system is very practical and I appreciate it very much.
Over time, I have more and more flashcards. What I’m trying to do is to be able to find all the flashcards in which a chosen word appears.
The "flashcard priority search" system seems to me a good solution. But unfortunately, I can’t make this option work. When I put an exclamation mark in front of the word I’m looking for, I fall into the classic definitions, not the phrases of my flashcards.
I’m sure I’m missing something. I’ve already searched a lot but I can’t find.
I also tried to convert my flashcards into my user dictionnary. But when I search for a word in the dictionary, it is the results of the usual dictionaries that appear in the list, not the sentences of my flashcards.
In short, how when searching for a word, to make appear all the sentences of the flashcards that contain this particular word?
Thank you for helping me out.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Sorry, all that search does it promote words that are in your flashcards - it doesn't change anything about the actual search, only the sort order.

With your user dictionary searches, have you turned on the option for full-text indexing in your user dictionary's settings under Settings / Manage Dictionaries?
 

Natasha

Member
Yes I turned on the option for full text indexing. But when I look for a (Chinese) word which I know it's in my user dictionary, I get the results of the usual dictionaries : PLC, GR, CC and OCC. No results from my user dictionary with my sentences.
Thanks for your help.

I join two screenshots.
The first to show that the full text indexing is turned on.
The second is to show the basic settings ( the two first one that doesn't appear but are also selected).
 

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mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Ah, sorry, I didn't realize you were looking for examples in Chinese; Full-text search in user dictionaries currently only supports English. (we mostly built that feature around people making their own dictionaries of Chinese words that weren't covered by our built-in dictionaries)
 

Shun

状元
Hi,

I've just added a unique expression to my USR user dictionary that could just as well be a full Chinese sentence, and rebuilt the index of the user dictionary, then I could search for this exact term using the hollow [C] Full text search feature. So Natasha should be able to just add all her sentences to the definition field in her user dictionary, as well as to the headword field, and Pleco should able to find the sentences if she enters parts of them.

Would that work?

Edit: No, I'm sorry; it only works if the beginning of the Chinese expression matches the beginning of the headword. Mike is absolutely right, of course. :)

Cheers, Shun
 
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Natasha

Member
Thank you very much for your answers.
But what would do you advise me to be able to this: As I told you, I do a lot of flashcards with sentences (in Chinese). They come from my course book.
When I do a search on the word 尽 管, for example, I would like to get all my sentences (from the flashcards) in which this word appears?
That way, I could remember how this word was used in an older lesson, for example, or more simply, in which context I have already learned this word.
 

Shun

状元
You're welcome!

I use sentence flashcards a lot, too, so I now tried something else: I searched for the expression "在山里" in all of my flashcards (by going into Organize Cards and tapping the magnifying glass button at the upper right, then configuring the search query as in the screenshot below), and indeed, Pleco found 34 matches whose headwords/sentences had the three characters 在, 山, and 里 in them (just not necessarily written together). So all you would have to make sure of is that all your sentences also exist as flashcards. You could also separate your sentences into categories and then search only inside some of your categories. You can also link the flashcards to your user dictionary if you prefer to have them there.

Search query:

Screenshot_20201014-131812.png

Search result:

Screenshot_20201014-131822.png

One disadvantage I see is that you cannot access the sentences as easily as through the Dictionary screen. But this setup also allows you to study the sentences. In addition, Pleco 4.0 will give us yet a lot more flexibility, I'm sure.

Hope this helps,

Shun
 

HW60

状元
@Natasha: Can you show a single flashcard and the text within the flashcard you want to find? I do not understand your problem.
 

Natasha

Member
@Shun A big thank you! It works! :D:D:D
This application is very useful to me and I will be able to make even better use of it.
I did not understand how to do a search in the flashcards. The screenviews you posted helped me a lot.:D

With the search on the word 尽 管, I got this, all my sentences including it. That's what I was looking for. I have already spend so much time trying and trying !! I should have come here earlier.

Screenshot_20201015-131004.jpg
Screenshot_20201015-131624.jpg


If I would like to follow your suggestion to link the flashcards to my user dictionary, could you explain me more about it ? How to do it and how should be the results ?
Thank you so much for your precious help.

@HW60 , here is one of my flashcards. I think that with what I wrote above, you now understand better the problem I had.

Screenshot_20201015-131711.jpg
 

Shun

状元
Hi Natasha,

you're welcome; indeed, Pleco is wonderful! ;)

You can search for the cards you wish to add to your user dictionary, choose Batch, then tap the button "convert all custom to user dict".

See these two screenshots:

AA4F4A94-BEC0-4E2D-8954-927010326178.png15569B7B-F2B4-4096-BFE9-C77255867EFA.png

I am in a bit of a hurry right now, I can go into more detail later.

Cheers,

Shun
 

Natasha

Member
I just tried.

I noticed that to find one of my sentences in my user dictionary, I have to search the first few words of the sentence. Then it works, the results show my sentences.
Screenshot_20201015-142753.jpg


But if I look for a word which is in the middle of a sentence, the results do not show me one of my sentences.
For exemple you see in the screen shot the sentence 因为新冠病毒的关系。。。
If I look for the word 病毒 which is not in the beginning of the sentence, the results don't show my sentences (even below) :
Screenshot_20201015-144030.jpg


Is this due to a parameter ? What could I do to get my sentences when I look for a word which is not in the beginning of one of my sentences ?

Thank you again !!
 

Shun

状元
Exactement, I was just going to write what you found out; as of now, you can only find the sentences from Dictionary if you enter their beginnings. But if you enter Western/French words contained in the sentence translations in full-text search mode, Pleco 3.2 should be able to find the sentences if they're in your user dictionary and it is indexed, as @mikelove has pointed out.

You're very welcome.
 

HW60

状元
@Natasha: I added your flashcard to my flashcards and easily found the flashcard searching for 尽管 - not in the dictionary, but in Search Cards (search for headword 尽管): finds all flashcards containing 尽管.

Now I added your flashcard to my user dictionary. If I search with *尽管, I even find your flashcard in my user dictionary
 
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Shun

状元
@HW60: Thanks, the first part seems to be my suggestion from above, but I wanted to report about the second part that "*尽管" only works if 尽管 is no farther right than the fourth character. ("*" wildcards 0-3 characters) "**尽管" also doesn't extend this to 0-6 characters, as I found out. Anyway, it's incredible how efficiently/quickly Pleco finds the sentence in Dictionary.
 

Natasha

Member
@HW60 Thank you, I didn't know I could use the formula "*...". It works indeed. And as you say @Shun, the searched word seem to appear if it is located in the fourth character of the sentense.
Thank you, both of you.
A last question and I don't bother you anymore : when will be released the version 4.0 of Pleco, any idea ?
 

Shun

状元
@Natasha No bother at all. I think yours was a rather good question that hadn't yet been covered in the forums.

On Pleco 4.0, what I as a user can say is, I prefer a stable and complete Pleco 4.0 to one that has been rushed out with headaches and bugs. This of course takes more time, but I can wait, since Pleco 3.2 with all of its dictionaries is already so useful.
 

HW60

状元
I prefer a stable and complete Pleco 4.0 to one that has been rushed out ...
I totally agree. But I found @mikelove saying in this forum "we're knee deep in Pleco 4.0 stuff right now", and that was on June 13, 2016. So I wonder if you were joking a little bit.
 

Shun

状元
@HW60: I was being serious. I think the story of Pleco 4.0 development went as follows: Mike wanted to rewrite the flashcard system. But to do that, he had to rewrite another part of the app. And for that to work well, he had to rewrite yet another part of the app. And so on, until most of the app was completely rewritten. :) But if it works well, as I trust it will, we can be happy about an app with a completely modernized engine—not just with additional features tacked on. Mike can provide more details, which I'm always interested to hear.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
We were knee deep in 4.0 in 2016 and we still are now. Basically:
  1. We were too ambitious and it wasn't really possible to trim back our ambitions once we were this far in without discarding the whole thing;
  2. We're spending an inordinate amount of time working on things not related to 4.0 (e.g. fixing problems introduced by new phone hardware / OS releases / etc);
  3. Personally I'm like 1/4 as productive now as I was in the days before my first kid was born in 2013 (pandemic doesn't help but obviously this pre-dated that by quite a few years), which exacerbates the 'too ambitious' problem since it wasn't necessarily that ambitious as judged by the standards of Palm/WM pre-kids-and-giant-annual-OS-updates Pleco;
  4. At this point, everybody who's upset about 4.0 delays is already more-or-less maximally upset - people who were furious about them in 2018 are still furious about them now - so the marginal cost to taking a little longer to get such-and-such right is a lot less than it would have been in, say, 2015. If you gave up on us and switched to Anki or whatever 3 years ago then it doesn't really make a difference to you whether we release 4.0 in 2018 or 2022, but it does make a difference if the thing we release is good enough to lure you back.
 
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