import glitch / edit card glitch

[haraldalbrecht]

Hello Mike,

I've finally found a small problem when either importing some cards or when editing a card directly within PlecoDict. The import was in UTF-8, but I don't think that this is important as the glitch also shows up when editing a card using "Command-E" or adding a new card on the Palm.

The problem seems to be related to the way PlecoDict automatically inserts an apostrophe between Pinyin syllables. For instance, can1 guan1 (参观) gets incorrectly a ' after the g and before the u (g'uan). A similiar problem appears for ban4 gong1 shi4 (办公室), where the apostrophe magically appears before the gong syllable, where it should not appear -- because a space is already present to clearly separate the two adjacent syllables.

The current work-around in both cases is to add a second space before the syllable affected.

Enjoy bug hunting!

 

[mikelove]

Yes, the space is the best workaround for this. The problem is essentially that we couldn't come up with an algorithm to do this that would be perfectly accurate and run fast enough not to make import operations take several times as long; however, on Pocket PC and even on newer Palms this is really a nonissue, so at some point in the next major update we'll rewrite this now almost 2-year-old bit of code to more accurately convert Pinyin between tone marks and tone numbers.

 

[haraldalbrecht]

Mike,

thank you very much for taking the time during the days to explain why the current "feature" is the way it is. I'm glad to hear that this feature is going to go, since it is (IMHO) unexpected behaviour.

My best wishes to you and your PlecoDict team and a happy new 2006.

To cite a chinese friend: 2005, the year of the rooster, leaves with bird flu. 2006, the year of the dog will come with ... fleas??

 

[mikelove]

You're very welcome! A lot of the 1.1/2.0 changes are going to be common-sense / polishing things like this, actually. (though of course there'll be a lot of new features too)