Interest in a desktop preview version?

[gato]

but it had some HUGE memory leak and stability issues on the Mac.

That's more a Mac-specific problem, I think. It's works quite well under Windows, at least. I've read elsewhere that Apple decided not to put much effort into optimizing Java for Mac. Notice no Java for the iPhone, either.

Do you have the latest version of Apple's Java installed, by the way?
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/java/

 

[mikelove]

mongrel - thanks! That's about as strong an endorsement as we could ask for...

Smoodo - I agree with you that as it's designed now Pleco really is better suited to use on a PDA, but document reading is definitely something we're putting front in center in the "real" desktop version; Wenlin's great for that, and in some areas like rare character support / etymological info we're probably never going to outdo them, but I think there's potential for us to add some new things to the experience. Better flashcard integration, for example; highlighting words you know or words you don't know, automatically searching a document for unknown words and adding them to a new flashcard list, refusing to give you a mouseover definition for words you already know, that sort of thing. Anyway, that stuff's going to take a while for us to develop, so that's why we're interested in releasing something ASAP so that people who really want a version of Pleco on their desktops can get one without having to wait too long.

gato - Wenlin does this too, I think Smoodo's point was that was a basic sort of feature that we don't offer now but would need to offer in order for the product to be useful on the desktop. But yes, Apple's version of Java does kind of suck, which seems like a rather dumb move on Apple's part; if you're the #2 or #3 OS platform then you should pretty much embrace any technology that lets programmers write something once and run it anywhere.

garysaville - thanks! We're hoping we can do a better job too, or at the very least shake up the market enough that it inspires everyone else to work harder to improve their own products.

 

[hairyleprechaun]

Hello Mike,

Count me in! Of course the features I would appreciate most in a polished/finished version for desktop is syncing of the user dictionary and flashcards to create backups as well as to provide a more ideal interface for editing and creating flash cards and user dictionary entries. On top of that, a document reader with as many features as you can put in it would be appreciated. Oh, and did I mention a clean/intuitive interface like you have for the portable versions of Pecodict?

I guess that is about all at the moment!

Darrol

 

[cming]

No flashcard sync

Hi Mike,

Yes, I'd definitely be interested, assuming that you would be aiming for a flashcard sync once all the bugs are ironed out? Guess this could be a bit time consuming depending on the size of you flashcard list?

Cming

 

[mikelove]

Flashcard sync will definitely be in the finished desktop version, just not this preview - essentially we're not adding anything to the preview that isn't already in the Pocket PC version, all we're doing is resizing some controls and recompiling it to run on x86. We'll try to release a more definitive feature list for the "real" desktop version along with the preview, since I imagine a lot of people would only be willing to pay for the preview because they knew they'd get a free copy of that later version once it was released.

And flashcard sync should actually be pretty speedy; couple of database queries on the PDA to figure out which cards/categories/scores/etc have changed since the last sync, package those up and send them to the desktop which compares them with its own versions and then depending on the number of changes either sends the PDA a list of updates or just sends it a fully-updated database file. We're aiming for under 30 seconds for even a very large (10,000+ cards with multiple scorefiles) database.

A clean interface is definitely key, particularly given the lackluster interfaces on many of the current desktop Chinese offerings. The metaphor we're working with at the moment is vaguely web-browser-ish, the location bar replaced with a more powerful version of our current Input Field: something that pretty much anyone who's ever used a computer can immediately feel comfortable with. Particularly nice with a tabbed interface...

 

[laladui]

I'm also a current non-user that would be interested in a pc version. One question-- would a desktop version also include touchscreen capabilities for those pcs that support it?

 

[mikelove]

Yes, our license with Hanwang for the handwriting recognizer has already been extended to cover desktop Windows so touchscreen handwriting input would definitely be supported in the desktop version.

 

[beirne]

I'd be interested when a Mac version comes out. I've been a Wenlin user for a long time and like it, but the Pleco dictionary selection is much better and nothing much has happened with Wenlin in a while.

 

[mikelove]

Well I don't want to give away anything about Wenlin's future plans before they announce them, but they certainly haven't abandoned development and something likely will be happening with them in the not-too-distant future. And from what I hear it should be pretty cool...

We're certainly not going to let that affect our plans, though, and since we've now amicably resolved the questions I alluded to here earlier about ABC licensing on desktops, I think we should be able to very happily coexist in the desktop market; we'll keep playing to our strengths and they'll keep playing to theirs and I suspect a lot of people will end up deciding it's worth the money to own both products.

 

[Smoodo]

Education focused ideas.

Hi Mike,

That was a very good distinction that you made between what Pleco Desktop is destined to be and what Wenlin is. Specifically, I like the reiterated connections to flashcards and the central focus of learning vocabulary along side of the functional "read & understand" aspect. Those ideas you have are fantastic about showing/hiding etc. Color shading certain words in a toggle view to see which words are known least, better, good, best, etc would be pretty cool.

I really, really, really, liked the details in your response. That would make the product considerably more attractive.

However, at the moment Pleco 2 looks like it's coming along nicely. I cannot overstate how cool it will be when it's available.

 

[mikelove]

Thanks! And yes, our emphasis on the dictionary / vocabulary-building aspects of our software as opposed to Wenlin's orientation around reading/editing documents is probably the biggest philosophical distinction between our products.

2.0 is indeed coming along nicely, the Beta will likely still have a few gaps (flashcard "simple mode" will be missing, export and statistics will be shaky at best, XML import may be less-than-solid too, the hierarchical part of the document reader won't quite be done yet and the preferences screens will be somewhat temporary-looking) but pretty much all of the really cool stuff should be in and working.

 

[an1li4]

Desktop Version

I would be most interested in trying out the desktop version. I'm working on advancing to translator status and need all the help I can get.

 

[renovator]

I am rather new to PlecoDict and just love it on my I-Mate mobile. It is truly a fabulous tool for learning on the go and looking up characters I don't know. On my desktop, however, I use a product called Dr Eye which is very inexpensive translation software that does instant translation (amongst many other functions) as you move your cursor over words and will translate a highlighted line of text or a complete document in a matter of seconds. When communicating between the US and China by MSN chat, email , etc., I find this software indispensible.

Using desktop PlecoDict would be too slow, especially when several unknow characters are thrown at me in sentences that need prompt reply in MSN chat. I hope to not get a barrage of hostile replies from diehard PlecoDict users so please just look at this as my 2 cents worth as I believe that mobile and desktop applications often tend to be used for different purposes. The ultimate, of course, would be to have the PlecoDict and Dr Eye products merged into one product for both mobile and desktop use.

 

[mikelove]

We really aren't thinking that the desktop version would be a straight port of the PDA software to desktops; we'd be adding lots of new features too, including something similar to Dr. Eye's instant lookup capability. And leveraging the potential to sync data between the desktop and PDA versions, so you could for example see an unknown word in a document, add it to your flashcard list and then have that list end up on your handheld. The "preview" version would just be a simple port, since the goal on that is to get it out as quickly as possible so people can start playing with it, but the "real" desktop version is going to do almost anything that you might reasonably expect a desktop Chinese dictionary to do.

 

[Fleminator]

Does this thread just attract mac users? I don't know, but I want to throw my name in the Mac hat... hopefully the number of responses your getting from Mac users shows that putting time into getting the handwriting recognizer adjusted properly for us will be worth you time and effort....thanks!

 

[PeterP]

I also would be very interested - I tend to use the laptop more than the PDA, especially at my desk, so this would be very welcome. Thanks!

 

[The Duelist]

I'd Like a Mac Version. :wink:
But I'll Be Interested If It Runs Under Parallels For Mac (WinXP). 8)

 

[mikelove]

We'd definitely test Parallels support, yes, though really almost all Windows programs will run under Parallels in our experience at least; as long as we don't decide to add high-end 3D graphics to the flashcard system (walk through a dark, moody corridor, suddenly a tentacled monster jumps out, says "ni3hao3" and you're prompted to enter the Pinyin on a steampunk-ish onscreen keyboard in order to activate your handy portable flamethrower) it should all work fine.

Remember, though, the subject of this thread specifically is just about a preview version, i.e. a quick-and-dirty port of the Pocket PC release without really any new features or desktop-specific customizations. We're already very firmly committed to doing a "real" desktop version, this is just speculating whether or not we want to spend the month or so to get something semi-usable released ASAP.

 

[haraldalbrecht]

Mike,

here, interested too. Albeit:

• Linux support a must -- otherwise Wenlin would be an option
• 20% off is still a really heavy price -- even when considering the current dollar-euro exchange rate

If you are already planning a real desktop version, then I would like to ask for proper KDE integration for Linux (should be very easy to achieve). This could be achieved using GTK, which also works on Windows and Mac OS X. And GTK does also integrate into KDE rather good, as The Gimp demonstrated. But now I'm probably asking for too much, since GTK is a different beast than the crappy Win32 API and the WinCE API.

 

[mikelove]

Looks like Hanwang's recognizer is definitely gettable on Linux, so if we did decide to do a Linux version it could be pretty much identical to the Windows one feature-wise, but Windows does have to come first; even ignoring market share it's just a much easier port from Pocket PC. And OS X might come second since that's likely to be an even easier port from iPhone. (if we do an iPhone version, that is) The Windows version should be fairly Wine-friendly if you want something semi-usable while you wait, though.

And pricing for the desktop version is still very much up in the air, but since we have to pay all of the royalties all over again (higher than on PDAs in some cases, actually) and, unlike with the Palm-to-PPC switch, are expecting to cover a large chunk of the development/licensing costs from sales to existing Pleco customers rather than from adding new ones who didn't own PDAs that could run our software, I don't think the discount is likely to be much higher than 20%. You won't necessarily need to buy the same dictionary combination for the desktop version that you have on your PDA, though; if you have the complete ultimate whiz-bang bundle on your PDA but only want the desktop version for flashcard sync/editing and the occasional document reader session, it might be enough to only have the ABC dictionary on that.