Latest on Beta 5

[mikelove]

It's now been several weeks since my announcement about not making our June 5th release date (boy, that feels like a long time ago now) and still no new beta, so I figure I should make a more specific posting about this.

Basically, as I've mentioned a few times in the forums we really want to get people to start heavily using the flashcard system in the next beta, and as we go along we keep running into more or more things which need to be done before then; issues with dictionary entry unique IDs, major bugs that require schema changes, and features like, for example, traditional character support in the Standard dictionary (needed to correctly match some words to entries) which it turns out we really can't put off if we want that flashcard system to be fully usable and not run too strong of a likelihood of having people lose their data (or have it corrupted beyond repair).

So thanks to that Beta 5 has really turned into something almost like a "release candidate" version - one in which everything works and every bug we know of is fixed, differing from the finished version only in a few remaining bugs we still don't know about. Which is why it's taking so long. But the bug list is shrinking significantly every day, the system is getting more and more reliable (just added an "Undo" button in the importer, for example, which should be a big help when experimenting with new flashcard lists), and once we do get it out I think you'll all be very happy with it - on Pocket PC it should actually feel *more* stable / reliable than the current release version and even on Palm it should be comparable.

So no more botched guesses about release dates, but it'll be here soon and I promise it'll be worth the wait.

 

[Shadowdh]

Hi Mike... No problems... cant wait till its out...

 

[sfrrr]

I don't need convincing. I'm sure this next version will be worth the wait. That's why it's so hard to wait.

I look at my long shelf full of dictionaries, and marvel at how much easier it is to study Chinese than it was when I began this journey and all because of PD. I still need about a third of those books--pictorial dictionaries, gazetteers, etc.--but I could sell the rest. I could, that is, if I didn't have such a thing about books.

All I need now is one or more working, stable PD user dicts and I'll be in heaven.

So, yeah, sure, Mike, take as much time as you need to do this right, but hurry the @#$% up.

Sandra

 

[mikelove]

Thanks. On the user dictionary front, Adso has already been converted for 2.0 and will be out with Beta 5; CEDICT is a bit more problematic since it doesn't have a good way to uniquely identify entries between versions, we can create one eventually by manually matching up characters/Pinyin but that requires some extra programming that we may put off until after 2.0 is out. (we can't release that Adso conversion for Beta 4 because of a bug on the PDA side)

 

[tianma81]

Any new news on Beta 5? Any more on a release date? It's funny,...I don't need it; the old one works fine. But since you anounced it so long ago, it's hard to wait.

 

[mikelove]

Well the expiration date for Beta 4 is August 1st, so it would probably be a good idea to get B5 out before then, but I really don't want to disappoint people again with yet another missed release date - the bug list is shrinking rapidly but there are still quite a few big ones left and the data files still need some significant work.

 

[stephanhodges]

IMO, you should release a little more often. I don't say that so that I can "play" with things more quickly. Rather, because one of the purposes of the beta is to create a group of educated users which will help when the public versions (rc or release) are made available to everyone. Excluding show stopping bugs, I think you would make more progress with more frequent releases.

This doesn't necessarily optimize your team's coding time, but I think it would give you a little better time to market optimization.

This post was prompted by your comment that you "don't want to miss another date...". Well, betas aren't about dates for me (nor probably for most of the people participating), but rather about working the software and building a reliable product taking advantage of the larger group's expertise.

Of course, I have the utmost respect for your product and your development and management abilities. This is just an opinion with the sole purpose of consideration.

Stephan

 

[mikelove]

In general I agree with you, but the problem is that people just aren't using flashcards in the current beta, and it doesn't seem like they will until we can tell them with a reasonable degree of confidence that they won't be deleted / corrupted / unusable-in-the-next-beta. Until we're ready to say that, it doesn't seem like there's much point in releasing another beta - the flashcards are far and away the most complicated new thing in 2.0 and if people aren't using them we really aren't getting the educated-user-base benefit or the well-tested benefit. So that's the goal in Beta 5 and that's why it's taking so long.

 

[ipsi]

I hope we can get Beta 5 by my birthday (August 18) .

Either way, just waiting patiently.

 

[mikelove]

Oh, that won't be a problem - we absolutely positively have to have this thing ready for the new school year, so if B5 isn't out in a couple of weeks we'll just punt whatever features aren't working yet to 2.1 and release what we've got. (doesn't seem like there'll be very much in that category, but if people have to wait a few months to get, say, traditional character support in the Standard Dictionary the world won't come to an end)

 

[ipsi]

Good to hear. Though I'm over half-way through the academic year down here. Just started second half on Monday . If PDAs/Smartphones where a little cheaper down here, I'm sure I could convince a couple of my classmates to buy them + Pleco. Alas, they are not. Though I'm finding Pleco + EEE great for doing translations or watching vids or what have you.

 

[stephanhodges]

I certainly agree about the flashcards. I can't use what's there, and previous posts gave me the impression that there were too many changes still coming to effectively test things.

My brain must work a bit differently than many of the other testors, or it's just my old Zodiac Tapwave, but I find the beta 4 flashcards completely unusable.

Perhaps a checklist with the next beta of specific testing areas and scenarios as "part" of the testing plan.

 

[plecoUser]

...Though I'm finding Pleco + EEE great for doing translations ...

EEE? Am I missing something really obvious? What is EEE?

 

[ipsi]

Sorry, by EEE I mean the Asus EEE PC . See Here.

 

[mikelove]

stephanhodges - what part of them do you find unusable? Is it performance or just the complexity of the interface? We've made some tweaks that should help considerably on the latter, most significantly an "uncategorized" category for cards which reduces the likelihood of casually starting a session only to have no cards turn up. But in general we actually feel like the interface is easier to get into than the old system, since the options are grouped more sensibly and there's no more fiddling around with Ranks versus Flags versus Lists.

 

[plecoUser]

Sorry, by EEE I mean the Asus EEE PC . See Here.

aha! Yes the EE PC product line has become very crowded now. Don't know if you check out gizmodo.com.au or engadget.com but basically they have about 9 EE PCs now on sale (or coming on sale over the next couple months).

Anyway, back on topic...

 

[gato]

But in general we actually feel like the interface is easier to get into than the old system, since the options are grouped more sensibly and there's no more fiddling around with Ranks versus Flags versus Lists.

I haven't used the batas since Beta 3, but it seemed that the flashcard system as of Beta 2 was more complicated than under Pleco 1.0, probably a combination of newness and more options under 2.0.

 

[stephanhodges]

Simply, I cannot even add cards to the flashcard system. When it seems I DO get a card in, I can't find it anymore. Crashes frequently, etc.

I have a Tapwave Zodiac. I will send you an email with more notes, as well as a couple of pictures of the screen to show what I'm talking about with the notes.

But, really, it's not usable at all.

 

[daniu]

doesn't seem like there'll be very much in that category, but if people have to wait a few months to get, say, traditional character support in the Standard Dictionary the world won't come to an end

Hi!

Just wanna say that I totally disagree with this ... I hope that I am not the only one who mainly uses the traditional character support ...
If Beta 5 lacks major traditional Chinese features it becomes unusable for me ...
However I do not understand what "Standard Dictionary" means ...

regards
Daniel

 

[mikelove]

gato - the design has been changed a lot since B1/2, many of the options that used to be on the New Flashcard Session screen have been moved to a separate Advanced settings screen to streamline things when starting a new session.

stephanhodges - thanks for the e-mail. Between the Uncategorized search I mentioned and the restoration of the add-to-flash popup menu this should be a lot better in B5.

daniu - I was talking specifically about the new Chinese-to-Chinese dictionary, which in its original print version has almost no traditional characters at all - traditional characters should work fine in the 1.0 dictionaries, they just might not be working fully in the new ones.