New dictionaries and comparative summaries?

[WangYuHong]

So, I think I'm confusing myself with all the different things I remember reading (but can't find again...)
I have a couple questions about dictionaries (on the iOS), and don't really know a good place to put them, so I'm just going to throw them all in here.

1. New dictionaries coming out?
I read in the latest update e-mail (Feb 6) that new dictionaries are coming out "soon" (including a good C-C dictionary, as well as one for Chengyu). Are these tied to the pending 2.3 release? Or can they be released individually and there's just something else that needs to be settled first? Do you have a final list of dictionaries coming in the Spring release?

2. Comparative descriptions?
Actually, nevermind... I figured out that there's an actual website (www.pleco.com) which has pretty good descriptions for the dictionaries... Any chance the forums can link back to it somehow? I didn't see a way to get back there other than going out to google or type it in manually...

3. Dictionary bundles / upgrading bundles?
I was curious if there's any plan to provide dictionary bundle pricing? Or any plans to change the pricing over to match the Android system? (I haven't really compared to see if it's better or worse... just different, based on the Feb 6 update e-mail)

For example, the ABC C-E and ABC E-C dictionaries are separate purchases... is there a bundle option to purchase both of them together?

Also, from the Pleco iPhone page:

The easiest / cheapest way to upgrade your copy of Pleco from the basic version is to purchase a bunch of add-ons in a discounted bundle.

I'm currently on the Basic bundle (back when I didn't know what all those dictionaries were for), but want to upgrade and get some more dictionaries now. It says the best way to do that from Basic is to get one of the other Bundles, but I don't see those options anywhere in the software... Am I missing something?

 

[mikelove]

1. New dictionaries coming out?
I read in the latest update e-mail (Feb 6) that new dictionaries are coming out "soon" (including a good C-C dictionary, as well as one for Chengyu). Are these tied to the pending 2.3 release? Or can they be released individually and there's just something else that needs to be settled first? Do you have a final list of dictionaries coming in the Spring release?

They are indeed tied to 2.3 - some of them need new code to support them (several of them don't have Pinyin, since you wouldn't generally care about Pinyin in a Classical Chinese dictionary), plus we're reshuffling our bundles around them and the best time to do that is when we release a new version. Also the improved support for multi-dictionary searching should be pretty much essential when you're dealing with 15 dictionaries at once.

No final list of dictionaries yet - there are actually 3 license deals still pending, all of which we're excited enough about to move things around in order to get them out ASAP if they come through in time.

Actually, nevermind... I figured out that there's an actual website (www.pleco.com) which has pretty good descriptions for the dictionaries... Any chance the forums can link back to it somehow? I didn't see a way to get back there other than going out to google or type it in manually...

That was a decision made a long time ago in order to protect us against potential Great Firewall issues - PlecoForums is on a separate IP / domain and has no links back to our main site so that if anybody ever posts anything that offends the Chinese censors we don't have to worry about having our main website taken down along with it.

3. Dictionary bundles / upgrading bundles?
I was curious if there's any plan to provide dictionary bundle pricing? Or any plans to change the pricing over to match the Android system? (I haven't really compared to see if it's better or worse... just different, based on the Feb 6 update e-mail)

Yes, that's part of why we're waiting for 2.3.

I'm currently on the Basic bundle (back when I didn't know what all those dictionaries were for), but want to upgrade and get some more dictionaries now. It says the best way to do that from Basic is to get one of the other Bundles, but I don't see those options anywhere in the software... Am I missing something?

Sorry, we really shouldn't say "basic" there - that page is referring to our free app as the "basic version," not to the Basic bundle. I've gone in and corrected it now so it's just the "free version."