PlecoDict.prc location

lmcjipo

榜眼
Hi Mike,

I've been using PlecoDict for about 8 months now and about 2 of these months have been on my Treo 650 (previously used it on my old Treo 600 before I sold it).

I just noticed on my Treo 650 that I installed the PlecoDict.prc file on the SD card and it works. I'm not sure how this happened but besides PlecoDict.prc, the following files are also installed on the SD card (/PALM/Launcher): PlecoDict Instant Access and Radicals.

I probably did a manual install during the transferring of my programs (fresh/clean install) from my Treo 600 to my Treo 650.

I don't really want to move PlecoDict.prc (~344K) to my Treo 650's main memory because I barely have 4MB of main memory left on my device and everything that can be moved/launched from my SD card is already on my SD card. The only issue that I noticed with the installation that I did is that launching PlecoDict takes about 1 second longer (it isn't instantaneous) when I compare it with my friend's trial version of PlecoDict on his TX. This is the normal behaviour when I run things directly from the memory card.

Do you see any issues with the set-up as I've explained it?
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
It should be OK, once the application gets loaded into memory (which is what's happening during that 1-second delay) there's basically no difference between launching it from a card and launching it from main memory. The main problem I can think of is that changes you make the preferences files might not always be saved out correctly - we've had a number of instances where people who move the software to a memory card have the software reset itself to a demo version or have settings changes disappear when they run the software again. But it should be easy to fix those by moving the file back into main memory and re-running PDUnlock.
 

lmcjipo

榜眼
Hi Mike,

Thanks for the answer.

I was beginning to worry after browsing through the manual again when my friend installed the demo version of PlecoDict on his TX. He had picked the automated install and selected the "Install to Memory Card of Present".

Being the computer geek that I am, I've always installed PalmOS programs on my PDA manually when given the choice/chance. When I checked his installation, I noticed that PlecoDict.prc was installed on his TX's main memory along with the Radicals file and the Instant Access File whereas when I installed it on my Treo 650 manually, I guess that I placed all 3 of these files on my SD memory card.

I checked the manual and it stated in bold that PlecoDict.prc must be installed in main memory as well as the HWR Library database/module. This was why I was wondering whether my set-up would cause me any problems.

Since PlecoDict.prc can be run from external memory, has anyone ever tried copying the HWR (Handwriting Recognition) portion(s) to the memory card to see if it will actually work? What will happen? I am too chicken to try it myself :wink: after spending all my time customizing my Treo 650 perfectly to the way I like it, I don't want to run into any issues with it. Would it make a difference if I used an 3rd party launcher since I noticed that the 3rd party launcher that I'm currently using seems to temporarily copy the application file and associated data files from external memory into main memory before running it. Once I exit the application, it seems to move the application file and the associated data files back to the external memory.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Yes, we say that in the manual because of that possibility of screwing up the preferences - it's almost always better to err on the side of caution with instruction manuals.

The handwriting database definitely won't work from the memory card - the handwriting recognition engine we licensed doesn't support external memory cards, so absent a hack like the old OS4 MSMount there's really no way to run it from there.
 

lmcjipo

榜眼
Took risk/chance

Hi Mike,

After reading your post and seeing that it might be possible to have the PlecoDict HWR file on my SD memory card using the program hack that you suggested, I decided to take a backup of my Treo 650 using a hotsynch as well as using a backup program (to my SD memory card) before conducting a test with my 3rd party launcher.

After having 2 backups of my Treo 650 (one on my computer and one on the SD memory card), I used my 3rd party launcher and moved all of PlecoDict (main PRC file, flashcard file, HWR file, etc.) to my SD memory card. I then used my 3rd party launcher and attempted to start PlecoDict. It started up without any problems (other than the slightly longer time to start it up).

I tried the handwriting recognition and it worked. The only issue that I noticed is that after I click on the "recognize" button, the space where I handwrote the character turns blank but PlecoDict returns a list of characters that most closely matches what I handwrote.

I then tried my flashcards and they also seemed to work.

From what I see, the 3rd party launcher that I'm using basically copies all the associated files to RAM before running a specific program/application. In the case of PlecoDict, it copies about 5 files to RAM and then launches the PlecoDict.PRC file

This "extends" the available RAM on my Treo 650 from 4.5MB to over 5.5MB. Of course when PlecoDict is actually running on my Treo 650, the available RAM is a lot lower since these 5 files are actually back in RAM. Once I exit PlecoDict, any changes that were made to the files (most often the flashcard file) is/are moved back to the SD memory card. Files that weren't changed are deleted from the Treo 650's internal memory and not copied back to the SD memory card.


A few negative things about my set-up as I can currently see it is

1) I only have 1 copy of my flashcards. Under the old set-up, I had 3 copies of my flashcard at all times (1 on my computer via hotsynch, 1 on my SD memory card via automated backup, and 1 on my Treo 650's internal RAM). Even though my Treo 650 is set to automatically back itself up at certain times, because the flashcards are now on the SD card, these don't get backed up. They also don't get backed up onto my PC when I initiate a hotsynch. I've "solved" this issue by manually making a back-up of my flashcards. I also have the original flashcard text file that was imported into PlecoDict.

2) Starting PlecoDict takes a little longer (but I don't mind this delay). Depending on what I was using PlecoDict for, exiting PlecoDict also might take a bit longer.

3) In the event that the available RAM on my Treo 650 is taken up and PlecoDict cannot load itself into RAM, I'm sure that my Treo 650 will go into a cyclic reboot (which is what happened with another large program that I was using). What happened with this large program was that after it tried to copy itself to RAM, it complained that there wasn't enough memory and initiated a soft reset. After the soft reset, there was a message immediately on my Treo 650 stating that there wasn't enough RAM and it re-initiated a soft reset. It kept repeating this until I manually initiated a hard reset.

4) In the event of a random soft reset, I would lose my current flashcard session statistics since the flashcards in my Treo 650's RAM would be cleared and the next time I ran PlecoDict, it would use the old flashcard statistics. The flashcard statistics would only be saved properly if I exited PlecoDict properly.

5) Instant Access doesn't work (but since I don't have CJKOS or ChOS, I never used this feature anyways so it isn't a big issue with me).


I'm going to test this configuration out all of this week and if there aren't any major problems, I'll keep it like this.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Copying the files into memory would do it, yes - the recognizer doesn't load until after PlecoDict starts up, and it unloads well before PlecoDict exits, so as long as the files are in memory between those two points it won't even know it's being kept on a memory card the rest of the time. Thanks for the detailed info on this, I'm sure some other people will be trying it as well.
 
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