Potential buyer questions

[dashanzi]

Hi
I'm using the MIT open courseware Mandarin course to learn Mandarin and came across your software after looking at handheld dictionaries from Besta. Specifically it seems Pleco has most of the features of those handheld dictionaries and one feature that I absolutely need that is the flashcards feature.

So my questions are:

1. Flashcards contain chinese, pinyin (optional?) and english components. Can the chinese part be pinyin or does it have to be characters?
2. For flashcard import what is the XML format?
3. Can Pleco be fully installed on a memory card? So that if my handheld battery totally dies I won't lose all the pleco settings etc..? I've bought myself a dell axim x50v from ebay just to run Pleco.

Regards
大山子

 

[mikelove]

1. Which aspect of the flashcards would you like to have in Pinyin? If you're creating a new custom card (i.e., not one based on a dictionary entry but one you compose yourself), you can enter that in Pinyin only (no need to supply characters), and when testing yourself on cards you can set up the system to show or ask for whatever set of fields you want (so if you want a multi-choice test where you see the Pinyin and are prompted for the definition, you can have that). But characters will still appear in a few contexts, like when you're seeing the full text of the card revealed after testing yourself on it.

2. It's a proprietary format we came up with - not a lot of sample files floating around in it yet, though once we've fleshed out a few more details about it on our end we plan to post an official schema. The simpler text-file-based import format is documented here (and is what we use in all of our website lists).

3. The data files can be installed on a memory card, but your preferences settings are stored in internal memory (in the registry), as are the flashcard databases; the flashcards can theoretically be moved to a card (the system will still find / open / access them), but due to Windows Mobile's heinously buggy memory card drivers we strongly recommend against putting them there (potential for file corruption / loss of data). There are some excellent backup utilities available for Windows Mobile, though, just do a quick Google search and you should see a bunch of them - Sprite seems to be the most popular one at the moment though I haven't tested it recently.

 

[dashanzi]

Mike
Thanks for the answers. I read a little more about the flashcards system. Was wondering if I'm importing cards via the text file import method, the // comment lines specifies the categories. Can I specify hierarchical categories there? e.g. say I have a file like this:

// MIT/unit 1
行<TAB>hang2<TAB>shop; firm; row also used for xing2 meaning to go; do; be okay as in 还行
...
// MIT/unit 2
fei1chang2<TAB><TAB>very, especially; unusually, e.g. jin1tian1 fei1chang2 re4! (it is really hot today); fei1chang2 hao3! (it is unusually good)
ting3<TAB><TAB>straight; erect, usage like very or really; e.g. ting3 hao3 de (perfect; great); ting3 bu2 cuo4 de (not bad); ting3 you3 yi4si de (how interesting)
man2 / man3<TAB><TAB>fierce; entirely; utterly / full, e.g. man4 hao3chi1 de! (delicious); man2 piao4liang ([she is] real attractive); man2 bu2 zai4hu ([he] does not give a damn (to care; be concerned))

In this case I have two vocab categories, one for unit 1 and one for unit 2, both under my MIT textbook top category. How would I specify that in the import text file? Also is there a field size limit for any of the fields? Sometimes my English definitions run fairly long.

Also I assume ü is v in these text files?

The reason I'm asking is because I'm storing my vocab in an XML file that I'm also using for an iphone app I've developed to display the cards on my iphone and I will be generating the flashcard file for Pleco from that same file.

Does that sample look OK for import to Pleco by the way? The <TAB> is a tab character, just highlighted for the example.

Regards
大山子