Some of this could have been posted in the bug report topic, some in the feature request topic, but new topics have been posted with less reasons, I just thought it would be easier for Mike to reply to my requests if they are not scattered.
I am truly a hardcore Pleco user, it is THE reason why I bought an iPad (2). I use it (Pleco) up to 10 hrs a day. I have created over 10.000 user dictionary entries, and I am planning to add many more. I have read many books in the Reader and OCR'd several hundreds of pages. During the usage for over a year I have collected some ideas, on how to improve the app, and also some bugs, some of which have been fixed already (I obviously won't mention those here). I am not entirely happy with the Flashcards app, so I haven't used it much yet, but I plan to, when it gets updated. All in all I am a very with Pleco, all of these are just ideas for improvement, even if Pleco never would get updated (which I doubt) I would still happily use it. Some of the bugs I found long ago, I was simply lazy to write, for several I also found ways around, so they did not occur often. I'll try to report bugs quicker in the future. Anyway, here we go:
1. IDEA: USER DICTIONARIES, this one I promised to Mike long ago. The entire screen for editing user dictionary entries should be reworked a little, especially on the iPad, since there is a lot of screen real estate. First of all I don't think that every field (Simp. Trad. PY. Def.) has to open up a new empty screen, most of the operations should be done in the very same screen. Allow the users to add a few dictionary symbols would be great as well (such as ①②③④⑤⑥⑦⑧⑨⑩ⓐⓑⓒⓓ ❶❷❸❹❺❻❼❽❾❿ ▷|~→ ◆○■⇒ etc.). It is also currently not possible to add character variations to dictionary entries manually (e.g. using a slash /). Or consider the situation of adding an entirely new word to the user dictionary (not found in any other dictionaries in PLeco). Go ahead and try to create an entry of, for example 显扬圣教论. Without knowing the traditional characters by heart, you have to check one by one and edit one by one, same goes for pronunciation. In Wenlin (sorry for bring it up) for example this is made a lot easier, both traditional (or simplified) characters and pinyin are added to the entry automatically. If there are ambiguities, Pleco could mark these (e.g. with color) and offer the alternatives. All these data are anyway in Pleco's database, as it can be found in the character details screen. If one mistakenly added the entry to the wrong user dictionary, it is quite difficult to move it to another user dictionary, maybe the dictionary selection should be done only after clicking on the Save button, using a pop-up window (only in case more than one User Dictionary exists of course).
2. BUG: When editing a user dictionary entry, clicking on Cancel brings up a dialogue window, clicking on Switch Language on the other hand does not, all entered data is lost in an instant.
3. IDEA: Its good that the Reader has bookmarking function, but if the character size is set to a smaller number, over hundred characters appear on the screen, at least on the iPad. Even though one has created a bookmark it can take quite a while to find the correct spot in the document. It would be lovely if one could first select a word (or a sentence), then create the bookmark and Pleco would create the bookmark using the selected characters as Bookmark title and upon loading that bookmark automatically select the same text again. I know this would mean rewriting quite some code, but the bookmark function would become endlessly more usable. Not mentioning that if one changes the Font Size in the Settings, then the screen upon loading the bookmark can look entirely different. I guess Pleco currently simply saves the position of the top line of the documents. I guess this is good enough on the iPhone, but I think we need something better on the iPad.
4. IDEA: When pasting data from the clipboard into the new dictionary entry screen (e.g. the Definition field), the Paste button appears exactly above the button for going back to the last screen (btw. this button is mistakenly labelled as Reader instead of Back). Many times I mistakenly clicked the only slightly hanging out "Reader" (Back) button.
5. BUG: In Dictionary mode, if the keyboard is left open and one clicks on a word, for example in the Guifan Dictionary, the popup appears out of the visible screen area, one has to then manually close the keyboard and click on the character again. In such case Pleco should close the keyboard automatically.
6. BUG: User dictionary entries are often sorted erratically, I can't figure out why.
7. BUG: If one opens the user dictionary entry editing screen through the Document File Reader, it is impossible to delete user entries, although a pop-up dialogues appears for confirmation as usual. It is only possible to delete user dictionary entries from the Dictionary screen.
8. IDEA: When editing dictionary entries empty lines in the character screen or in the pinyin field should be deleted automatically. I often copy the pinyin and the traditional characters from another dictionary, this way always an extra empty line is copied as well, which has to be deleted manually.
9. BUG: When pasting the pinyin (WITH TONE MARKS) into the pinyin field of a user entry, it gets saved, but the entry can not be found through pinyin search. One has to open the entry for editing (at this moment Pleco converts the tone marks into numbers) and save again. Only now can the entry be found through searching for pinyin.
10. BUG: Undo button in HWR does not do anything.
11. IDEA: would it be possible to add word frequency data to Pleco? It would help a lot also in the Document File Reader to recognize words. Currently Pleco simply selects the next possible recognized "word" (existing dictionary entry). Very often this is an obscure and terribly rare word. I faintly remember that Pleco for Windows Mobile worked somewhat different in this regard, if one continued pressing the next word arrow, it jumped back and also showed another possible word separation. 的历史 gets separated as 的历 (dìlì: v.p. 〈wr.〉 ①fresh ②brilliant) and 史 instead of 的 历史 (lìshǐ: n. history; past records).
12. BUG: pinyin tone numbers above the keyboard react very slowly, both when editing entries, but same in the Flashcards Test. Also they disappear when splitting the keyboard into two. With the keyboard being splitter one closes the keyboard and clicks into the text again, the keyboard reappears, also the pinyin numbers do, on the bottom of the screen far below the keyboard.
13. BUG: If Pleco was closed, then after launching one goes to the Reader and clicks on a word (which is in the user dictionary), then on the Arrow "button" in the upper left corner, then on the editing dictionary entry button (the Pen), then Pleco immediately crashes. If one has already edited one entry through the Dictionary screen, then this behavior does not occur anymore.
14. IDEA: If checking the character details of a character, e.g. 聊 and clicking one of its components in "Chars-Components", e.g. 耳, then many hundreds of characters appear which contain this component. I don't recognize how this list is sorted, it is practically impossible to really find anything in it.
15. IDEA: In Document Reader it is possible to anchor the Popup Reader at the bottom of the screen, this should be also possible in the Web Browser in Live Mode.
16. BUG: Sometimes when reading a long document in the Document File Reader, upon reaching the end of it, a few lines hang out, to the bottom of the screen. Only through changing the screen orientation can these lines be made visible. But even then the text reaches the very bottom of the screen, when selecting the word, the popup reader (anchored to the bottom) pushes the text up a few lines, upon deselecting it jumps back to the bottom again. I think Pleco should allow the document the be scrolled all the way down, so that the last line of the text appears in the upper part of the screen.
17. BUG: Punctuation should not be the first character in a line, Wenlin automatically handles this, Pleco should as well.
18. BUG: When reading long documents in the Document File Reader, using only the "Next Word" Arrow in the right lower corner (which I often do), sometimes after a long time the selection suddenly jumps many pages. Then I have to manually find my way back in the document to my actual position. This bug has nothing to do with the loaded document or some strange characters or the encoding of the file. It happens practically in every document after long enough time. If I now and then deselect the current selection and select another word, then the bug does not appear. Only after using the Next Word Arrow for a long time.
19. IDEA: Changing the font size should be possible from the Reader, one currently has to switch to Settings-Reader-Change the Font Size-go back to Reader-close the document-reopen the document.
20. IDEA: I'd love to set up my own icons in the Reader, adding buttons most importantly for "Edit dictionary entry".
21. IDEA: "Open In…" button in the File Manager. Currently it is only possible to Move a file to another app through emailing it (e.g. to myself) and open the attachment.
22. IDEA: Dropbox support, I believe Dropbox offers API for this, tons of apps have Dropbox support already, some of them even have support for syncing (GoodReader).
23: IDEA: Flashcards should "Prompt for" Characters or Pinyin based on "Score Ranges". Same goes for what it should "Show" previously as question.
24: IDEA: OCR should support PDF, or at least numbered images with a "Next Image" button. Dropbox support would be also great here, copying files to the iPad is really, well… &$%&"§$%!
25: IDEA: the width of the Entry List vs. Entry Display could be adjustable by touching and holding the line that divides them.
So much for now, if you need screenshots of certain bugs, I will send them soon.
Sorry for the long post!
I am truly a hardcore Pleco user, it is THE reason why I bought an iPad (2). I use it (Pleco) up to 10 hrs a day. I have created over 10.000 user dictionary entries, and I am planning to add many more. I have read many books in the Reader and OCR'd several hundreds of pages. During the usage for over a year I have collected some ideas, on how to improve the app, and also some bugs, some of which have been fixed already (I obviously won't mention those here). I am not entirely happy with the Flashcards app, so I haven't used it much yet, but I plan to, when it gets updated. All in all I am a very with Pleco, all of these are just ideas for improvement, even if Pleco never would get updated (which I doubt) I would still happily use it. Some of the bugs I found long ago, I was simply lazy to write, for several I also found ways around, so they did not occur often. I'll try to report bugs quicker in the future. Anyway, here we go:
1. IDEA: USER DICTIONARIES, this one I promised to Mike long ago. The entire screen for editing user dictionary entries should be reworked a little, especially on the iPad, since there is a lot of screen real estate. First of all I don't think that every field (Simp. Trad. PY. Def.) has to open up a new empty screen, most of the operations should be done in the very same screen. Allow the users to add a few dictionary symbols would be great as well (such as ①②③④⑤⑥⑦⑧⑨⑩ⓐⓑⓒⓓ ❶❷❸❹❺❻❼❽❾❿ ▷|~→ ◆○■⇒ etc.). It is also currently not possible to add character variations to dictionary entries manually (e.g. using a slash /). Or consider the situation of adding an entirely new word to the user dictionary (not found in any other dictionaries in PLeco). Go ahead and try to create an entry of, for example 显扬圣教论. Without knowing the traditional characters by heart, you have to check one by one and edit one by one, same goes for pronunciation. In Wenlin (sorry for bring it up) for example this is made a lot easier, both traditional (or simplified) characters and pinyin are added to the entry automatically. If there are ambiguities, Pleco could mark these (e.g. with color) and offer the alternatives. All these data are anyway in Pleco's database, as it can be found in the character details screen. If one mistakenly added the entry to the wrong user dictionary, it is quite difficult to move it to another user dictionary, maybe the dictionary selection should be done only after clicking on the Save button, using a pop-up window (only in case more than one User Dictionary exists of course).
2. BUG: When editing a user dictionary entry, clicking on Cancel brings up a dialogue window, clicking on Switch Language on the other hand does not, all entered data is lost in an instant.
3. IDEA: Its good that the Reader has bookmarking function, but if the character size is set to a smaller number, over hundred characters appear on the screen, at least on the iPad. Even though one has created a bookmark it can take quite a while to find the correct spot in the document. It would be lovely if one could first select a word (or a sentence), then create the bookmark and Pleco would create the bookmark using the selected characters as Bookmark title and upon loading that bookmark automatically select the same text again. I know this would mean rewriting quite some code, but the bookmark function would become endlessly more usable. Not mentioning that if one changes the Font Size in the Settings, then the screen upon loading the bookmark can look entirely different. I guess Pleco currently simply saves the position of the top line of the documents. I guess this is good enough on the iPhone, but I think we need something better on the iPad.
4. IDEA: When pasting data from the clipboard into the new dictionary entry screen (e.g. the Definition field), the Paste button appears exactly above the button for going back to the last screen (btw. this button is mistakenly labelled as Reader instead of Back). Many times I mistakenly clicked the only slightly hanging out "Reader" (Back) button.
5. BUG: In Dictionary mode, if the keyboard is left open and one clicks on a word, for example in the Guifan Dictionary, the popup appears out of the visible screen area, one has to then manually close the keyboard and click on the character again. In such case Pleco should close the keyboard automatically.
6. BUG: User dictionary entries are often sorted erratically, I can't figure out why.
7. BUG: If one opens the user dictionary entry editing screen through the Document File Reader, it is impossible to delete user entries, although a pop-up dialogues appears for confirmation as usual. It is only possible to delete user dictionary entries from the Dictionary screen.
8. IDEA: When editing dictionary entries empty lines in the character screen or in the pinyin field should be deleted automatically. I often copy the pinyin and the traditional characters from another dictionary, this way always an extra empty line is copied as well, which has to be deleted manually.
9. BUG: When pasting the pinyin (WITH TONE MARKS) into the pinyin field of a user entry, it gets saved, but the entry can not be found through pinyin search. One has to open the entry for editing (at this moment Pleco converts the tone marks into numbers) and save again. Only now can the entry be found through searching for pinyin.
10. BUG: Undo button in HWR does not do anything.
11. IDEA: would it be possible to add word frequency data to Pleco? It would help a lot also in the Document File Reader to recognize words. Currently Pleco simply selects the next possible recognized "word" (existing dictionary entry). Very often this is an obscure and terribly rare word. I faintly remember that Pleco for Windows Mobile worked somewhat different in this regard, if one continued pressing the next word arrow, it jumped back and also showed another possible word separation. 的历史 gets separated as 的历 (dìlì: v.p. 〈wr.〉 ①fresh ②brilliant) and 史 instead of 的 历史 (lìshǐ: n. history; past records).
12. BUG: pinyin tone numbers above the keyboard react very slowly, both when editing entries, but same in the Flashcards Test. Also they disappear when splitting the keyboard into two. With the keyboard being splitter one closes the keyboard and clicks into the text again, the keyboard reappears, also the pinyin numbers do, on the bottom of the screen far below the keyboard.
13. BUG: If Pleco was closed, then after launching one goes to the Reader and clicks on a word (which is in the user dictionary), then on the Arrow "button" in the upper left corner, then on the editing dictionary entry button (the Pen), then Pleco immediately crashes. If one has already edited one entry through the Dictionary screen, then this behavior does not occur anymore.
14. IDEA: If checking the character details of a character, e.g. 聊 and clicking one of its components in "Chars-Components", e.g. 耳, then many hundreds of characters appear which contain this component. I don't recognize how this list is sorted, it is practically impossible to really find anything in it.
15. IDEA: In Document Reader it is possible to anchor the Popup Reader at the bottom of the screen, this should be also possible in the Web Browser in Live Mode.
16. BUG: Sometimes when reading a long document in the Document File Reader, upon reaching the end of it, a few lines hang out, to the bottom of the screen. Only through changing the screen orientation can these lines be made visible. But even then the text reaches the very bottom of the screen, when selecting the word, the popup reader (anchored to the bottom) pushes the text up a few lines, upon deselecting it jumps back to the bottom again. I think Pleco should allow the document the be scrolled all the way down, so that the last line of the text appears in the upper part of the screen.
17. BUG: Punctuation should not be the first character in a line, Wenlin automatically handles this, Pleco should as well.
18. BUG: When reading long documents in the Document File Reader, using only the "Next Word" Arrow in the right lower corner (which I often do), sometimes after a long time the selection suddenly jumps many pages. Then I have to manually find my way back in the document to my actual position. This bug has nothing to do with the loaded document or some strange characters or the encoding of the file. It happens practically in every document after long enough time. If I now and then deselect the current selection and select another word, then the bug does not appear. Only after using the Next Word Arrow for a long time.
19. IDEA: Changing the font size should be possible from the Reader, one currently has to switch to Settings-Reader-Change the Font Size-go back to Reader-close the document-reopen the document.
20. IDEA: I'd love to set up my own icons in the Reader, adding buttons most importantly for "Edit dictionary entry".
21. IDEA: "Open In…" button in the File Manager. Currently it is only possible to Move a file to another app through emailing it (e.g. to myself) and open the attachment.
22. IDEA: Dropbox support, I believe Dropbox offers API for this, tons of apps have Dropbox support already, some of them even have support for syncing (GoodReader).
23: IDEA: Flashcards should "Prompt for" Characters or Pinyin based on "Score Ranges". Same goes for what it should "Show" previously as question.
24: IDEA: OCR should support PDF, or at least numbered images with a "Next Image" button. Dropbox support would be also great here, copying files to the iPad is really, well… &$%&"§$%!
25: IDEA: the width of the Entry List vs. Entry Display could be adjustable by touching and holding the line that divides them.
So much for now, if you need screenshots of certain bugs, I will send them soon.
Sorry for the long post!