Suggestions / BUGS PlecoDict

[Anonymous]

Hello.
Since I installed Beta3, the NWP dictionary is not accessible from the icon bar. However, it is still listed when I go to the Ordering in the paid dicts. list. Any suggestion to activate it again ?
Regarding dictionaries selection, is it possible to make it "more stickky" ?
In fact, switching from Chinese to English also reset the dictionary selection to ABC. Could it be possible to memorise which dictionary is activated in which language ?
Thanks a lot for your support.

 

[David]

On the same subject, sinceI switched from beta1 to beta2, when I select pinyin text and then activate instant access mode, the English dictionary comes up, instead of the last dictionary accessed. It sounds like I just need to turn off auto-detect input language, but the behavior is the same, on or off.

 

[Lonster]

Oddity in switching a cards list during a session

Not too sure if this is a bug or feature...but I think it is more in the bug catagory.

When in a flashcard session if you use the ? to edit a card, and in the edit card screen change the list that the card is in, when hitting the done button you are taken to a new card. I would have thought that when hitting done it would take you back to the "external view" (non-edit view) of the card. This later behavior happens if you change a flag on the card.

Why do I want to go back to the same card again...usually to mark whether I knew the card or not.

Thanks for all the hard work Michael.

Lonnie

 

[mikelove]

Lonster - this is a bug, actually a weakness in the flashcard system which we neglected to think of. PlecoDict stores the list of flashcards it's going to display as lists and card #'s within those lists, so when the flashcard changes lists the "link" to the card is no longer valid. I'm afraid that the only solution at this point is for us to disable flashcard list changes from within a flashcard session altogether in 1.0 - we will hopefully be able to restore this functionality in 1.1, along with (on a similar note) fixing the problem of flashcard frequencies not being updated during an "Endless Loop" session.

David - the auto-detect Preferences option only applies to the Copy to Input Field command, it's always on for Instant Access. But auto-detect should work with Pinyin as long as it contains tone numbers - does your Pinyin text have those or is it just the basic syllables? I suppose we could add an option to disable auto-detect in Instant Access too...

rene - is the NWP a paid or demo version? We made a change in Beta 3 so that if a paid dictionary is installed, PlecoDict will only go to a demo dictionary if you select it specifically by tapping-and-holding on the dictionary switching button and choosing that dictionary's name - we did this because a number of people who had installed the paid Oxford and the demo ABC/NWP were complaining about the demo messages in search results. But if you tap and hold on the dictionary switch button and then choose the NWP dictionary it should come up quite happily.

 

[Lonster]

Lonster - this is a bug, actually a weakness in the flashcard system which we neglected to think of. PlecoDict stores the list of flashcards it's going to display as lists and card #'s within those lists, so when the flashcard changes lists the "link" to the card is no longer valid. I'm afraid that the only solution at this point is for us to disable flashcard list changes from within a flashcard session altogether in 1.0 - we will hopefully be able to restore this functionality in 1.1

Mike,

For what it is worth....I would rather have the bug/feature than to lose this capability of switching a card's list during a session. I use this capability quite often to move a card into a special empty list so that after the session I can delete the card or do whatever. I find this a much easier way to manipulate cards, than having to sort through a long list to find that card again(duplicate or whatever). Finding a card in a list can get especially difficult as the list grow longer.

So please keep this little feature (my two cents worth).

Thanks,

Lonnie

 

[mikelove]

Well it's a little dangerous because it could cause a crash or even potentially some data corruption, but perhaps we can engineer a way around those... We'll see what we can do, but if it looks like it could threaten to wipe out somebody's flashcard file I'm afraid we'll have to axe it.

Really what we should do is improve the Edit Lists screen to allow you to edit a list of cards with particular features; that way, you could perform the deletion by setting a flag instead of moving the card to a different list.

 

[David]

I suppose we could add an option to disable auto-detect in Instant Access too...

I'd be happy with it permanently disabled, or if it just followed the existing option preference. It's not a big deal, but you have to admit that it's kind of annoying when software is too smart for its own good. If you use Microsoft office, I'm sure you're familiar with that.
If your customer service has any fault, it's that you're too responsive. It encourages me to come here and make a wish whenever I think of one.

 

[Lonster]

Really what we should do is improve the Edit Lists screen to allow you to edit a list of cards with particular features; that way, you could perform the deletion by setting a flag instead of moving the card to a different list.

Sure, that would also work.

Another thing that I thought would be nice to have in the flag department is to have a flag set or unset depending on how often you are getting a card right or wrong....in the same way cards are promoted or demoted in rank.

Why would I like this....if I continually get a card incorrect I would like a flag to be set so I could review the card in special review sessions. In the same way, if I am getting a card correct quite often I would like to unset the flag the review flag.

Right now I do this mannually, but I often find I am going into edit the card to set the review flag, only to find that it is already set. With a feature to allow people to set some flag automatically, this would be one think I could forget about during a session.

Idea for next version.

Thanks for a great product.

Lonnie

 

[mikelove]

Hmm... I'm not sure if this really makes sense with the flag system, but perhaps we could add an additional "card options" setting where you could review cards based on your recent performance with them rather than rank - e.g., you could review all the cards which you'd gotten wrong 2 out of the last 3 times you'd reviewed them. Then you wouldn't have to deal with flags at all for this.

 

[Lonster]

That would also be a nice solution.

Thanks for your thoughts and product.

Lonnie

 

[chaiusa]

import flashcard problem

Mike,

i got a export/import flash card problem. i will give you an example. supposedly, i export the word 汇/会合(it is collected like this) to text file format. when i import back, this word is truncated as 汇会合(the / seems disappeared) and no definition is showed in the flashcard.

i think you can fix it.

james

 

[mikelove]

Hmm... it looks like some of the new punctuation-stripping code we introduced in Beta 3 is working a little too well. This should be easy to fix, we'll simply delete the character after the slash (or two characters for two slashes, three for three, etc) from the exported text.

Thanks for the bug report.

 

[mikelove]

Quick update on changing a flashcard's list in the middle of a flashcard session: we decided to leave the option available, but now instead of moving the card to another list it simply copies it there (and leaves it intact in the older list too). When you're not in the middle of a flashcard session it still operates as before.

This seemed like a good compromise between removing the feature altogether and leaving it in with a serious bug. And since we've also updated the move/copy card commands to work with the "don't duplicate cards in lists" option (the copied/moved card's statistics are preserved in the destination list) it shouldn't really cause any problems with the study method you've described.

 

[gandq]

hi mike.

problem is, i often find cards i want to delet during a flashcard session. if i want to delete the (custom) dictionary entry as well, i do that first and then move the card to a special DELETE list. if the card will only be copied now, this will result in my lists being full of unimportant cards and INVALID entries. not to mention that the feature will be completely unusable for reorganizing one's vocabulary lists if cards are just copied.

using the 'edit list screen' to reorganize lists is almost impossible if they contain more than just a few dozen cards (screen is too small, scrolling only works with on-screen buttons, only headwords are visible, etc.). i only use it to delete the cards in my DELETE list.

doing reorganisation from the session itself is the best solution right now, to my mind. this could be done with flags eventually (in 1.1 or so), but until then it should remain as it is now, i think.

btw, let me make a suggestion: how about a 'delete all INVALID cards in list' feature?

thanks,



jo.

 

[mikelove]

Good point. But deleting cards within a flashcard session really isn't a good idea - it will certainly screw up your card order and may even cause a crash. We didn't design a system to delete cards within a session before and we don't have time to do so now.

If simply copying the cards wouldn't help, then perhaps the best option is to disable this altogether but re-enable it if you check a particular box in the flashcard preferences. To which we'll attach a very scary-sounding warning message. That way the option will be in there for people like you who don't mind the risk, but we won't have a lot of people complaining about the bug.

 

[sfrrr]

Another feature request: Any way to get from Manage Flashcards to Start Session without having to go back to the menu? If not, that's my suggestion.

Sandra

 

[mikelove]

Good idea... we're going to be heavily redesigning the management portion of the flashcard interface in PlecoDict 1.1, I think; most of the current system is very close to what we had in Oxford E&C and it could really use some improvement.

 

[sfrrr]

As I was using my flashcards this morning, I realized that I intuitively went to the add-to-flashcards icon to open a flashcard session. So, maybe it makes sense to put the management and start session applets into the flashcard icon's dropdown menu too.

Also, it would be nice to be able to stop a session in mid-stream and then return to it later. (I.e. save a session.)

Also, it would be cool to be able to enable an autofill option, so that, e.g., when I start writing, say, L, it takes me to all the Ls; then U, it takes me to all the LUs; then X and it takes me to LU X words, etc. This may be a bear to implement, but a lot of PPC programs have this feature.

Also, I would like to be able to add a sample sentences to my flashcard word as well as make a whole sentence into flashcard.

That's all I remember for now, but since I spend my life on one computing device or another, I'll probably come up with more. But without a single improvement, PlecoDict would still be my constant companion.

Sandra

 

[bryant]

Suggestions

I've only been using the flashcards for just over a week and I reckon it has to be one of the best computer aided teaching tools ever.

I would just like to support what Sandra has said about being able to add a sample sentence. I am currently creating paper flashcards with sample sentences from the ABC dictionary. It would be very handy to be able to copy a sample sentence from the dictionary and add it to a 3 sided flashcard - PinYin, English and Chinese.

Keep up the great work.

Bryant

 

[KangSir]

Gandq- I'm curious as to why you want to delete flashcards so often. Since the rank system enables you review a card less and less frequently, perhaps you could try setting your last rank level to say every 999 days. then at least you wouldn't have to look at it very frequently.