Tips on presenting Pleco?

[character]

My Chinese class is planning on getting together to discuss Chinese learning technology, and I'm trying to figure out what to cover about Pleco without getting lost in the details. Here's an outline of what I'm planning to cover; suggestions welcome:

Pleco platform availability
- iOS
- Android beta

Sales model
- Add-ons (maybe something about how different add-ons can increase functionality of other add-ons)
- Educational discount available

Dictionary
- Multiple dictionaries available, including free ones
- Lookup methods
- 'Hyperlinks' between character entries
- Character stroke order
- Audio

Flashcards
- Add from dictionary
- Multiple test types
-- Default
-- Tones
-- Others

Document Reader
- Import existing documents
- Tap to pull up dictionary entry

OCR
- Live
- Add to flashcards mode
- Image-based OCR
- Import to document reader

 

[gato]

How much time do you have? Your outline seems designed for a 30-minute presentation. Do you have that much time?

 

[character]

@gato, I don't think it will take that long (not planning on going into detail about all those items), but yes, I should have that much time. It's Mike's fault Pleco is the best tool for learning Chinese and has all these features.

I just don't want to miss some big feature. For ex, I realized I should also cover the web browsing.

 

[mikelove]

First off, really awesome that you're doing this - thanks for that.

I wouldn't actually bother with the Web Reader since it's not supported on Android (not yet, anyway) and is very little used on iOS - it falls into the category of clever-ideas-that-we-never-quite-were-able-to-get-working-well-enough-to-mainstream. The clipboard mode for it works great, though, and is quite easy to use, so the ability to easily pop up bits of text from the clipboard (taken from a web page or elsewhere) in a tap-to-lookup screen might be interesting to note.

Also, you don't mention flashcard imports, which are a pretty big feature since people like to be able to get vocabulary for their chosen textbooks.

But I think you're covering it really well in general - my main concern would be time, as gato points out.

 

[character]

Y'all were right; it did take ~30 minutes; 5 people gathered around a propped-up iPad. Afterwards I also briefly showed some other iPad apps, Wenlin, and the old Integrated Chinese PC/Mac software for Level 1 of their books.

This was the handout I made. I think it would have helped to include a Pleco price list and prices of various iOS/Android devices so people can make a quick buy/skip decision instead of wondering about it during the whole presentation. Hope this helps someone else.

Pleco Chinese Dictionary http://pleco.com
iPhone/iPod Touch manual http://www.pleco.com/ipmanual/
Forum for questions http://plecoforums.com

Pleco platform availability
- iOS
- Android version in beta

Sales model
- Base dictionary app is free; individual add-ons and bundles available for purchase

- Free and paid add-ons (some add-ons can increase functionality of other add-ons)
-- Flashcards (paid)
-- Additional Dictionaries (free and paid)
-- Document Reader (paid)
-- OCR (only for iPhone 3GS/4/4S on iOS) (paid)
-- Audio (paid)

- Educational discount available

Dictionary
- Multiple dictionaries available, including free ones
- Lookup methods
-- Pinyin
-- Handwriting recognition
-- Radical-based lookup
- 'Hyperlinks' between character entries
- Character stroke order
- Audio

Flashcards
- Add flashcards from dictionary
- Multiple test types
-- Default
-- Tones
-- Multiple choice
-- Stroke Order

Document Reader
- Import existing documents
- Tap character to pull up dictionary entry
- "Lyrics Reader" for songs/podcasts with included lyrics/transcripts

OCR for Simplified Characters (and 3,000 most common Traditional)
- Live
- Add to flashcards mode
- Image-based OCR
- Import recognized characters to document reader