Pleco 2.0 Instruction Manual : Version History

Version History

2.0.7

New Features

• Overhauled the Pinyin search system to no longer require spaces / apostrophes / tone numbers before syllables that begin with vowels. It will always do this in cases like "tiananmen" where there's no valid Pinyin parsing otherwise ("tiananmen," e.g., since "tia" isn't a Pinyin syllable and hence "tia nan men" is impossible), and with the new "Flexible syllable splits" option in Settings / Dictionary / Search Types enabled (as it is by default), it'll work regardless; e.g. "xian" will now match both the single syllable "xian" and the mutli-syllable "Xi'an."
• Added an option to add an exit "X" button to the top right corner of the main dictionary and Char Info screens - tapping on this will immediately drop you back to the root dictionary / reader view. (Settings / Dictionary / Main Interface / "Exit btn everywhere")
• Also added an option to add a search button in that spot instead of an exit button; (Settings / Dictionary / Main Interface / "Search instead" after "Exit btn everywhere" is enabled). Tapping on that button will jump to the main dictionary view and do a search on the currently displayed character or headword. (it also moves the magnifying glass icon in the popup reader to the rightmost slot, so that it lines up with the button in other screens)
• Added an option to open up the search input field upon returning to the main screen, from a search (General / Popup Reader / "Search btn open input") or from the Exit button above (Settings / Dictionary / Main Interface / "Open input on exit").
• Added a new option to integrate full-text search into regular English-Chinese / Chinese-English searches. ("Integrate in E-C / C-E srch" under Settings / Dictionary / Search Types) With this enabled, after switching through all of your E-C / C-E dictionaries, the software will automatically try a full-text search of dictionaries in the opposite language.
• Added an option to open the input bar immediately on application startup, under Settings / General / Startup Search.
• Added a new color scheme option to change the handwriting recognizer stroke color to white when in transparent mode, useful for using transparent handwriting with Night Mode colors.
• Added a new option (General / Popup Reader / "Exit on jump / info") to exit the popup reader view (hide it and its associated toolbars) when entering the separate definition or Character Info screen, reducing the number of button taps required to go back after returning from that separate screen.
  

Feature Changes

• Changed the keyboard "tone bar" to insert tones at the current insertion point location rather than the end of the current input text. The downside of this is that tapping on a tone button will now always insert a new character, rather than replacing the current tone if the last character in the input already is a tone number. If you prefer the old behavior, you can re-enable it under Settings / Panels / Keyboard / Replace existing.
• Increased the number of recent searches saved to 200.
• Added an optimization to significantly speed up performance when only reading out a small subset of a dictionary entry; this will really make a difference with flashcards (almost doubles the speed of flashcard imports), but for now will mainly affect entry list rendering when some fields are disabled (e.g. if you only set a list to show "Head").
• Inverted the colors of the "Duplicate Word" message for adding words to the wordlist, to make it easier to spot.
• Rearranged the Dictionary panel in Settings to split "Search Settings" into two separate panels (input and results), and change "Main Screen Layout" to "Overall Interface."
• Enabled full-text E-C searches to search for partially-completed words all the time, not just when no E-C dictionaries are installed.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused music / other audio playing in the background to be stopped when playing audio for dictionary entries.
• Fixed a bug that would prevent PDF and Word document files from opening up correctly in the document reader (they'd generate a download prompt instead).
• Fixed a bug that prevented stroke count numbers from displaying correctly in the radical table on iPhone OS 3.0.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the "fade" option from working correctly in stroke order diagrams.
• Fixed a bug that caused the search input bar to be missing its second row of buttons when returning to the main dictionary view via the popup reader magnifying glass button.
• Fixed a bug that caused an audio instead of a clipboard icon to show up for the optional "copy" command in the popup reader.
• Fixed a bug that prevented some links from working correctly in landscape orientation / definition-on-main-screen mode.
• Fixed a bug that prevented entries reached by tapping on links in the main dictionary view from being saved to history correctly.
• Fixed a bug in Char Info that prevented dictionary definition views spawned from the "Words" tab from allowing you to switch to a different dictionary.
• Fixed a bug that at certain font sizes could cause the height of dictionary entry list items to be incorrectly calculated (resulting in their text being cut off or in a large amount of white space appearing below each item).
• Fixed a bug that could cause text in entry list items to overlap the > icon / button in some cases.
• Fixed a bug that, with the "search only on clear" option enabled in transparent handwriting recognition mode, would prevent a new character from being searched for when exiting the handwriting recognizer.
• Fixed a bug that could cause crashes in certain rare cases when starting up Pleco for the first time after updating a dictionary.
• Fixed a bug that could cause an infinite loop / freeze in the document reader when opening a text file with *lots* of encoding errors (like a binary file accidentally labeled as .txt).
• Fixed a memory leak that could occur when exiting the document reader file browser while "editing."
• Fixed a bug that caused links in the ABC dictionaries containing extra punctuation to indicate tone sandhi to fail to work correctly.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the document reader web browser from going to the Pleco home page the first time it was opened.
• Fixed (we think) a bug that could occasionally cause some recent searches to be deleted from the search history.

2.0.6

New Features

• Added relevance sorting to fulltext English-to-Chinese searches; this can be disabled under Settings. Words are prioritized by whether they appear as the only word (or starting word) in a particular section of a dictionary definition, and words in definitions are prioritized over those in example sentences in some dictionaries. We've managed to do this in such a way that it has literally *no* impact on search speed, though it does require you to update your dictionary databases (through the "Updates" tab in Add-ons).
• Added an option to include an audio playback button in the popup reader toolbar.
• Added an option to include a clipboard Copy button in the popup reader toolbar; we haven't worked out a good way to do arbitrary text selection yet (the normal iPhone method interferes with tapping on words to look them up), but this will at least let you clip out a particularly-useful Chinese word which you can then insert into a text message / email / etc.
  
• Added preliminary support for rendering rare and Unicode Extension B characters in dictionary entries; with a database update this should now make every single character in the ABC dictionary render correctly. This requires the Stroke Order feature to be purchased / installed, however, since it relies on data in that database to generate its character outlines.
  
• Added the ability to render rare components in Chars / Components in Char Info; most of them can also be searched for, though they generally don't have any information available in Details.
  
• Addded a background grid option for stroke order diagrams, as already exists for the handwriting recognizer.
  
• Added a command to reset Pleco's color schemes to defaults without resetting other Settings.
  
• Added a Pack button to the document reader file browser, allowing you to wrap up a bunch of files / folders in a Zip archive to make it easier to download / email. (this is mostly in anticipation of our forthcoming flashcard-equipped version, where Zip compression will be important for faciliating fast / easy backups)
  
• Added an option to disable the placeholder "pulike" text that appears in the search input field.
  
• Added an option to restore the previous contents of the search input field when exiting / reopening the software.
  

Feature Changes

• Enlarged the tappable area of the popup reader dictionary switch / entry scroll buttons to make it harder to exit by accident, and slightly improved the speed with which it first comes up when tapped.
  
• Added the ability for the popup reader to detect that it's pointing at a multi-line word / phrase selection and move itself accordingly so that it doensn't cover up any selected text.
  
• Greatly improved the reliability of file downloads in the document reader web browser, so that text and other files which could sometimes be opened up in the web browser should now consistently generate a save prompt.
  
• Improved the system for choosing single-character dictionary entries in the popup reader, so that it's now more likely to pick the one with the most common pronunciation.
  
• Added support for U8 / GB / B5 / UNI file extensions to the document reader, with the first three automatically setting their text encodings based on those extensions.
  
• Added the ability to paste in text in the search input field even in HWR / Rad mode; just tap-hold on it and release and an Apple-style paste button will appear.
  
• Added the ability for the Wild button to respect the current insertion point position even when in Key input mode, rather than always inserting the wildcard at the end of the search input.
  
• Added the ability to remember / restore the last selected history mode (Entries or Searches).
  
• Color-scheme-enabled the Char Info Details / Strokes tabs, so cells in them will now appear colored just like those in Chars / Words, and added options to tint the background of the Char Info Details / Strokes tabs.
  
• Changed the default tone colors to make the red / green a bit darker and more readable.
  
• Added the current character to the top of the "Components" section of "Chars" in Char Info.
  
• Swapped the top / bottom parts of the Manage Dicts dictionary details screen, so the switches to enable / disable search / toolbar / etc access now appear on top.
  
• Made dictionary names still tappable to enter the dictionary details screen when Manage Dicts is in Editing mode.
  
• Improved the clarity / attractiveness of Pleco's version of the Apple text selection loupe for moving the cursor around in HWR / Rad input fields.
  
• Added the ability for the transparent-background handwriting recognizer to automatically re-enable when the search input bar is initially opened to it.
  
• Got rid of the "(built-in)" text for the document reader / handwriting recognizer add-ons, since it seemed to be causing a lot of confusion (the "built-in" actually just refers to the fact that there's no download required, not that the add-ons are already purchased / activated).
  
• Added a better error message in the document reader file browser when moving files to a location where another file with the same name already exists.
  
• Eliminated the scroll buttons from the document reader screen when in text editing mode.
  
• Added the operating system name to the tech support email form, and both its name and version to the information we send our server for registrations, in anticipation of future major iPhone OS updates.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an intermittent bug that could cause Char Info Details to be blank / missing when certain add-on dictionaries were installed.
  
• Fixed a longstanding iTunes bug which can cause prices in some regions (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, etc) to show up with Euro symbols when they're actually denominated in US dollars. This has to be configured manually in our download file catalog, though, so we may not have perfectly fixed this for all regions yet. (there's no 100% fix, sadly, since Apple's servers are telling our software the prices are in Euros even when they're not)
  
• Fixed cookie support in the document reader web browser in Live Mode.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the file dates on extracted zip files to be completely incorrect.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause occasional crashes when searching or scrolling through the 21st Century dictionary.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused the popup reader "search" command (magnifying glass) to fail to work correctly when returning to the main dictionary screen while it's in history mode.
  
• Fixed a bug that could occasionally prevent the popup reader bubble from appearing correctly in the document reader
  
• Fixed a crashing bug when exiting the document reader.
  
• Fixed a bug that would cause a save prompt to come up even after no text had changed in the document reader text editor, if you'd previously stopped editing and declined to save the updated file.
  
• Fixed a rare bug that could cause web browser downloads to fail to save correctly if you'd never opened the Document Files section of the reader screen before.
  

2.0.5

New Features

• Added the ability for fulltext E-C searches to search for partial words, matching on the first word in its database that begins with the search text entered, though this is currently only enabled when no dedicated E-C dictionaries are installed.
  
• Added the ability to listen to audio for single-syllable entries in the demo version (though this too requires a data file update through Add-ons).
  
• Added the ability to purchase Bundles even when a few of the items in them have already been separately purchased.
  
• Added an option in Settings for a simpler (boxy corners / no shadow) popup definition bubble, which should render a bit faster.
  
• Added a "Clear All" button to the document reader web browser history screen.

Feature Changes

• Added an extra two pixels to E-C Entry List items, which were a little too tightly packed and overwriting the inter-cell lines.
  
• Disabled the List Mode button when the dictionary entry history is visible.
  
• Disabled Radical input character-set checking by default, though it can be re-enabled through Settings; with it disabled, tapping on a simplified-specific radical will show both simplified and traditional characters containing that radical.
  
• Disabled reader "auto-clip on copy" by default.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a serious bug which caused Zhuyin / BoPoMoFo syllables to be incorrectly mapped to their Pinyin equivalents, making Zhuyin display / input useless.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented headword display settings (dashes / brackets) from applying to Entry List items.
  
• Fixed a bug which made full-text English-to-Chinese searches switch to to Chinese-to-English mode even when the text entered was still a valid English word (or the start of one).
  
• Fixed a bug in the document reader text editor which, when the "auto-clip on copy" option was enabled, would cause the clipboard reader screen to come up every time you entered a handwritten character.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause erroneous error messages to come up when changing pages in mid-load in the instruction manual.
  
• Fixed a bug in full-text E-C result highlighting which could prevent words appearing twice in a row from both being highlighted.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented multi-line text selections from being properly cleared when deselected.
  
• Fixed a crashing bug related to exiting the document reader web browser, or setting it to load the most recently-viewed page on open.
  
• Fixed several display glitches in the ABC English-Chinese dictionary (though this requires a data file update through the "Updates" tab in Add-ons)
  
• Fixed a few bugs in "Chars Only" language auto-detect mode.
  
• Fixed a bug in the About screen that could cause a very long list of copyrights to be truncated.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed document reader web browser history and regular bookmarks to be intermingled (regular bookmarks being moved to history, e.g.).
  
• Fixed a few small memory leaks in some infrequently-used screens.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused scrolling of items in the reader file browser to be unusually slow.
  
• Fixed a bug which could sometimes prevent the preview image that comes up when tap-holding on a handwriting / radical result from rendering correctly.
  
• Fixed a bug in settings that could prevent the "Alpha" background option from being made available when alpha handwriting input is enabled.

2.0.4

First release of Pleco on iPhone OS.

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