Pleco 2.0 Instruction Manual : Upgrade Guide

Pleco 2.0 Upgrade Guide

1. Installing and Unlocking
2. Transferring your Flashcards / User Dictionary Entries
3. Flashcard Converter Instructions

This guide explains how to upgrade to Pleco 2.0 from the previous version, 1.0. Both versions can be installed on your handheld at the same time, so unless your handheld is low on memory, there's generally no need to delete the old one before installing the new one.

Note: If you bought only our original "Oxford E&C Dictionary for Palm OS" software (which is what we sold before spring of 2005) and haven't purchased any upgrades since then, you'll need to purchase the $10 "Hanwang Handwriting Recognizer" upgrade (also included free with any new dictionary upgrade) in order to use handwriting recognition in 2.0; we no longer support the older recognizer in 2.0 due to the fact that it conflicts with / crashes on most newer Palm handhelds. You can purchase that upgrade through the My Orders page before or after activating 2.0.

Installing and Unlocking

1. Install the demo version of Pleco 2.0 to your handheld, following the steps in the installation manual (Palm OS version here, Windows Mobile version here).
   
2. Run Pleco 2.0, and a dialog box should come up listing your "System ID." Copy down this System ID. This ID is different from your “Device ID” in version 1.0.
   
   If you don't see a dialog box with your System ID, on Palm OS, choose "Ordering" from the Help menu to bring up a screen with that ID; on Windows Mobile, tap on the Menu button (bottom left corner of the screen) and choose Ordering from the menu that pops up.
   
   To lock Pleco 2.0 to an SD card instead of locking it to a particular system, bring up that "Ordering" screen and tap on the "Card ID" button to obtain your Card ID - enter that instead of your System ID in step 4.
   
   A note for Palm users: while the "Device ID" in version 1.0 of PlecoDict was based on your handheld's HotSync Username, the "System ID" in version 2.0 is based on its hardware serial number. This means that your keyfile will still work correctly after your handheld is reset, even if the username changes. It also means that you'll need a new keyfile if you replace your handheld, even if it has the same username; you can obtain a new keyfile for a new Palm OS or Windows Mobile handheld on My Orders without having to buy the software again.
   
3. Go to the My Orders page on our website and log in. Use the form on that page to retrieve your password if needed. If you no longer have access to the e-mail address that you used when purchasing Pleco, contact support for assistance.
   
4. At the top of the page, you should see a section called "Activate Pleco 2.0." Enter your System ID (or Card ID) in the appropriate space, click on the Activate button to activate your Pleco 2.0 upgrade, and click on the download link on the confirmation page to download your keyfile. Note that the file extension for both Windows Mobile and Palm OS keyifles is now .pdb, instead of .plk or .prc as in version 1.0, so it's perfectly normal that you'd see a Windows Mobile keyfile formatted as a Palm OS database file.
   
5. Copy your keyfile over to your handheld.
   
   To copy a keyfile to a Palm OS handheld, double-click on the keyfile to queue it up to install, then HotSync your Palm with your desktop to copy the keyfile over. You no longer need to tap on the "PDUnlock" icon to unlock the software, just launch Pleco 2.0 and it will unlock itself.
   
   To copy a keyfile to a Windows Mobile handheld, run the automated installer program, select "Unlock Pleco" in the "Choose Install" screen, and select your keyfile into the "Choose Keyfile" screen. If you can't use the automated installer, copy the keyfile over to your handheld the same way you copied over Pleco's other data files. Alternatively, on an internet-equipped handheld/phone, you can simply open up Pocket Internet Explorer, navigate to http://www.pleco.com/orders.html and download the keyfile directly to your handheld from there, or forward yourself the keyfile in an e-mail, download the e-mail attachment to your handheld and save it in your handheld's My Documents folder.
   
   If you run into any problems with the above instructions, see the "Unlocking Pleco" section of the installation manual (Palm OS version here, Windows Mobile version here) for more detailed ones.
6. Once you've copied your keyfile to your handheld, simply launch Pleco and it will unlock itself.
   

Important Note for Palm OS Users

For performance and stability reasons, Pleco 2.0 on Palm OS stores flashcards and user-created dictionary entries in a format that is not automatically backed up whenever you HotSync your Palm with your desktop (or even when you run a backup utility program). So if you make regular use of Pleco's flashcard or user dictionary functions, please see "Backing Up and Restoring Your User Data" for instructions on how to back up your data.

Transferring your Flashcards / User Dictionary Entries

If your system consistently crashes / freezes up when attempting to export your flashcards from 1.0, contact us and we can convert the cards for you on our end.

1. If you're using Windows Mobile, open PlecoDict 1.0 and then choose Quit from the Dict menu; this will ensure that it's completely inactive (and therefore that it won't interfere with the converter).
2. Install the Pleco Flashcard Converter utility to your handheld.
   
   To install the flashcard converter on Palm OS, install the file "Pleco Converter.prc" from the "flashconvert" installation folder like you would any other data file, by double-clicking on it and HotSyncing your Palm.
   
   To install the flashcard converter on Windows Mobile, run the automated installer program and check the box to install the "1.0 Flashcard Converter" item in the "Choose Components" screen. Or, with a manual install, copy over and run FlashConvert.cab just like you did with Pleco.cab.
   
3. Run that converter utility and you’ll be presented with the following screen:
   
   
4. The default options on this screen (as shown above) should be fine for most users; if you want to customize them, see the Flashcard Converter Instructions section below. Tap the Convert button to begin the flashcard conversion; on Windows Mobile you'll be prompted to select a file name after you tap on that button.
   
   If you encounter any crashes / errors during the conversion, contact us for assistance - if you can't get the converter working there are other ways we can get your flashcards converted to 2.0 format.
   
   If you’re taking this opportunity to move from a Palm OS to a Windows Mobile handheld, choose “External” from the “To” list at the top of the screen to export your flashcard file to a memory card – copy the file from the memory card to your Windows Mobile handheld and you can import it directly into Pleco.
   
5. After you finish running the flashcard converter, open up Pleco 2.0, choose “Open Flashcards” from the “Modules” menu, and tap on the “Import” button to bring up the Import screen:
   
   
   On Palm OS, choose “XML File (Int)” from the “Source” menu if you exported the cards to “Internal,” or “XML File (Card)” if you exported them to an SD card. Select your exported flashcards from the list of files.
   
   On Windows Mobile, tap on the “Choose File” button, make sure “XML” is selected in the “Type” menu, and select your exported flashcard file in that screen.
   
   The default settings on this screen (as shown in the images above) should be fine for most users, but see the Import section of the Pleco 2.0 instruction manual for more information on them. Tap the “Start” button to begin the import – it may take an hour or more for a particularly large flashcard file, so be patient.
6. Once the import finishes, tap on the Exit button to exit the importer screen (if it hasn’t already exited). To verify that your flashcards have now been moved over, tap on the Statistics button and check the card count it gives you.
   
   It’s normal that this might be significantly smaller than the number of cards you exported (as little as 50% or less in some cases) – Pleco 2.0 allows a single flashcard to be in multiple lists (now called “Categories”) at the same time, so if it sees the same card in multiple lists, it’ll combine them to one card (but still have that one card appear in all of those lists). This way, you won’t end up reviewing the same word too often, and as you learn the word better and your score on it improves you’ll see that reflected in how often it comes up in all categories.
   
   If you prefer to have all of your flashcards moved over without being merged, choose “Allow” from the “Duplicate Entries” menu in the Import screen before you begin the import and the cards will remain separate. (if you’ve already imported your old flashcards the other way, tap on the Undo button to undo that import [may take a while] and then import again)
   
   See the 2.0 Flashcard Introduction for more information about changes in the 2.0 flashcard system.

A Note on User Dictionary Entries

By default, custom flashcard definitions (definitions that you created yourself instead of linking them to built-in dictionary entries) in Pleco 2.0 are stored right in the flashcard database instead of being stored in a separate user dictionary. However, since Pleco 2.0 doesn't have a way to import user dictionary entries, the Flashcard Converter utility outputs those entries (i.e., dictionary entries you created yourself which aren't used in any flashcard) as flashcards too; hence, in 2.0 they too would be stored in the flashcard database, and thus would only show up as flashcards and wouldn't be accessible in dictionary searches.

There are two ways to fix this. One is to check the "Store imported definitions in user dict" option in the Dicts section of the Import screen before you import your 1.0 flashcards; this will cause all of the cards with user-created definitions to store those definitions in the user dictionary instead of in the flashcard database. However, if you have a lot of flashcards that you'd rather not turn into dictionary entries, this method would end up cluttering up your user dictionary with unwanted entries

A better approach is to leave that option disabled, then after you finish importing your cards, do a search on the Manage Flashcards screen for all cards in the category "User Dict Entries" - the 1.0 converter puts user dictionary entries that aren't linked to any flashcards in that category. Once you've done that search, tap on the "Batch" button at the bottom left corner of the screen and tap the "Custom -> User" button to convert all of those cards to user dictionary entries (while leaving other cards alone). The cards will still be there, but their definitions will now come from the user dictionary database instead of being stored right in the cards; if you want to delete those cards (without deleting the user dictionary entries they now link to), tap on the "Delete all" button on that same screen.

To move an individual card's definition from the flashcard database into the user dictionary, select it in Manage Flashcards, tap on the 'i' icon to bring up the Card Info screen, tap on the "Edit Card" button to bring up the Edit Card screen, then tap on the "To User" button at the bottom of that screen to convert its definition to a user dictionary entry. To move a definition from the user dictionary to a flashcard, create a flashcard based on the user dictionary entry, open the Edit Card screen on it, and choose "Custom" at the top of the screen.

Flashcard Converter Instructions

On Palm OS, use the "To" field at the top of the form to select whether to store the exported file in internal memory or on a memory card, and enter the desired filename in the "File name" field.

On Windows Mobile, once you finish configuring the other settings, tap on the "Convert" button and it will show you a standard Windows Mobile save dialog prompting you for the name / save location of the file.

The other options are the same on both platforms:

Export free dict definitions: embed flashcard definitions from free dictionaries (like CEDICT, Adso, and those you've created yourself with MakePlecoDict) in the output file. This ensures that flashcards linked to those dictionaries will come through with exactly the same definitions in 2.0 (instead of being updated / remapped to different dictionaries). Cards with definitions embedded this way will be assigned to an extra "Free Dict Cards" category so you can easily find / adjust them later.

Export user dict definitions: embed definitions from user-created dictionary entries in the output file. Cards with user-created dictionary definitions will be assigned to an extra "User Dict Cards" category so you can easily find / adjust them later.
(including non-flashcard ones): also output user dictionary entries that are not linked to flashcards; these will be put under another extra flashcard category ("User Dict Entries") so you can easily distinguish them from your flashcards.
ONLY (no cards, just entries): output all of your user dictionary entries and just those, without any flashcards or flashcard data. They'll still have to be imported into 2.0 as flashcards, but if you enable the "Store imported definitions in user dict" option in the 2.0 Import screen (Dicts... section) and then Undo the import immediately afterwards, you'll end up with user dictionary entries and no new cards.

Export ranks as scores: export rank data from PlecoDict 1.0 mapped over to the new "score" system in 2.0.
Type: choose frequency-adjusted or repetition-spaced here depending on which mode you normally used to test flashcards in 1.0. With frequency-adjusted, the cards will have their scores translated so that they'll come up at the same relative frequencies that they would in 1.0, while with repetition-spaced, they'll be set up to repeat after the same number of days that they did in 1.0. The converter automatically sets this to whatever option you were using in 1.0, so if you're not sure what to pick here, just leave it as is.

Export ranks as categories: this will put all of the cards from each rank into a specific category (akin to a Pleco 1.0 list, except that a card can be in multiple categories at the same time). This doesn't affect the card frequencies / repetition-spacing's in 2.0 at all, and the card won't be move to a different category based on the results of your testing, but you can use this to check exactly how the flashcard converter translated cards with a specific rank to a specific score. And since it's possible to batch reset the scores of all of the cards in a particular category, if you don't like the way the converted score worked out you can easily change it after importing.

However, enabling this option will make the import into 2.0 significantly slower, so if you don't think you'll need it you should probably leave it off.

Export flags (as categories) - this translates all of your Pleco 1.0 flashcard flags to categories, so cards will show up under those along with your lists. If you're not using Flags in 1.0, it won't make any difference whether this option is turned on or off.

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