Messages

Achim's Android version does not yet support the UI translations (unless Achim already implemented that recently).

The Android version supports localization from its beginning, I just did not advertise this as I was expecting many ongoing changes.
It's basically stable now, check out the XML-files here:
view
download

Cheers,
Achim

UPDATE: links point to trunk version

Hi Gert,

I tried to further investigate into this matter and downloaded the source dictionary file from HanDeDict. But as this file did not include all the entries anymore (Glück, Gut, segensreich was missing), I could not trace the dictionary generation for this entry. Once I find other, suitable terms I may continue debugging the dictionary generation process (the free support for all times sounds promising  ).

Actually I found another problem that seems to make the auto-completion hard to implement: When trying to auto-complete a term in a dictionary with multiple contents (languageXContentY) it's hard to decide to which content to use for auto-completion, as some may be better than others.
For example, consider an entry "[01noun][02nougat]". If the user wants to search for nougat, he starts typing "nou". Now I don't know what to add to the auto-completion drop down field: noun OR nougat (adding both would again make the search for "noun nougat" return no results)

Because of this and the previous problem I'll remove the auto-completion feature and replace it by the JavaME incremental/search-as-you-type function. Of course, if someone finds a way around those problems I'm still happy to provide both features on the Android platform!

-Achim

[Glück, Gut, segensreich]

Hi Gert,

you are right, most parts I was guessing... now I'm sure, thanks :-)

You are saying, if you search JavaME version for Glück, Gut, segensreich (without (Adj)), the correct result is found. Can you try that again? On Android, searching for this string already gives no results...

Anyways, this is what I'm guessing:
There is some kind of Excel-Database that includes a row where we have two cells Glück, Gut, segensreich (Adj) and xing4 yun4 (Chinese characters omitted here).
Then we have a function that takes Glück, Gut, segensreich (Adj), that removes strange stuff and splits it into Glück, Gut and segensreich and links those three entries to the original entry which then is linked to the Chinese translation.
So if a user searches for either Glück or Gut or segensreich, that complete entry will be quickly found. But if he searches for the whole thing, the entry cannot be found as only its parts are in the search index.
Is that correct till up to now?

BUT now I take a different search term: gut, artig, schöne Frau (Adj). If I enter that complete term (including (Adj)) into the search on Android - surprisingly the translation is found...
I really don't understand what's the difference between those two search terms - why one can be found while the other cannot be found. Is there a problem in my implementation on Android? Or is that the same on JavaME?

Thanks for your patience 
Achim

[Glück, Gut, segensreich]

Hi Gert,

thanks for the extensive explanations! If I see it correctly, on JavaME we have a search-as-you-type feature, yes?

That's a cool feature. I was thinking maybe a complete search of the dictionary is too time consuming, so I thought let's make a auto-complete feature when entering search terms - similar to the one on Google.com: You start typing, some suggestions appear in a drop-down box, you click on one of the suggestions and then the standard search for the suggested term is performed.

Well, about your problem ... I guess I am already too narrow-minded in my views because of the JavaME version ... cause I do not really understand what happens in the Android version after the user "the user clicks on the suggestion":

So after a user clicks on one of the suggested terms, I perform a standard search on the dictionary using the suggested term as the search term. Does this help to answer your question?

To find the suggestions, the search is limited to break after 10 results or 1 second, to quickly show some suggestions. If I do a whole search right away in some cases it takes a while to fill the list...

But back to the formatting question: What happens, if you enter Glück, Gut, segensreich into the JavaME search field? Will it find the corresponding translation? Is this kind of search supported by our underlying data structure?

-Achim

[dampfs]

Dear all,

I'm currently implementing a search-as-you-type / auto-completion function for the Android UI. It works well for things like taking German->Chinese dictionary, entering dampfs it will suggest Dampfschiff, you click on Dampfschiff and the corresponding entry (as well as other matches) are shown.

But there are problems with more complicated entries.

Let's take again the German-Chinese dictionary. The user enters gut, the auto-completion searches the dictionary for gut* and suggests Glück, Gut, segensreich (Adj), the user clicks on the suggestion, the dictionary is searched for Glück, Gut, segensreich (Adj) and no results are found. But when the user just searches for what he enters (gut), of course Glück, Gut, segensreich (Adj) is found.

Now my question: How do I have to format search queries so that the suggested result is found? What parts should I remove? Are there functions ready to do this? (e.g. somewhere hidden in the Normation classes??) I guess I should run the same function on the suggestion that is used to create the search index...?

Please let me know what you think about this.

Thanks,

Achim

The list of auto. installable dictionaries is now up-to-date and includes Peter Kmet's English-Hungarian dictionary (3.4.0).

Enjoy it! And send feedback if you don't... 

Achim

Hi Gert,

here the instructions:
1.Download the latest version here
2.Extract the apk-file
3.Start the emulator
4.Run the following command in a console

Code Select Expand

adb install PATH_TO_EXTRACTED_FILE.apk where the adb command can be found in the SDK's tools directory.
5.DictionaryForMIDs should then appear in the list of applications.

If there are errors while installing dictionaries, you may need to create a virtual SD card before starting the emulator...

Good luck 

Hi Gert,

sorry, I totally forgot about putting the packaged file on SF... I'm on it now!

Of course you can always go the long way: check out the source, compile it and run it on the emulator

Achim

The list of auto. installable dictionaries is now up-to-date and includes the following new/updated dictionaries (nice work, btw):

• "Chemical Elements" dictionary v3.4.0
• "Chinese-English (CEDICT)" dictionary v3.4.0
• "FreeDict (English-Arabic)" dictionary v3.4.0 (not included yet due to font problem)
• "FreeDict (English-French)" dictionary v3.4.0
• "FreeDict (English-German)" dictionary v3.4.0
• "FreeDict (English-Portuguese)" dictionary v3.4.0
• "FreeDict (English-Spanish)" dictionary v3.4.0
• "FreeDict (English-Turkish)" dictionary v3.4.0
• "FreeDict (German-French)" dictionary v3.4.0

-Achim

Hi Gert,

good point! I downloaded the new SDK and ran DfM on the emulator - in general everything looks fine. I'll need to do some small changes to support the new screen resolutions and correct some glitches (file sizes are not formatted correctly) but that doesn't seem to be a big task. Then we'll have to wait for someone with an actual Android 2.0 device...

Btw, new stats from the market:
Downloads: 6804
Active: 2096 (30%)
List of dictionaries available for OTA has been downloaded 6200 times.
Number of ratings: 28, average: 4 out of 5 stars

As actual feedback is still very limited and often concerns the quality of the dictionaries, I'm not sure how to improve the experience for DfM users on Android.

Regards,
Achim

Hi,

that new system seems to be very different from the standard one, maybe it's already a solution!

If not, we could also replace the other captchas with reCAPTCHA which are as far as I know harder to crack. Another solution could be the usage of a black-listing service like Stop Forum Spam which of course has the problems of all black-listing-services (there will be false alerts and false blocks).

Still, I think we can first just wait and observe the number of spam postings with the new system.

Regards,
Achim

The list of auto. installable dictionaries is now up-to-date and includes the following new dictionaries:

• "IDP (English-French)" dictionary to 3.4.0
• "IDP (English-German)" dictionary to 3.4.0
• "IDP (English-Italian)" dictionary to 3.4.0
• "IDP (English-Latin)" dictionary to 3.4.0
• "IDP (English-Portuguese)" dictionary to 3.4.0
• "IDP (English-Spanish)" dictionary to 3.4.0

Big thanks for the one who created and uploaded the dictionaries in the first place!

-Achim

[Changelog:]

New version 0.10.2 is now available on Android Market.

Changelog:
Added a filter/search box for list of installable dictionaries (thx to joggl for the suggestion!)

Feel free to post bug reports in this board or reply here for general discussion of this release.

Achim

Hi Gert,

thanks for the motivation
In fact, user feedback is quite scarce: I convinced a friend to test the app and send me some suggestions (which I'm implementing now) and there was this post on the forum about installation problems.
So I'm still looking for reports on how people use DfM and suggestions on how to improve their personal experiences. Maybe there are even people who'd like to get involved with the project!

Here go the figures:

• There are 2466 total installs, 947 active installs (38%)
• There were 10 ratings on the Market, which average to 4.00 stars out of 5.
• The list of dictionaries for OTA has been downloaded 1515 times.

I received one mail that may be interesting for everyone: The Chinese company NetDragon Websoft Inc. (EN: http://ir.netdragon.us/ CN: http://www.nd.com.cn/) asked for permission to localize and distribute DfM on their Android platform (http://android.sj.91.com/). I told them about the open-source license and pointed them to the language file, so we may have a Chinese version soon 

-Achim

[Changelog:]

New version 0.10.1 is now available on Android market.

Changelog:
Internal improvements to support new devices

Feel free to post bug reports in this board or reply here for general discussion of this release.

Achim