Messages

Thanks for clarifying! I'll forward this to the user...

-Achim

test release: Android Test Release 0.12.1_TEST2

I just created a pre release:
DictionaryForMIDs-0.12.1_TEST2
and invite everyone to test it before its release to the market in a couple of days.

changelog:
- fix for decimal separator bug see here
- improved Android life-cycle support: dictionary gets reloaded if the OS frees the memory while you navigated away from the dictionary, e.g. using the home button or opening a link on the about screen
- integrated changes from DictionaryForMIDs main branch (e.g. weak encryption, DictionaryUpdatePartialIndex, bug fixes, ...)

A user sent me the following mail:

I downloaded your application with the Esperanto-English dictionary.

Very handy, but the search apparently cannot distinguish between alternate letters.  For instance, it can't tell the difference between a c and a ĉ.

That's not a bug but a feature, yes? There is no way to force the search to behave as expected by this user, yes?

-Achim

Hi Jacob,

Pls see http://dictionarymid.sourceforge.net/forum/index.php?topic=215.msg1271#msg1271

Achim, I'd like to distribute this dictionary on the Android market, under the name... "Danish Esperanto dictionary".

Actually I was thinking of something similar in the beginning, too: Creating apk's for the Market that already include a specific dictionary. The problem with that was, that performance was rather bad (because the dictionary files somehow first have to be extracted internally). Your idea solves the performance problem, as we download the (up-to-date) dictionary on first start to sdcard. Simple but cunning idea
Do you want to start working on this? If not, I'll probably have some time over the weekend... And of course I'll publish almost every DfM apk on the Market you ask me to

So, I suggest you either mention all the languages in the app description, or consider poblishing several 'apps'.

I tried mentioning all languages in the description, but I couldn't find a decent description that is smaller than 325 characters. If you find one, I'm happy to change it! (On the non-Google Market there is much more space for description, see here).

-Achim

[and]

Cool, keep the ideas coming 

- A new release with the updated Esperanto translations (no hurry, though :-)

This and some life-cycle improvements should go online next weekend. I'll post a testing release on the forum soon.

- In the "download dictionaries" section it'd be great to be able to download more than one dictionary at a time (subsequent clicks should be queued)

I very much like the idea, but I'd first add support for installing jar-dictionaries (should be easy) and rework the list of installable dictionaries (sort by date of update, show size)

- When long pressing the input text field there is a "Choose all", "Cut", "Copy" etc, but the option "Paste" is missing.

This context menu is automatically provided by Android. On my G1 running 1.6 I also get the Paste option as soon as there is some text in the clipboard. Could you try again or explain that in detail?

- Believe it or not, but I could not change language directions the first few times. I was looking in the menu. Your "turn"-button is fine, but consider also adding a "switch direction" to the menu, for new users to not get stuck.

It's always amazing to see how people perceive an application's UI. I feel there are already two ways for switching the direction (the button and the drop-down). How about trying to find a more obvious icon for the button? And/or another layout? I'd like to keep the menu as simple as possible and have all translating related controls right on the screen... Do you think those would be enough hints for new users?

I might do the changes myself, if you like the ideas.

Feel free to do that, e.g. the download queuing! It's probably a good idea to have it the same way as with J2ME and first discuss major patches here on the forum...

Achim

Some more investigations into that problem:

The docs changed as the Android SDK developed:
- http://www.androidside.com/docs/docs1.5/reference/java/util/Formatter.html: flag , stands for "Use a comma in place of a decimal if the locale requires it."
- http://developer.android.com/reference/java/util/Formatter.html: does not mention this anymore

Some tests on Emulator with en-US system default locale:
- Android 1.5, da UI locale: "%1$.2f" gives 123.45, "%1$,.2f" gives 1,2,3.45
- Android 1.6, da UI locale: "%1$.2f" gives 123,45, "%1$,.2f" gives 123,45
- Android 1.6, eo UI locale: "%1$.2f" gives 123.45, "%1$,.2f" gives 1,2,3.45
- Android 2.0, eo UI locale: "%1$.2f" gives 123.45, "%1$,.2f" gives 1,2,3.45

It looks like the behaviour is always wrong when there is a comma (I guess this has once been working with some older version of the SDK), so as an intermediate solution I'll remove the comma from file_size for all languages. Danish and other European versions will then use the comma instead of the point, but unsupported locales like Esperanto will fall back to some default locale for formatting numbers (en-US on my system), consequently those locales will be using the point as decimal separator.
This way is definitely not perfect, but better than before, yes?

What struck me most was that no one else experienced this problem. Normally I'd expect many forum posts describing the problem...

-Achim

[,]

Thanks for the report!

This is an Android 1.6 device with en-US locale using DfM with Esperanto UI, yes?
Does Esperanto use , or . as decimal separator, e.g. 5,31 or 5.31? I guess the bug is not related to KB, MB,... but to the number of digits before the decimal separator. If Esperanto uses . for separation, we just delete the , in file_size. If not... hmm...

-Achim

Cool, thanks!
Please note, the time format is YYY-MM-DD, not YYYY-DD-MM. I corrected that and uploaded it to the old system - it's online now, just give it a try. A quick test with Esperanto-Italian says it's working fine...

I'll do an SQL update script later on, but for now I'm really eager to try it out with OTA on all kinds of Android phones (I have access to a HTC Desire and 2 other smaller HTC phones).

Don't worry, the SQL update script is already done and well-hidden in ota/redirect.php

-Achim

[English-French (FreeDict) 222]

Hi Gert,

there is now a second link (English-French (FreeDict) 222, it's using direct downloads.sourceforge.net, somehow skipping the HTML mirror selection). When you have time, could try that JAD file on the emulator, too?

Thanks,
Achim

Hi Gert,

Besides the Nokia S40 emulator records the network traffic from/to the http server, so if you like then you can debug 

can you upload the logs somewhere or mail them to me? I'd like to debug

Still waiting for one or maybe two of the one billion JavaME phone users to show up here...!
Achim

[Achim]

Achim: do you have a 2d barcode for your app?

Check the DfM Android site: http://dictionarymid.sourceforge.net/android.html

Achim

[language_localization]

2) I'd like Esperanto translation of all the language names. This means the list of languages for the UI:
would have to be extended with:
Gert, should I just go on adding these language names to JavaME/src/de/kugihan/dictionaryformids/hmi_java_me/uidisplaytext/DictionaryForMIDs.languages?

As Android has it's own UI files, the languages also need to be added to the array language_localization in
Android/res/values/app-strings.xml
Feel free to either add the languages there as well or to ping me after you committed the JavaME file and I'll add the languages myself.

3) Achim, after upload, should I generate something for your DataLoader class a la
      $data->addDictionary(new Dictionary("Chemical Elements", 174125, "http://sourceforge.net/projects/dictionarymid/files/dictionary%20Elements/3.4.0/DictionaryForMIDs_3.4.0_Elements.zip/download", "DfM_3.4.0_Elements", NULL, NULL, 0, "2009-11-11 12:00:00"));
?

Those entries will be (automatically) moved to the database. If you can create new entries automatically then just do that, but if you prefer a web interface for adding the entries, you can log into https://mysql-d.sourceforge.net/ using name/password from the DataLoader class.

4) In most cases I have a dictionary for each direction. I know this is kinda the double data, but the source database from http://lernu.net has the directions seperate: Try it out on http://eo.lernu.net/cgi-bin/vortaro.pl .
Please comment if you really really think I should try hard to somehow unify the directions (I have no idea how to do that in a good way).

From the the Android point of view, one dictionary including both directions would be a little easier to use... But having two is still fine, especially if unifying them would be a hassle.


Amazing list of dictionaries and great scripting, btw

-Achim

[JAD]

Hi,

we are currently testing a website that allows you to install dictionaries directly from your phone's browser:

http://goo.gl/y3pX or the long version http://dictionarymid.sourceforge.net/ota.php?p=2

If you
- have a JavaME / J2ME capabale phone
- and a data plan

then you can try it by pointing your phone's browser to one of the above urls, then opening the link JAD.
Please report if this works or not, so we can repair or extend the system for the other dictionaries.

Thanks,
Achim

Having DfM on the iPhone would be great!

Here is my bit of information: http://dictionarymid.sourceforge.net/development.html

That link provided most information for using the DfM translation layer. Of course, you can also refer to the Android implementation (e.g. hmi_android.DictionaryForMIDs.onCreate():329, hmi_android.thread.LoadDictionaryThread.run(), hmi_android.DictionaryForMIDs.startTranslation(), ...) and post all the questions here ;-)

BTW, I've been reading some articles that Apple prohibits applications that are not originally written for the iPhone, e.g. on zdnet. Not sure how this might affect xmlvm though...

Achim