Topics

Colleagues,

let's try to get progress on that IME for DfM again. Jeff summarized the need for such an IME, see http://dictionarymid.gottfried-signs.ch/index.php?topic=46.msg207#msg207 and http://dictionarymid.gottfried-signs.ch/index.php?topic=45.msg188#msg188.

Peter already implemented in a separate application what we need: see Peter's OwnTextField http://dictionarymid.sourceforge.net/OTF.html.

Peter's OwnTextField already supports what Jeff calls "Multi-Tap"-feature. And, to my assessment, this component can easily be adapted to support different languages by a mechanism analogously to the one used for Normation-class and DictionaryUpdate-class.

Now an important aspect: we need to have that OwnTextField also as replacement for the built-in TextField that is provided by many Nokia, Motorola and SonyEricsson devices. For these devices the built-in TextField shows an annoying popup-editor ! A solution with the 'inline editor' OwnTextField is more comfortable.

Well, who can take the task to finalize the work on Peter's OwnTextField and to integrate this into DictionaryForMIDs ??

I attached the source code to this posting (Peter, I hope that is ok for you).

Best greetings,
Gert

I just noted that on our Contact page the link to the forum was pointing to the old forum (I changed this now to the new forum). The incorrect link was there for a few months now.

And no one ever told us that there is a wrong link on that page !!

Gert

Version 3.1.1 is now online for testing: http://dictionarymid.sourceforge.net/development.html#testversion

If no serious problems show up, then this version will be shortly released as 'first official 3.1 version'.

Please post your testing feedback in this forum.

Thanks !
Gert

Here is a list of features that right now I plan to get included in version 3.2:

1. User selection of contents for display, i.e. the user can choose which contents he wants to be displayed and which not. This is a very important feature ! Sebastian already started implementation of this.

2. 'Dictionary chooser' for the JSR 75 support. Joshua already implemented this. Then finally people will not spend any more their time to try to figure out the correct spelling of the directories on their device.

3. Improved 'Translation List'. This includes specifically a 'back'-feature. I myself am working on an implementation on this and I am already mostly done.

4. The next 'big feature': multimedia support, i.e. sound and pictures (see 'multimedia support' at http://dictionarymid.sourceforge.net/needhelp.html). Well, we still need to find the person who will implement this ! So actually, this may be more for version 3.3.

5. Startup animation: this would be another improvement of the DfM look&feel. Also here we need to find a) a person who does the Java implementation and b) a person who does provide the startup animation itself. May be a feature for 3.3 instead of 3.2 also.

Any other features that should go into 3.2 ?

Best greetings,
Gert

Colleagues,

Steven provided a "Directory Chooser" that we can use for selecting the dictionaries that are accessed via JSR-75.

Maybe someone can integrate this "Directory Chooser" into DfM.

Best greetings,
Gert

Dear DictionaryForMIDs users,

we are receiving reports that on some devices the response time can be rather bad.

In general, DictionaryForMIDs has a highly optimized search engine, and response time may be less than 100ms, depending on the device and on the dictionary. However, it seems that for some devices on large dictionaries it takes a few seconds for a translation.
A first analysis showed that there are devices where the time for accessing the files in the JAR archive does increase significantly when there is a large number of files in the JAR archive. That means that on those devices not the size of archive is the problem, but only the number of files (i.e. making less bigger files speeds up the search). Also, those devices have long startup times when there are many files in the JAR archive. We need to check this further.

If you like to do a measurement on your cell phone or PDA, then please do the following:

1. Download the file http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/dictionarymid/DictionaryForMIDs_2.7.0_EngChi_CEDICT.zip?download and install that application on your mobile/PDA

2. Start the application and activate under Settings the "Show statistics"

3. Check that the translation direction is "English to Chinese", then translate the word "homeless"

4. Post the "Response time [ms]" here in this forum

5. If the response time is bigger than 1000 ms, continue with step 6

6. Close the application then in the file DictionaryForMIDs_EngChi_CEDICT.jad, change the line
logLevel: 0
to
logLevel: 3

7. Re-install and start the application then translate again "homeless"

8. Please post the log output following to the message "start translation" ("Time for open file", "Time for read file", ...) here in the forum


A general note: the translation time does increase with the number of found results ("hits"). So for example when a translation has 5 results, then it is normal that it takes more time than for 1 result.

Thank you !
Gert

Update, 13.04.2007: In step 3, please do this translation twice ! The time for the second translation will probably be less than the first, because on the first translation the Java code is compiled to native code for the CPU (typically a CPU with the ARM architecture).

Colleagues,

you can do a very important job for the project: make some publicity for DictionaryForMIDs !

We receive emails from people who tell us how happy they are that they found DictionaryForMIDs - and that it did take them quite some time to find it. So there needs to be more publicity for DictionaryForMIDs !

You could do a great job when you upload DictionaryForMIDs to web sites that offer downloads for cell phones and PDAs ! Or mention DictionaryForMIDs in some forums ! Or maybe you have another idea !

DictionaryForMIDs has features that are far beyond other products (including commercial dictionary applications). So it really deserves a good publicity !

Tell us if you can support this task !

Thank you !
Gert

P.S.: You also could do some advertisement for the web site dicts.info - this site is closely working together with the DictionaryForMIDs project (see http://dicts.info/java) !

Dear DictionaryForMIDs users,

DictionaryForMIDs displays menu items, dialogues, etc. (all this is called 'user interface texts') in the native language of the user - if the user interface translation is there for this language !

The user interface language is determined from the cell phone/PDA. So for example for a French cell phone/PDA, the menus and dialogues will be in French; for a Vietnamese cell phone/PDA the menus and dialogues will be in Vietnamese; and so on.

Of course the user interface language can be manually changed in the Settings dialogue.

All of this was introduced with version 3 of DictionaryForMIDs.

We right now have the following languages:

• English
• Việt Nam
• Chinese
• Dutch [who can update ?]
• Français
• Greek [who can update ?]
• Deutsch
• Italiano
• Japanese
• Russian [who can update ?]
• Español [who can update ?]
• Czech
• Slovak

We need to have the translations for many more languages (plus updates for some of the above listed langauges) ! Who can support this ? Please see http://dictionarymid.sourceforge.net/needhelp.html#LanguageUITranslations for more information.

Quynh is co-ordinating the activities around the user interface translations. When you are able to provide an additional user interface translation, please also do a short posting in this forum (or send an email to Gert).

With best greetings,
Gert

Colleagues,

I provided a description on how to access the DictionaryForMIDs CVS repository and how to build the DictionaryForMIDs tools and applications. I used input from Peter for this description (thanks !).

You find this description under http://dictionarymid.sourceforge.net/development.html#source

The description should be continuously updated and further improved.

Gert

[Note: you will have to change the MIDlet-1 property to define the start class to de.kugihan.dictionaryformids.hmi_java_me.DictionaryForMIDs]

Colleagues,

I commited the following changes to CVS:

1.
Renamed package de.kugihan.dictionaryformids.hmi_j2me to de.kugihan.dictionaryformids.hmi_java_me
Note: you will have to change the MIDlet-1 property to define the start class to de.kugihan.dictionaryformids.hmi_java_me.DictionaryForMIDs

2.
Renamed project J2SE to JavaSE (actually, the project JavaSE is newly created and the old project J2SE will be deleted).

3.
Included the sources for DictionaryForMIDs on PCs from Stefan in the JavaSE project. There I also renamed the package de.kugihan.dictionaryformids.hmi_j2se to de.kugihan.dictionaryformids.hmi_java_se.
[right now the CVS-'DictionaryForMIDs on PCs' does not run because I first need to merge some changes in UtilWin]

4.
Updated build.xml script in the Build project: this new build script also generates both the Java ME and the Java SE version of DictionaryForMIDs.

If anything is broken after this change, please complain

I plan to write a description on our web pages for using CVS and the build file.

Regards,
Gert

Dear DictionaryForMIDs Colleagues !

We changed our forum system ! The forum link on our homepage now points to our new forum.

Stefan did set up the new forum – this new forum provides several useful new features and a nice look&feel ! And most of all: the new forum system does not have all the problems of the old forum system.

Unfortunately you need to register again at the new forum. Hey, don't complain, this new forum we will have for the next 100 years

I did manually copy a few of my old postings from the old forum to the new forum. If you like to 'save' a posting from the old forum, you need to do this also (sorry for the inconvenience).

Why we did change the forum system ? Well, we had several problems with the old forum: the biggest problem was that for some users the registration at the forum did not work; we also had problems with spam users, missing UTF-8 support, insufficient notifications, and more.

So now please enjoy our new forum and do a lot of postings !!

With best greetings,
Gert

P.S.: in case you want to look at the postings in the old forum, here is a link to the old forum: http://tinyurl.com/yvdvo4

Colleagues,

just let me try to summarize the problems that many SonyEricsson cell phone models have:

1. OutOfMemoryError and workaround in MainForm.java
The past versions (3.0 and 2.x) had this OutOfMemoryError for which a workaround was implemented (see at the end of MainForm.java). Unfortunately this workaround does have side-effects that may be annoying for the user (for example, depending on user settings, the info-sound is played after each search).

This OurOfMemoryError does not occur on the P-Series. The workaround is activated for all SonyEricsson cell phones except for the P-Series.

Beyond the P-Series, the OutOfMemoryError does not occur on (older ?) T-Series and some K-Series (probably other series also), depending on the firmware version.

2. Workaround does not work any more in 3.1. development version

Sebastian reports that the current 3.1 development version does not run any more on his W700. With the on-device debugger he also detected that there is a problem with closing InputStreams, see http://developer.sonyericsson.com/thread.jspa?threadID=38384&tstart=0.


This problem is blocking the release of the 3.1 version !!! Any support to track down and resolve this problem will be hightly appreciated !

I personally believe that there is a bug in the SonyEricsson firmware that causes this problem. In any case, we need to find out under which conditions this problem occurs, and how we can work around the problem.

Best greetings,
Gert

Users of a Windows Mobile 2005 PDA with the Intent Java from Tao reported that the error "Invalid Java Archive" is shown during installation of DictionaryForMIDs.

The version of the Tao Java that is affected by this problem is "Runtime MIDP 2.0: v10.1.7.546(Build 20051117)".

Who can investigate in this problem, i.e.
- check with which versions of DictionaryForMIDs the error is shown
- possibly try to narrow down the problem (under which conditions does the error occur)
- submit a bug report to Tao

Besides, Tao has a useful forum, and there is already a posting on the "Invalid Java Archive", see http://forum.tao-group.com/viewtopic.php?t=122.

Thanks !
Gert

Please be accurate for the following copyright considerations:

1.
For new dictionaries, please check that a reference to the dictionary owner/source and a copyright notice is included in the infoText property . If appropriate, a file with the copyright statement for the dictionary needs to be included in the zip package.

2.
Also for new dictionaries, please check that the DictionaryFormMIDs README and COPYING files are included in the zip package.

3.
Note that sourceforge only hosts 'open' SW. So on sourceforge we can only offer downloads for 'open' dictionaries (concerning the definition of open, you can read more at the sourceforge pages).

4.
DfM can be used with non-open dictionaries, for example a dictionary where the free distribution is restricted to private users only. Such a dictionary must not be hosted on sourceforge. But it is ok to host the dictionary on any other server and to provide a link from the sourceforge download page.

5.
We must not tolerate copyright violations: neither for dictionaries nor for the DfM application itself !

Happy work with DictionaryForMIDs !!
Gert

I need to have an implementation for an algorithm that does sorting and filtering of duplicate entries of a Vector.
I have an (unsorted) Vector with objects of 'SomeClass'. The elements of the Vector need to get sorted. Also, if in the Vector two (or more) identical objects exist, then only one shall remain there, the other occurences shall be removed from the Vector.

Of course the algorithm should efficient. For sorting the quick sort algorithm should be fine.

I can provide a method such as compareTo in SomeClass, or whatever method is needed for the comparision of the entries.

I do need an implementation for Java ME (CLDC/MIDP), please don't point me to existing features of the Java SE Collection framework.

Anyone who can provide me with an implementation ?

Thanks !
Gert

I scanned sourceforge for J2ME projects - and surprisingly for me it seemed that we are the most popular project for J2ME (I may be wrong, because I did not do an exhaustive search).
Hmmm, if we should be the most popular J2ME project on sourceforge ... then maybe we are the most popular J2ME Open Source project in the world ??

Ah well, probably that's too enthusiastic - but in any case: DictionaryForMIDs is quickly gaining popularity ! Will be interesting to see where we are in 2 years !!

What do you think ?

Gert

P.S.: I just did take the Sourceforge 'rank' as popularity - well, the sourceforge 'rank' is based on some statistics, probably not really a good measurement for popularity.