JSQ, LLC

The past month has been a busy one for me.  I expected to release v1.3 a couple of weeks ago, but it has taken until today to put together a suitable beta.  In that time, there have been two main complaints about the current version of DianHua Dictionary, v1.2.1:

1. Simplified and Traditional characters swapped on the definition page.
2. Simple searches like "eat" and "return home" not yielding appropriate results.

Both of these problems have been fixed, but there is a limit to what can be done with the search results given the content of CC-CEDICT today.  For instance, if you search for "eat".  You will not get "chī" in the first page of results.  However, if you search for "to eat", you will get "chī" in the first page of results.  Additionally, a search for "to eat" is nearly immediate whereas a search for "eat" takes a little more time. 

 

 

The same changes that have been applied to English searches have also been applied to toned Pinyin searches.  Toneless Pinyin searching has also been added, but the performance is significantly less than that of toned searches.

I've also added 3 new settings to the application:

 

 

You can now set a default search screen and turn simplified and traditional character displays on and off.

The final significant change planned for v1.3 is an interface that allows you to inspect simplified and traditional characters more closely.  The image below demonstrates the new interface accessed by touching the traditional or simplified fields on the dictionary definition page.

 

 

 

As you can see, the characters are displayed in a large font with one character per page.  Like Apple's Weather application, you swipe side to side to change characters.  

I will soon be uploading a beta to the site for those who have volunteered to test.  If you have not contacted me but are interested, please post in the comments and leave a good e-mail address.

 

This is a bit of a double-edged sword for me.  Version 1.2.1 was identified as Ready for Sale by Apple today, but the binary they reviewed includes a labeling mistake on the dictionary entry page.  In the version that will likely show up this evening, the labels "Simplified" and "Traditional" are swapped.  Other than what amounts to a typo, DianHua Dictionary v1.2.1 has been working significantly better in testing than v1.2. 

If you are interested in helping test beta versions of DianHua Dictionary, please let me know.  Installation is far from straightforward, and the beta and AppStore versions won't co-exist peacefully.  That said, I could certainly use a few extra sets of eyes as new features are implemented. 

Special thanks to the commenters on this site, the reviewers on iTunes, and especially the existing beta testers.  All of the feedback and effort has been very helpful.

DianHua Dictionary v1.2.1 has been sent to Apple for approval. Included in this update are the following bug fixes and enhancements:

• Corrected a bug where scrolling the view during a search could cause a crash.
• Traditional and Simplified Characters are no longer clipped in the search results.
• Added the Search field cancel button to close the keyboard for unintentional touches.
• Added support for Traditional and Simplified character searches from the English search tab.
• Improved quality of search results across all searches.
• Improved performance for some search results.
• Upgraded to the 08-29-2008 CC-CEDICT release.
• Implemented a dictionary entry page showing complete details of the entry selected from the search results.
• Implemented Settings to allow control of the fonts used to display search results.
• Fixed problems with leading and trailing whitespace in search terms.

I've tracked down the problem with the site's e-mail configuration.  I went ahead and activated all of the accounts that have been created in the last week.