New Software to Test

[Shadowdh]

Hi there, well I installed the program (one from yesterday that was 1.98Mb and one that wsa 1.99Mb) and it seemed to install ok but when I tried to run it I got the error message:

Fatal error: Excelsior JET 6.00 installation cannot be found.

How to Fix:

If you port compiled executables to other machines, please, use the JetPack II

deployment wizard (see JET User's Guide, "Deployment Automation" for details).

Otherwise, include the JET/bin directory into PATH or reinstall JET.

Not sure what is going on there...

I run win xp pro sp2.

[ilprincipe]

Shadowdh

thanks so much for your most useful feedback..problem solved (it had to do with PC not having java runtime and other stuff).

I have re-packaged the whole thing (alghough size has increased significantly) and it should be now up and running.

...step by step, we are getting there...

Regards.

[Shadowdh]

Cool... I am now downloading and will give it a whirl... cheers

[Shadowdh]

Ok I downloaded and installed it, no problems at all, worked right away.

As I have not played with it for very long these are just some initial thoughts that I wanted to pass on.

Easy to install even for a pc idiot like myself.

The initial graphics interface (please forgive me if I misuse terms here but as I have mentioned I am a bit pc illiterate), is basic, clean (as in no clutter) and simple to use. It has 3 sections (Your Own Dictionary, Full Chinese Dictionary and Advanced Options).

Your Own Dictionary - this is a good, easy to use tool that allows you to search a dictionary that you make (although it seems to come with one pre installed), view it in its entirety and to edit it as well. The search function is good, allowing for multiple ways to find the information you need.

Full Chinese Dictionary - This is not bad, the dictionary seems pretty comprehensive and is easy to read and use. The layout is character, pinyin, definition. This section has the same headers as the Your Own Dictionary section, but I am not sure its a good thing to allow people to edit this one, seems to pave the way for too many mistakes... Search function is again good and easy to use.

Advanced Options - This also has 3 sections. Test your knowledge, Check combinations and Analyse new text. Test your knowledge is a bit like a flashcard system I would guess (I have not yet had the chance to set this up and it seems a little tricky at first glance, see comments later on Help files), it actually reminds me a bit of the Pleco flashcard system in that you get 3 fields Hanzi, Pinyin and English but it also has the added bonus of extra buttons that are labelled "also found in" which seems a good idea if you wish to look up lists of words that they might appear in. I have not tested this feature yet as I need to work out how to set the test your knowledge part up.

Check Combinations - this is pretty cool, you type in a character and then click and you get a handy word tree type of thing that shows you the combinations that character is found in. One thing I would like to find here is the ability to input pinyin too... that would help those that may not have the ability/knowledge to use characters. Also I found the when I clicked on the characters in the tree to find out what they were (really good by the way) the definition box just flashes up for a second (if that), it would be good if it stayed up there till clicked (possibly with a little menu to add it to the test yourself section) or for at least a few seconds so I could read it.

Analyse new text - this is basically a text reader that has a neat function which highlights new words/characters, I think that is pretty cool. It also has a translate function which works alot like the reader in Pleco or wenlin for that matter. One great thing you could add here is the ability to import documents into the reader, like books for example or letters etc. This would increase the functionality I think.

Overall I think its a nice useful little program so far. One thing I would like to see is a help document to let me know how to make my own dictionary, how to set up the test your knowledge and just some general pointers on the program itself. You might also want to come up with a name that makes it stand out a little more (at the moment its just your new chinese character learning tool across the title bar). I can see that it will be in direct competition with the likes of Pleco and Wenlin, probably more Wenlin as it offers some similar features, but yours does make good use of the combination tree and flashcard files.

Finally wound I pay 10 quid for this program... hmmm well to be honest, if I was looking at a good, inexpensive alternative to Wenlin then I probably would.

As I said these are just a few, very rushed first impressions. I will play with it some more over the course of the next week (although I will have more time from next sunday so it will more likely be over the course of next week) and see if I cant make it a little more comprehensive.

[ilprincipe]

Dear students,

A few weeks ago, we posted a beta version of a new software that we have developed with the intent to promote the learning of chinese language. We have received great feedback from some readers and have made some improvements. We offer free trial and a small fee for those who want to purchase it, in our view well worth it, but you can decide for yourself.

http://www.improveyourchinese.com

Unlike many other software packages, this works around your own character set and will help you practise what you know already and expand your vocabulary, with no need to learn new characters!

It contains some key feature such as :

• graphic output;
  
• flash cards based on your own set of characters with scoring system;
  
• teaches you compound characters using han zi you know already.
  

We hope you find it useful

[stephanhodges]

I'd like to offer some more feedback. Perhaps it's just my personal bias, since I develop software, and also download a lot!

Do not use "setup.exe" for the download file name. Use the FULL product name. Modern OSs can handle names more than 8 characters long. Also, put the version number in the download name. You can add on "_setup" if you want.

For example: "CharacterLearningTool_1_15_setup.exe".

This also is a big help for people who use download managers, which can speed up downloads a lot. The software I use routinely gets more than 10x the speed of a plain download from many sites around the world. (I am in Harbin, China).

Changing the name for each version allows the download manager to distinguish it from previous downloads.

Also, which CeDict source did you use? There are currently two different sources, AFAIK.

[stephanhodges]

After downloading the software, AVG 8 (freeware version) gives me virus warnings:

Accessed file is unwanted

Adware Generic3.BIP

Detected on open

[ilprincipe]

thanks Stephen..good feedback. I will change the set up file

On the ad, this is because I am using a freeware installation program, install creator pro. I guess this will disappear once I buy the ad-free version..that's what I will do. But it is only an ad, not a virus.

can you run the software with no problems? also as a software developer, if you wish to get in touch privately, pls leave me your contact details.

thanks a lot

[stephanhodges]

There are several freeware installers which are very good. You can find them on sourceforge, for example.

Search a bit, or go to www.donationcoders.com and post a question asking for people's recommendations.

If you were aware of this in the download, then you should have posted it on the download page. This kind of thing can get some people in a lot of trouble, if they did it at work, or on a different computer, etc. (Not my problem now, but I've worked at places like that).

Google "freeware installers", for example. It shows many. One of them is nullsoft (NSIS). There's another very popular one, but it's name escapes me right now.

[ilprincipe]

Thanks Stephen

Ad problem has been solved, but will be implemented on the actual website tomorrow evening, once we re compile the software, and re upload it.

There are some screenshots on each of the blue tabs within the website. I suppose that if you didn't see them, perhaps they are in the wrong place and/or people checking the website, just miss them, so we'll think of how to fix that.

CEDIT, I am not really sure which one we are using..it has about 46,000 entries...we can always change it to something better if necessary.

[Luobot]

Here is the latest CEDICT release as of 2008-05-25 with 65,312 entries.