BETA Popup Dictionary Plugin for Firefox

[trevelyan]

At Popup Chinese we're developing a new dictionary/translation plugin for Firefox, and are looking for people interested in helping us beta test. This plugin is designed explicitly for Chinese and is significantly different from other reference tools. It provides:

(1) mouseover dictionary popups for any Chinese text on any Chinese website.It also translates Chinese numbers, as this is a frequent area of translator error.

(2) a massive backend dictionary more than 6Mb in size to get you rolling.

(3) full read/write editing support. You can edit the content of your dictionary simply by clicking on any word (to freeze the popup) and then clicking on the field you wish to edit. Changes take effect immediately. You can also add new words by highlighting them - the plugin will pop up a quick box asking for your preferred translation. And then it will remember the word... forever.

(4) full backend integration with the Popup Chinese vocabulary service. If you have a premium account we will track all edits/entries you make automatically and file them in a special folder. They can be reviewed/edited/deleted at will, and will be automatically included in the software the next time you generate the plugin.

We are planning to offer the custom plugins as a commercial service to users, but would also like to make a free version available for people who just want a read/write dictionary plugin and don't need the backend tracking support, or tools for reviewing edits and/or collaborating with other translator.

Anyway, suggestions are welcome and we are interested in getting feedback on both tech and usability issues. We have just over a week left in our beta period, so anyone interested in checking this out should head to our voucher page and use the code 2008AOYUN to get a free premium account while they still can. Once you are signed in you can visit http://popupchinese.com/words/plugin to generate and install your custom plugin.

Please include details on your browser version and OS in any error reports.

[Ole]

Hello Trevelyan,

trying to install the plugin I get this error message:

[Firefox/3.0.3, Windows XP]

http://www.popupchinese.com/data/plugins/XXXXXXX-edit.xpi

Grund: Download-Fehler

-228

[Ole]

... Reading my own post I understand how to obtain the necessary xpi ...

[trevelyan]

Ole - Brendan actually reported the same error. I'm not sure if this is a usability problem (if it's unclear how to install/use the plugin, or if we're running into browser issues).

What was the problem?

[Ole]

Trevelyan

just by clicking the install-link button you won´t inititate the download, but get a download-error message in the above quoted format (XXXXXX=was used to make it anonymous).

But if you use the xpi-link in this message you can download it.

Seems a bug.

greetings

Ole

[trevelyan]

Quick FYI we've had reports that Firefox 3.0.2 on multiple platforms has difficulty with the install process (working in 3.0.1 and 3.0.3+). If you have trouble installing and are using version 3.0.2 that is probably your problem.

A workaround is - as Ole mentioned above - saving the file and then saving it to your desktop and "click and dragging" it into the browser window.

[Shadowdh]

Hi mate... still liking the site and it seems to offer more every time I visit so well done. I downloaded and installed the add on no problem to FF3.03 but I cant seem to get it to do any popup translating... its on the add on list and has installed fine but not sure how to get it working... cheers

[ABCinChina]

Trevelyan,

Apparantly, Firefox 3 has compatibility problems with pop-up translators. For this reason, I refuse to upgrade from Firefox 2.0.0.17

[Shadowdh]

I have it on the add on list (Popup Chinese Dictionary 1.0) but I cant make it active, Perakun does work with ff3.03 though...

[Shadowdh]

Ok found out that I need to right click and then click on toggle Popup Chinese Dictionary. It seems to work fine on the pages with Chinese, I will fiddle with it some more to see what I can do with it. When I use it on english pages however (well english words) it works ok on the numerals, shows the numeral and the pinyin but not the character, but not on the words. Another thing is that while it works on most pages it will sometimes not provide a popup at all, I opened a page in two different tabs and it worked on the second opening but not the first.

[trevelyan]

Thanks for the notes Shadow.... will look into the code and see if I can find out what the cause of the problem is. Might be a good idea for us to explicitly get the plugin to reset itself every page load or something. The variables controlling whether the popup is open or closed might be getting confused across tabs.

The three big limitations right now are:

• does not work in embedded iframes
  
• if you "reload" Firefox the broad often opens multiple tabs automatically. The extension will only work with either the first page, or with newly opened tabs/windows. This seems to be a problem with the way Firefox initializes extensions.
  
• keyboard toggle commands (Cntl+Shift+A) don't work until the right-click menu is activated (this is really puzzling....).
  

I'd recommend downloading the latest version anyway. One big improvement made yesterday eliminated the problem where any highlighted text would cause the "word entry" box to popup. Now the text highlighted has to be less than 12 characters long to trigger that reaction. This allows people to copy and paste larger paragraphs (intentionally or accidentally) without triggering the dictionary.

Emails and bug reports are very welcome. Will try to get issues fixed as they crop up.

[trevelyan]

@ABC - should support Firefox 2 as well. probably even better on the platform.

[Luobot]

If I may, just a few security related questions:

1 – Where does the dictionary that it accesses reside (i.e., on the user’s local drive or on Popup’s server)?

2 – Does it ever attempt to make an online connection with any site, server, or backend of any sort?

3 – If so, does it have a setting that would disable it from ever attempting an online connection with any site, server, or backend of any sort?

[trevelyan]

We've just released version 1.2 of our Chinese-English Firefox dictionary plugin from Popup Chinese. It comes with several bug-fixes and feature improvements designed to make life easier for bilingual Internet users. These include:

* support for multiple tabs, iframes and better usability all-round

* Google Translate Support (highlight text and hit "G" when the plugin is activated and it will open a new window with the Chinese->English translation of the highlighted passage).

* no need to re-activate the plugin on every new page. It stays on until turned off.

We have two versions now. Those with an account at Popup Chinese should grab the premium version which will be customized to their account. This offers full integration with vocabulary lists and some read/write features of particular use to translators. The second is a free read-only version that isn't customized but should be useful nonetheless. Non-logged in users are redirected to the free plugin automatically.

To answer Luobot's questions above:

(1) dictionary data resides locally for faster and offline lookup

(2) the premium version pings the server to support interactions with user wordlists. The free version doesn't do this, since it doesn't need to do this.

.

(3) anyone already using a web browser isn't exposing themselves to any additional security risk by using the plugin.

Feedback and suggestions always welcome.

[Luobot]

Thanx

[flameproof]

Ok, sales talk, tell me, why shall I use this one and not Chinese Pera-Kun?

[jiangl]

Ok, sales talk, tell me, why shall I use this one and not Chinese Pera-Kun"

I was just about to ask this exact same question! Not sure if this thread is still being followed or not, but if anyone has any experience with both, I'd love to hear it. Chinese Pera-kun's been working fine for me, with only a few very minor bugs.

[flameproof]

Here is the easy direct install link:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9144

[Sinealba]

Hi,

Thanks for telling us about this site.

I can't get past the installation stage. I've downloaded the dictionary plug-in and tried to click and drag "adsotrans.jar" into Firefox.

I get asked if I want to save the file, which I accept. A download box opens, I double-click on "adsotrans.jar", but then I get the following error (in French, but I translated it): "cannot launch the file JAR Java "adsotrans.jar""

Did I do this the right way?

I have FF3.0.5 and Mac OS 10.5.6

Thank you in advance!