Mac user seeking Pleco advice

[Flying Pigeon]

Hi,

Searched the forums here and checked out the Pleco site. Are there any Mac/Pleco users around? If so, can you share what your set-up is? I'm interested in running Pleco on a pocket PC. The HP pocket PCs recommended on the Pleco site don't jive with the Mac synching software, only the older HP models do. Was considering a Palm until I read that Pleco isn't developing for the Palm platform anymore.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Peace,

Dean

[fanglu]

I read that Pleco isn't developing for the Palm platform anymore.

Oh really? I hadn't read that. How annoying. I specifically bought a palm to use with pleco because they recommended it

[GarySaville]

Pleco 2.0 will be released very shortly for Palm and Windows Mobile. Palm are committing a slow and painful suicide with their archaic OS and prehistoric hardware offerings, so I would highly recommend going with a Windows Mobile device.

I use a WM device and a mac. I bought Missing Sync for WIndows Mobile ($30) which allows me to mount my phone's file system and install Pleco.

www.markspace.com/missingsync_windowsmobile.php

BTW- Pleco 2.0 is out of this world. The reader is hands down the best learning tool I've ever used for Chinese. I've loaded all of my lessons from Chineselearnonline.com into the reader. It takes any txt file. If you click on a word, the English and Pinyin are displayed at the bottom of the screen. It works very well. You can also add any words you come across to Pleco's flashcard database to review them later on. It makes studying effective anywhere. With or without internet access.

[Flying Pigeon]

Gary,

Thanks for the reply. Which WM device are you using? What version of OS 10 are you running? Thanks in advance.

Edited October 22, 2008 at 02:07 AM by Dean A. Swanson
Forgot to type something.

[imron]

I have pleco on palm and a mac. To be honest, after the initial install and setup, I rarely/never sync. There were no problems with the install, and I just followed the instructions in the Pleco manual.

[GarySaville]

I am using an HTC touch Diamond.

I originally had a Palm TX, but I switched to the HTC Diamond after I saw the fonts. The HTC looks like your using an 8086 DOS machine. The fonts are blocky and hard on my eyes. The HTC has smooth beautiful font set which I can use for hours at a time. Before you buy a device, I would recommend you check out the resolution and how the fonts look. I'm sure most newer devices will be fine.

I'm using an Intel Macbook pro with the latest version of Leopard OSX. It won't make any difference for Pleco & Missing Sync, because Missing Sync works just fine on any mac hardware and OS.

I don't use the syncing features either. I bought missing sync just so I could mount the phone in Finder. Windows Mobile is a horrible abomination. I use it for Pleco and making phone calls. Everything else I use is on my iTouch. A version of Pleco for the iPhone / iTouch is in the works, however it is going to be quite some time by the sounds of things. It is inevitable though. Mobile OSX & Android are looking to be the future of mobile devices. Pleco have hinted that they will be dropping support for Palm after Pleco2, but will continue to support WM into the future. I think once they release an iTouch version it will very quickly become their biggest market. These utopian visions of the future are mine and not the expressed views of Pleco™ WM™ or Palm™.

[Flying Pigeon]

Gary,

Thanks for the info.

[GarySaville]

I meant to say the Palm had awful blocky fonts. The HTC fonts are excellent.

[ipsi()]

Yeah, you don't even need MissingSync, technically, as you can install it all via the expansion card. That's how I installed it, given that I run Linux (well, I did install some stuff via my Windows install, but Pleco mostly gets installed via Mico SD Card).

Also, Mike's pretty explicitly stated that development for Palm will stop at some point. Maybe for 2.1, maybe not, but definitely (as I understand it) for version 3.0... However, I used the 2.0 beta on my Treo 680 (Palm OS) up until I got my Treo Pro (Windows Mobile), and it works flawlessly.

I suspect by the time 3.0 comes out, finding a Palm OS device will be somewhere between hard and impossible, so it definitely makes sense to stop supporting it.

[GarySaville]

You have to install two files into the main ROM in order for Pleco 2.0 to work, so you'll need to have missing sync, or some other way to mount the phone or PDA's file system. I'm not sure if there are any freeware resources out there that mount WM. I know there is a bloated Mac software interface that comes for free when you buy a Palm. It's pretty terrible though. It loads every time you boot your machine, and it is very buggy.

Gary

[ipsi()]

Not necessary. You can use the built-in file browser to move the files from the SD Card to the Program Files/Pleco directory, though you'll have to manually create the shortcuts as well, unless Pleco's provided a CAB file? I know Beta 8 does, but I don't recall seeing it for the previous beta.

In all honesty, I never actually tried to install 1.0. Just went straight to the 2.0 beta .

[imron]

How is the pleco beta coming along? Is it working properly yet? What stuff is still missing? If it's pretty much all there, I might try installing the latest version and let everyone know what problems if any I encounter.

[roddy]

A read of the latest bug reports thread on pleco's forums should tell you - it's up to "Beta 8 / RC1" so it should be pretty good. I haven't looked at it since Beta 2 or something, but even then the actual dictionary functionality was fine, it was stuff like flashcards and the reader that had issues.

For those who aren't syncing - remember to back up your flashcards . . .

[imron]

Ok, well, I upgraded to the latest beta for pleco 2 (on Palm) today. This is the first time I've tried 2 as I wanted to wait until it had pretty much everything there before trying it.

My hotsync seems to be completely not working (I hadn't tried it for ages, but now it doesn't seem to work on either windows or mac). Drive mode works however, which seems strange. Anyway, I just went with the card install. I downloaded the latest beta for palm, plus the female audio files from the previous beta (which weren't included with the latest release for sound quality reasons - apparently they're going to all be redone).

I unzipped all the files, and copied everything across to my 2GB SD card. Popped the SD card in the Palm, copied the main Pleco.prc across to the internal RAM and was up and running in demo mode.

Next I downloaded the keyfile for Pleco 2 (I was coming from a v1 upgrade) and had the full version going. Then I bought the Chinese-Chinese dictionary upgrade. This required me downloading a new keyfile, reverting pleco 2 to demo mode, and then copying across the new keyfile and restarting.

So I'm up and running, all without hotsync. To be honest, just copying everything across to an SD card is a lot less hassle than using the Palm sync software. I don't use the palm for anything other than Pleco anyway so synching to contacts is not important. Flashcards can be backed up/restored/imported/exported from within pleco, so it's just going to be a matter of either making manual backups or just hoping nothing goes wrong the Palm

First impressions seem very good.

[roddy]

Flashcards can be backed up/restored/imported/exported from within pleco

Will that back-up your stats though? Otherwise all you've got is a long list of words.

[imron]

There is a utility called Pleco User DB Mover that allows me to backup a file called PlecoFlash. Presumably this is all the flashcard information, though I haven't tested it yet.

[Flying Pigeon]

Thanks for the replies.

Before I purchase Pleco and a mobile device, I'd like some feedback.

According to ipsi and Imron, synching to a computer isn't necessary for installing Pleco onto a mobile advice; it can be done with a SD card (i.e. download Pleco onto my Mac, transfer it to a SD card and then load it into the mobile device).

If I plan to use my mobile device exclusively for Pleco, do I have to synch it with a computer?

One other question. I live in Japan. Will Pleco work with a mobile device purchased here, specifically the HP iPaq 110?

Thanks again for the help.

Peace,

Dean

[imron]

I'm not sure about your second question, but for your first one:

If I plan to use my mobile device exclusively for Pleco, do I have to synch it with a computer?

Only if you are interested in automatically backing up your flashcards. Backing up can however still be done manually via the SD card if you wish. I use my palm more-or-less exclusively for pleco and I never sync.

[Flying Pigeon]

imron,

Thanks for the quick reply.

I'll try posting my second question on the Pleco forums as well.

Peace,

Dean

[ianstephenson]

If you just want to be able to transfer files from your Mac to Windows Mobile device then try the free version of SyncMate (http://mac.eltima.com/sync-mac.html). The paid for version lets you do a lot more but all I wanted was to be able to manually transfer files between the two devices and it works well.

I have an HP iPaq HX4700 running Windows Mobile 6.1 with a 4GB SD card. Loaded up Pleco 2.0 on the weekend by just following the website instructions.