Wenlin 4 available now

[querido]

Wenlin 4.0 has been released. I'll let someone else provide a detailed review, but here are some comments.

As before, the ABC dictionaries are the essential ingredient for me. It has the new dictionaries (as described in this thread, especially post #13). In addition to the new big EC, my favorite feature is the Hanzi in the illustrative sentences, also the tone sandhi indicators.

As before, I like that it is a desktop application, and one in which I can use the fonts of my choice.

It has a new font, GentiumPlus-R, that is very nice.

It has a seal characters font for any of those in the dictionaries, that can be optionally colored red.

They must have rewritten much or all of it, because it just feels smoother and cleaner. It looks almost the same but just works subtly nicer.

The toolbar can be moved to the top and has a few more buttons. Its background color can be set. I like dark grey.

The windows can be rearranged, pulled out, and put back in.

It has many more advanced options and functions. I don't have time to describe all of these, but the documentation is very good and you can probably read it at the Wenlin website.

Its flashcard program can do words now. This is not a full-featured system like Mnemosyne or Anki. It is very simple, but it has some virtues that no one ever mentions (partly because the Wenlin people don't market it like some other companies). After figuring out how it works, I think it is well suited to two scenarios: the initial cramming of a lesson's worth of items (say 10 to 100), and the storage/maintenance of long-known items (to get them *out* of the Mnemosyne/Anki machine), in batches of, I'd say, 100 to 500 items per deck- one sitting's worth of easy items. It's biggest plus is the automatic presence of the ABC, sparing one the cutting and snipping routine.

Regarding that, if I'm not mistaken, nobody else has these *new* ABC dictionaries; If you want the new ABC on auto-fill flashcards and/or in a *desktop* reader/dictionary, Wenlin is still the place to be.

[feihong]

I'm a little disappointed that the upgrade from Wenlin 4 from Wenlin 3 costs $49 US. But if it contains all the enhancements you listed, it might be worth it.

[pancake]

Elisabeth: I don't use Wenlin and, barring a complete UI redesign, I doubt I ever will.

[phyrex]

While I'm posting here, a request: please don't pirate Wenlin - I know the last version got to be very widely circulated, not only on BitTorrent but also all over the place on websites / USB keys passed around Chinese departments / etc, but they're nice people and they've put a lot of work into this new version, so the least you can do is support their efforts by paying for their software.

I really really would like to buy this, but $180 is simply too much. I have bought your full Pleco package, and despite it being very expensive as well, it is still not only cheaper than Wenlin, but also much much better. If I had any way at all to run it on my desktop (even just the iPhone version), I wouldn't bother with Wenlin at all. That being said it has helped me a lot in the past, and even only for that reason alone I'd like to buy it.. for $50 or something like that. A price that isn't absolutely exorbitant.

[Normunds]

I agree with phyrex that wenlin is a bit overpriced for what it delivers and has "funny" UI. Maybe not a complete re-design, at least for me, but as minimum it requires at least some usability thoughts. For example, the "auto-fill" flashcards take too long to create and unfortunately cannot be exported so that they could be used with external SRS software. I'm using some extremely idiosyncratic programs for photo processing such as Bibble, iMatch and QImage and can take a lot; but funny UI have to be compensated by super-duper functionality it delivers.

[phyrex]

Since apparently there's both Wenlin staff and Pleco staff reading this thread, I really don't see the harm in giving honor where honor is due, and to give criticism, where it is needed. As stated earlier by me and pancake, we criticize because we actually care about Wenlin. I, for one, would love to see them succeed, and I'm glad that this seems to be a way to let them know where I feel they're standing in the way of their own success.

[rcloud19]

While I haven't tried out 4.0, I thought I'd share what looks to be a pretty good review of the software.

Wenlin 4.0 Review

Also, with regard to querido's comment about the thread being hijacked... Once you wrote that nobody else has the new ABC dictionary, it became fair game for Mike to point out that Pleco does indeed have that dictionary.

[hanxue]

How does Wenlin 4 compare with NJstar Chinese WP 5.25? Which one is better in terms of vocabs/characters base?

[querido]

You might find it interesting to try the free demo versions of those products. I did at some point, some years ago. I don't remember enough to say anything about NJStar.

[hanxue]

I already have NJStar but it seems to lack quite a few vocabs and esp. various historical people's names too (among other things)....

Admin: I've tried to take out the off-topic and irrelevant posts from this topic (ie, more than half of them). It might read a bit odd now in places. Sorry. Please stick to discussing Wenlin as a learning tool, rather than piracy of it, and bear in mind that (as one member has already found out) soliciting pirate copies will result in a compulsory holiday. Comments on moderation to admin@...