ZDT 0.9.0b1 relased

[abcdefg]

@Kaya, Thank you very much for the new version of ZDT. I'm a long time fan and user of prior versions.

I especially appreciate the clear instructions you gave on how to import files from my old ZDT on my old computer to my new ZDT on my new computer. It was straight forward even for someone like me who is pretty much a computer dummy.

Appreciate the good work. I even made a small contribution via the dowload site, SourceForge.net.

[mvdberg112]

... used the pattern S T P D N ( element delimiter TAB, definiton delimiter /) then it imported correctly all the notes!

As you don't have T (traditional), you need to type TAB twice which means that T is empty.

Could you try this and keep me up to date please?

Of course I can!

I just did:

• Added an extra TAB
  
• Changed import format from S P D N to S T P D N.
  
• All Notes are imported correctly, verified by Edit Entry, click on tab Notes: for each card the note is present (tested with 5 entries in the file).
  

Conclusion: someway, some valid import formats are (often) not correctly imported, especially not the notes.

It could be that the music problem is gone to, but this I need to test with another file. It seems that this is the case, but I can only say for 100% sure if I have used one of the new lists for a few days. (the error came up perhaps every 10 words, but not consistently).

Did you save (ctrl-s) in this case?

Yes, I did. Actually, when starting a new session of flashcards, the program automatically asks to save, and that is what I did in the past. But since you told me, I know to use CTRL-s we make it sure in advance, and do.

Btw. I remarked that your files had a funny encoding which didn't work for me. I had to convert them to UTF-8.

They were saved with Excel Unicode, wich is UTF-16; and that worked for me perfectly. But only the first was saved by Excel. The other two variations (of the three files I uploaded) where edited from that Excel-exported-Unicode-(UTF16)-file using Notepad. Never know if notepad changed the format somewhat. But I could import all three files succesfuly (besides the reported Notes-problem).

For everone's convenience, here is the file uploaded that worked for me, imported with the following settings:

• Import Format: custom
  
• File Encoding: UTF-16
  
• Options: use definitions from the file (has probably no impact on this type of problems, but just in case)
  
• Import Format: S T P D N
  
• Element Delimter: TAB
  
• Definition Delimiter: ';' (but this will work also None and '/' since I did not use either)
  

Import ZDT UTF 16 Succesfull.txt

[mvdberg112]

I am not sure where to post ZDT word-lists.

For the book Hanyu Jiaocheng Book 2, I have typed in Lesson 1 to 19, including the supplementary words and the propernames. The definitions are taken from the book, but sometimes added with more appropriate or fitting meanings, according to the context. When the descriptions where very wordy, they were made more compact.

The name of the book in Chinese is: 汉语教成-第二册-上/下 [pinyin: Hanyu Jiaocheng-DiErPeng-Shang/Xia] (2006-2011). The book comes in two parts 'Shang' and 'Xia'. The lessons are number through: Volume Shang for Lesson 1 to 10 and Xia for 11 to 19. Lesson 20 is not included (yet).

(Also the first book is in two volumes, but I do not have the wordlists. They can be easily found on places like flashcardexchange dot com)

Please, feel free to contact me in a reply or by pm for any questions or suggestions.

B2-Shang-L01.txt

B2-Shang-L02.txt

B2-Shang-L03.txt

B2-Shang-L04.txt

B2-Shang-L04-ProperNames.txt

B2-Shang-L05.txt

B2-Shang-L05-ProperNames.txt

B2-Shang-L06.txt

B2-Shang-L06-ProperNames.txt

B2-Shang-L07.txt

B2-Shang-L07-ProperNames.txt

B2-Shang-L08.txt

B2-Shang-L09.txt

B2-Shang-L09-ProperNames.txt

B2-Shang-L10.txt

B2-Xia-L11.txt

B2-Xia-L12.txt

B2-Xia-L12-Suppl.txt

B2-Xia-L13.txt

B2-Xia-L13-ProperNames.txt

B2-Xia-L13-Suppl.txt

B2-Xia-L14.txt

B2-Xia-L14-Suppl.txt

B2-Xia-L15.txt

B2-Xia-L16.txt

B2-Xia-L16-ProperNames.txt

B2-Xia-L16-Suppl.txt

B2-Xia-L17.txt

B2-Xia-L17-ProperNames.txt

B2-Xia-L18.txt

B2-Xia-L18-ProperNames.txt

B2-Xia-L19.txt

B2-Xia-L19-ProperNames.txt

[mvdberg112]

When moving to the next flashcard in "Flashcards", I get regulary the following error:

And internal error occurred during: "Play sound".

Details:

"An internal error occurred during: "Play sound".

Invalid thread access"

* The error does not appear always at the same time or moment.

* Error appears also for cards that were entered manually (in the past it seemed it happened only with imported ones).

* Some cards have a note

* Interestingly, pressing F3 or the little button next to the Start and Stop button in "Flashcards" do NOT give this error.

* But pressing the "Play Sound" link in the bottom also generates the same error (although this is not the complain at first; it happens at first when moving from one card to the next).

What can we do to fix this?

It seems to me that it might be related to incorrect handling of Unicode characters in the Entry, for example in the translation or in the notes.

[abcdefg]

#44 -- I've had a related problem. Please see this post: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/39633-how-can-i-disable-play-sound-in-zdt/

I want to just turn the "play sound" feature off, but have not been able to figure out a way to do that. Any thoughts? (PS, all my cards were entered manually.)

ZDT support is nonexistent as far as I can tell. It's a shame, because I really like most aspects of the program and have used it many years.

[mvdberg112]

I've read the link - It seems that you have the same problem as I have. I believe that it is not really possible to turn the sound off. At least, I did not find anything in the settings to that end. Also, it might not be a problem with the sound itself. I think it has to do how the ZDT database has been setup or how it interpreted when it is read by flashcard-plug-in.

I looked in the database user.script, and found these two lines:

• INSERT INTO NOTES VALUES(243,2729,'noun',NULL,NULL)
  
• INSERT INTO NOTES VALUES(244,2731,'phrase','','')
  

I found also:

• INSERT INTO USER_ENTRY VALUES(2729,57,NULL,'\u817f','\u817f','tui3','/leg/')
  
• INSERT INTO USER_ENTRY VALUES(2731,57,NULL,'\u4e0a\u8857','\u4e0a\u8857','shang4 jie1','/to go to the street/to go shopping/')
  

Hypotheses that ZDT works like this:

• INSERT INTO USER_ENTRY VALUES contains the Chin character, the pinyin and the definition.
  
• INSERT INTO NOTES VALUES contains the notes include notes itself, sound and image.
  
• '' is an empty string (i.e.'', just two single quotes without any content in between, with is a string containing zero characters)
  
• NULL means string not present.
  
• Under certain conditions, ZDT fills the 2nd and 3rd string with an empty (ie. '') string, rather then NULL.
  
• Once ZDT flips a flashcard, it checks the sound filename. If value for the filename is NULL, it does nothing. If it has a value it tries to play that sound file. But an empty string (i.e. '') is not a valid file name of course, hence the error.
  

To test this hypothesis, I made a backup of the user.script file, opened it with Notepad.exe, replaced all:

• ,'','') with
  
• ,NULL,NULL)
  

Then ran ZDT again. It seemed to work! I have now reviewed 40 flashcards 'Play sound....' error.

I wanted to thank Kaya who supplied a new version in the past and responded to some issues. That is really great. I believe that there is a market for this piece of software. Is there a way we could get this project started and supported again? Or can sbd help me to get started ?

I would want that I could program in Java, but it just over my head and I do not know to look in which procedure. Other wise I would be happy to help. I believe that to tell the software to replace any empty string with NULL, wouldn't be a too hard job. (I have also a number of issues that pinyin is not properly displayed, for example tour2 or tou2r5 = head)

I had a quick look at Anki as well, but it seemed to me a little difficult to setup - not really a 'Run Setup.exe and go' kind of a thing. Or was I on the wrong Getting-started page?

Please, anybody, keep us posted if you encounter any issues.

[kaya]

> I want to just turn the "play sound" feature off, but have not been able to figure out a way to do that.

In the flash card at the bottom there is a line with 4 check boxes for Character, Pinyin, Definition and Audio. Does the error happens also when the Audio checkbox is NOT ticked?

@mvdberg112

Thanks for your investigation! When I can reproduce it, I can fix it. Perhaps this week end.

[kaya]

Can you try again by replacing your zdt.jar (located in [zdt]/plugins/net.sourceforge.zdt.core_0.9.0/) by this attached zdt.jar please? Remove the .zip extension from the file please. I had to add .zip to be able to upload the file here.

zdt.jar.zip

[kaya]

This one please. Same procedure as above.

zdt.jar.zip

[kaya]

> * Interestingly, pressing F3 or the little button next to the Start and Stop button in "Flashcards" do NOT give this error.

> * But pressing the "Play Sound" link in the bottom also generates the same error

The two buttons have different purposes: the first plays the zdt-sound and the second plays the mp3 file of the flash card if the user has added a sound file in its notes.

The "Play sound" link should only be shown when a mp3 file exists. However there was a bug which made that you could see the link even without a mp3 file. It's fixed right now but not contained in the zdt.jar above.

[mvdberg112]

Can you try again by replacing your zdt.jar (located in [zdt]/plugins/net.sourceforge.zdt.core_0.9.0/) by this attached zdt.jar please? Remove the .zip extension from the file please.

By all means and did as asked with second file.

Error did NOT occur anymore. THANK YOU! :

Before I read you second and third post, I already wrote up the reproduction of the error. Since I have anyway, for documentation purposes, see attached file for the steps.

(PS: see next post for some Flashcard-entry bugs and feature request I have)

user.log.error.txt

[mvdberg112]

Three questions:

#1 Should pinyin should be able to contain an apostrophe [']?

For example, many books put an apostrophe before a pinyin-syllable that starts with a vowel:

女儿 nǚ'ér daughter

This line is not this way imported. The pinyin ends up being only an 'e' in the pinyin field.

When putting in "nu:3'er2" manually, the pinyin is displayed in the flashcard and in the list as 'nǚér', this is without the apostrophe.

Is this how it is supposed to work?

How can we add the apostrophe?

#2 Should a pinyin syllable be able to end in an 'r'?

A pinyin ending with 'r5' or 'r' is displayed in the list and in the Flashcard review without the 'r'.

Chinese has this feature that after a normal syllable, a second character/syllable is added that is only an 'r' in pinyin. Examples are:

每准兒 每准儿 méizhǔnr (in case special symbols do not show well: mei2zhun3r) who knows; probably

头儿 tou2 r5 (head, leader)

哪儿/那儿 na3r5/na4r5 (where/there)

一会儿 yi1 hui4 r5 (a while)

一点儿 yi1 dian3 r5 (a little, some)

Both when entering the flashcard manually with CTRL-N or importing from a file. E.g.:

* CTRL-N

* enter in 'Simplified': 一点儿(=yidianer)

* ZDT Autofills the other fields correctly: pinyin is 'yi1 dian3 r5' in this case

* Click Finish

* The final 'r' of 'yi1 dian3 r5' does not show in the list (in the Flashcards panel)

* When doing for example a Self review, the 'r' is not displayed in the pinyin of the flashcard

How should this work?

#3 Sometimes I want to add extra character to the pinyin (and also to Simplified or Traditional). Should this be possible? If yes, what is allowed and what not? If no, can it be added (feature request)?

Examples is this:

一...就... 一...就... yi1 ... jiu4 .... as soon as <- because it is the structure that has a different meaning, the word list of most books show them with the dots to indicate this

...家 ...jia1 ...expert; specialist (e.g. computer-expert) <- normally jia1 has a different meaning, but if it is suffix, then it can mean this

还（2: verb）huan2 to return <- this character is usually pronounced as hai2, meaning 'also, still' etc. To add 'verb' helps the learner to note that this is different version of the same character

开 （+会）kai1 have a meeting <- usually kai1 means to open, but depending on the addition of other words, the meaning changes.

So to me, it would be helpful if dots, parenthesis, plusses or even numbers could be added (numbers I would use for when the same word, but with a completely different needs to be studied).

This question is the least urgent and might quite change the logic how ZDT process the input for new flashcards.

PS: is it an idea to update the version number, so when asking a question I am sure that I have the latest version?

PS2: is it a good idea to report issues at sourgeforge.net/project/zdt?

[mvdberg112]

This is about the export function in Pleco format.

The export to pleco format does not contain the definitions. Should it be that way?

I think that I want to use my own definitions when using Pleco, the same ones that I have already entered in ZDT from the study book, not the Pleco ones.

// testAB
要是 yao4 shi5
要好 yao4 hao3
要不然 yao4 bu4 ran2

How can export add definitions to Pleco export?

Is this a bug or feature request?

Thank you!

[kaya]

Can you move your last two messages to two new threads please? One thread = one topic. Thanks!

[mvdberg112]

Can you move your last two messages to two new threads please?

@kaya - Actually a good idea;)! Created two new topics:

ZDT 0.9.0x - three Pinyin Questions

ZDT 0.9.0 pleco export does not contain definitions

And again, thank you.

PS: I typed 'quote=kaya', but the name doesn't show - sorry.

[mvdberg112]

It seems that there is new sound error: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/40707-zdt-090-error-unable-to-find-sound-file/.

Anybody any suggestions?

[kaya]

@mvdberg112

I've uploaded your contribution to the zdt's website:

http://zdt.sourceforge.net/main/wordlist/hanyu_jiaocheng_book_2/

[mvdberg112]

@kaya: That's great. Thank you!

[kaya]

You're welcome!