2009-02-08
Why have I lost the ABC English-Chinese dictionary with version 2?
Version 1 of iCED (Pro edition) only had one dictionary, the ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary. It did not have an English-Chinese dictionary but allowed full-text searching of the Chinese-English dictionary so you were able to type in English words to find entries that contained those words. This feature is still available in version 2.1. If you are using version 2.0, please upgrade to version 2.1. If you are using version 2.1 and are not able to figure out the new interface, please read on.
When you start iCED, you'll notice a button to the left of the search field with a Chinese character on it. Use this button to specify what kind of search you want to perform (search by Chinese characters, hanyu pinyin or English). There is some automatic selection logic built-in so that you do not always have to use this button (more on this later). You can also tap and hold the button to see a list of your choices. To search using English keywords, select 英 - English.
Now that iCED version 2 has multiple dictionaries, you'll have to make sure you're using the right one. To the right of the search field, make sure it says ABC. Tap and hold to see your choices.
Your screen should now look like this:
Type the English words to initiate the search. This is the functionality that you had in version 1. iCED will list entries in the ABC CE dictionary that contain the words you have typed.
You will notice that there are two methods to search by English word, Index and Full-text. Version 1 had only the Full-text search method. Version 2 adds the Index search method and requires the purchase of the ABC English-Chinese Dictionary.
The Index search allows you to search the ABC English-Chinese dictionary. If you tap on Index but have not purchased the ABC English-Chinese dictionary, you will see the following message:
If you do not wish to purchase the ABC EC dictionary, simply tap Hide and you won't see this message any more. The selector will also be hidden.
More on the auto-selection feature
iCED uses an index for each type of search you can perform. This is like the index in the back of a book. If you have specified that you want to search by pinyin, you'll see the pinyin index displayed in alphabetical order. As you type your search term, iCED will scroll the index to the line that most closely matches your search. You can then scroll back and forth to find the entry you need.
However, even if you are not on the correct index, you can still type your search term. iCED will try to auto-select the correct index for you.
Please note that this auto-selection feature does not work for English search words if you do not have the ABC English-Chinese dictionary. That is, if you only have the ABC Chinese-English dictionary and are using full-text searching to search using English words, you will have to make sure you have selected the English index as explained in the beginning of this article. This is because without an English-Chinese dictionary there is no alphabetical index. Full-text searching can't use such an index because you expect the search results to show you only entries with a particular word or set of words, not a scrollable index.
We have made a pseudo EC dictionary based on the data from the freely available CC-CEDICT so you can get an idea of the difference between the two. Select the CC dictionary so that you can search using an English keyword. Then select Index and Full-text to see the difference. Please note that we cannot do this using the data from the ABC Chinese-English Dictionary. The ABC English-Chinese Dictionary is a copyrighted and separate dictionary which we have licensed from the publisher and trying to make a similar EC dictionary from the ABC CE data will not only mis-represent their work but confuse customers.
If you have more questions, please This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
2009-02-05
iCED Chinese Dictionary - ABC Edition customers: Version 2.1 is available for download and full-text searching has returned.
In order to make it easier to use, we've also implemented auto-selection of the search index. Just start typing your search term and the index will automatically switch to the hanzi index for Chinese characters, the pinyin index for pinyin and the English index for English. Please note, however, that auto-selection will not work for English if you do not have an English->Chinese dictionary. This means that if you are using the ABC CE dictionary, for example, you can do a full-text search by English word, but you'll have to manually select the English index. If you do have the English->Chinese dictionary, you'll have a choice between the English index and full-text searching.
Due to the large size of the app, over 300 MB, we suggest that you download this app via the desktop version of iTunes and then sync to your device to update it. It is sometimes hard to recover from failed downloads on the iPhone or iPod touch.
2009-01-30
We are currently working to add full-text searching on the ABC Chinese-English dictionary back to the ABC Edition. Please note that version 2.0.1 may be published in the interim which fixes a few bugs and improves the CC-CEDICT pseudo-EC dictionary. Version 2.1 will include full-text searching. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
2009-01-29
I upgraded to version 2.0, why have I lost the EC dictionary?
When we created iCED Pro v1, we only had the ABC CE dictionary to work with. There was no ABC EC dictionary. In order to make a functional software with "half" of a CE/EC dictionary, we indexed the entire corpus of the CE dictionary to help you locate entries in the CE dictionary by English words. Searching in this manner means that when you type in an English word, you are presented with all the entries in the CE dictionary whose English definition contains this word, not just a single entry like you would with a proper EC dictionary.
We were finally able to license a proper EC dictionary from the same publisher as the CE dictionary. The ABC EC dictionary is a separate works that provides a real EC dictionary. This is why there is an extra charge for it.
Now, we understand that some of you would rather not purchase the EC dictionary and keep using the full-text search on the CE dictionary. The challenge for us was to fit all this functionality into the search interface. The interface used in version 2.0 shows you an index of the words in the dictionary. When you start to type a word, it scrolls to the closest match. This method won't work for the former full-text search of the CE dictionary because it needs to show only the entries with the word(s) you've typed.
We also tried to find a free EC dictionary that we could include, but we were only able to find one that was more suited to advanced students and native Chinese speakers.
We are currently trying to figure out how to bring back this functionality and how to fit it into the current interface. In the meantime, we have submitted an update to the App Store that will give you a more detailed EC-like dictionary. We will continue to bring out updates in stages as we progressively work towards a final solution.
Our apologies for the confusion. We ask that you bare with us while we try to bring you a better solution.
How do I use the new search interface?
- Select the type of search you want by tapping on the button to the left of the search field. If you tap and HOLD, you will get a list of the choices and what each symbol means. You can choose to search by Chinese characters (hanzi), pinyin or English. At the moment, if you type a Chinese character into the search field, the search index will automatically change to Hanzi. We will work on improving iCED so that it will auto-select for pinyin and English as well.
- Type the word you are searching for.
- You can now change dictionaries to perform the same search using another dictionary. To see what dictionaries are available, tap and HOLD the left-most button in the toolbar. The list of dictionaries you see here depends on the search index you selected in #1.
- When you are in the Search tab AND the keyboard is showing, the toolbar will have a button that says 部首. This will invoke the radical index.
NOTE: Updated HELP will be included in version 2.1
