I’ve had quite a few requests for Traditional character support in the Mac desktop version of Xiao CiDian.

I think that the Traditional character set is very beautiful, but all of my study material is based around the Simplified character set. For obvious, selfish reasons I have put off doing a Traditional version.

Well, I had a few extra hours today, and I thought I’d get this off my todo list. So without further ado, there is now a dictionary available for download on the right side of the page that supports the Traditional character set and should work exactly like the Simplified version.

Additionally, I have update the other two dictionaries – the Simplified and the English to Chinese versions – to use a newer cc-cedict dictionary. The dictionary is now from January of 2010.

Get it while it’s hot, and happy studying!

My wife felt a bit ill today, so our weekend outing was cut a bit short. While she was recovering, I occupied myself by adding a few often asked for features to 小词典－气. They are:

* Traditional character display, and searching.

* Hiding of the HSK level.

* Check for auto update every time the app launches.

* Bit more feed back when the app is searching

You can toggle the new settings by clicking on the “Preferences” button on the bottom right in the application. The new preferences screen looks like the following:

You can get the new version by clicking on the install badge on the right side of the xiaocidian.com home page or if you are patient your app will likely auto update in 5 days.

Enjoy!

Xiao CiDian Air is a port of the iPhone version of Xiao CiDian to Adobe Air. Adobe Air is a way to write applications so that they can run on many different types of computers – Mac, Windows and Linux.

What this means in the real world is that you can run Xiao CiDian Air on any modern computer – Ubuntu Linux, Mac OS X, and even Windows (there are rumors that Adobe Air will run on the next generation of cell phones too).

The boon for my study is that Xiao CiDian Air the fuzzy pinyin searching to my desktop. So I can now search using things like “mei-” when I forget tones.

It has the large character view like the iPhone as well, and since it’s on the desktop copy and paste work – an added bonus.

To download Xiao CiDian Air, just click on the “Install Now” badge on the xiaocidian.com home page.

汉语学习快乐!

It would appear that Apple doesn’t care that the current version already does (and has always done) that, and they don’t seem to mind that the dictionary.com dictionary application defines curse words – that application is ok in their eyes for some unknown reason.

I am not going to limit 小词典’s functionality for no reason. Words are words. Every dictionary that I’ve ever used has defined curse words as evident by the approved dictionay.com app.

It looks like 1.3 will have been the final version of this application, and to be frank, I am tired of the drama with Apple’s AppStore. I just want to write software, but this seems to be the wrong platform to do that on.

I had a lot of plans for this appliction, but I am throwing in the towel. There are several other Chinese dictionary apps on the app store, and I recommend you switch to using one of those.

Thank you for using 小词典 on the iPhone, and I am deeply sorry for the on again off again nature of this project. When I have actual control of my projects, they are managed far better than this.

Aside from several bug fixes in the new release there is one new feature. Here is a quick movie showing the feature:

Here is a movie of how it works:

(For the astute, the current version is 1.1, and this jump is to 1.3. I had some internal builds that didn’t make the cut for 1.2, and I just wanted to bring everything up to a matching version release. I’ve changed the process a bit so this shouldn’t happen again.)

It’s almost time for my 汉语 classes to start up again. I am trying to get the new 1.2 version done before class starts, but I don’t think I’ll make it. 下星期一我的汉语课开始。

I submitted version 1.1 to Apple a few weeks ago, but I made some interface guideline booboos, and had to fix them. It’s back in Apple’s review process now so hopefully you’ll get that update soon.

I really dig the 1.2 development version. It’s had a lot of work on the searching logic, and it works very well. I can’t wait to put it out, but it needs quite a bit more testing.

I am still working on the new yet-to-be-talked-about features, but I might hold those back until 1.3 because I am in love with the new search and want you to have it :).

Ok, off to bed now.

再见！