73 replies to this topic

[aidanapword]

Gothi,
Excellent work.

I know, I know ... not adding much to this forum, but a little exta encouragement is a good thing.

Running: SPV E200, Orange (UK) branded, using ROM as released on phone (which was purchased May 2004).

Some notes on hows & whats of priorities would be great. All this sort of thing means includig a help file in the release (a right pain in the butt, I know ... the less files the better ... but for newbies to the T9 edit stuff, it sure would help!).

Thanks again!

Trevor

P.S. Your dev environment ... how do I setup my own? Are there any neat links for details on this? I am a developer of some experience so ...
* Are you using Vis Studio?
* Are there any non-MS options? (I know ... a man can dream!)
* Is there a concise API doc somewhere?

[gothi]

I use Delphi 7, there's nothing very special about my enviroment (unless you count an overflowing desktop as special ), it's just my normal PC which I use for a variety of tasks
To communicate with the phone (which is a very small part of the software and is simply a file transfer) I use  RAPI.PAS which I found on the net and fixed, it's available in the C++ section of the forum (I didn't know where else to put it).

As I understand it there is a lot of documentation for both Visual Basic and Visual C++ on the net for communicating with the phone, in fact to get started I converted some C++ examples to Delphi. If you need any assistence I'm happy to help but I dare say there's others with more experience and skills than I have (I'm a programming noob) who may be able to provide better advice.

There is a help file included in the zip, if it needs improvements just let me know the specifics and I'll get it sorted

1.3 won't be out until next week at least (I have company for a few days and have to put programming aside) however I've decided to go for a 'basic' and 'advanced' mode.

Both modes will be similar to what you see now, however 'basic' will not allow you to edit word priorities and will keep the existing values (albeit hidden from view).
Advanced will allow you to edit them but in doing so will round up the values to a power of 8 (starting at 24, ending at 248), I will be implementing a 'fix' if the checksum value is too great, however I want to do some more testing before I start on this routine to see what the phone does when faced with a checksum value greater than FFFF.

You will of course be able to swap modes at any time but switching to advanced will round the values losing the original values for the words so if you decide you preferred the previous basic setting values then it might be wise to work on a backup of your dictionary

Hopefully this change in design will appease everyone's needs and then the task of testing the AWT9.UDB format will begin (which I will need at least one volunteer for when the time comes )

[aidanapword]

Gothi,
Thanks for the notes and
On the volunteer front ...

As a non-programming noob - but very much a Windows Mobile noob - you're looking at a keen (if very busy) volunteer. As always: so much to learn so little time.

I spent a good amount of time training in the Pascal world (8 years ago now!), but am used to "language hoping" for work (professionally writing in either C#, C++, Java or PowerBuilder ... and ... under duress ... VB).

The Delphi 7 dev environment at £79 is inexpensive (for what it is) but I have the licenses I need for the MS stuff through other means (sick isn't it?) ... any Delphi-pros out there willing to help? I could use a trial version for a week or two and see how things go?

Most important:
Gothi - keep up the good work!

GB,

AidanApWord

[crafty]

Love this app Gothi.  Was wondering if it would be possible for your program to detect when you sync your phone with your PC and check the size of the dictionary.  If it were below the value of a backup of mst9.udb with your added words (i.e. it had forgotten added works) then is automatically replaces it.  If however it is larger than your backup (i.e. you have added more workds) then it replaces the backup version.  I have no prgramming experience so have no idead how possible this is but think this would be great.

Keep up the good work mate!

[aidanapword]

Crafty,
This is a good idea. There are a few technical challenges though (and i have no idea how hard each would be to tackle!):
ONE
Running an automated process *on connection* is hard (I am not sure ActiveSync supports this?) and potentially not what the user wants. I think the restrictions on running code automatically may be to make it harder to build malicious applications (neo-viruses and stuff) that do things like: shut down the file transport and the install mechanisms on connection so that the uninstall can't be done and stuff (that would wind me up no end! I shudder to think how easy ti would be to enforce hard-resets and stuff!).
But this is not a huge challenge because most of us have "patterns" we go through when we sync our phones. Much of our usage pattern is likely similar to: a) Connect, sync, 3) update, 4) download and 5) install. We may not do all 5 every time, and we may not do these things in that order ... but it can be quite quick to get into habit. So "sync your dictionary" just becomes another click on your desktop/shortcut bar etc ...
TWO
To equate that a dictionary is larger with it being "newer" one is not necessarily valid. When you define dictionary size by the number or words ... then it is important to remember that a dictionary with 20 in it may still be smaller than a dictionary with 7 words in it . If the words in the first case are all short ones and the words in the second are long ones then comparing dictionary "size"s on file size alone is unlikely to yield stable results. Remove a 10 letter word from the dictionary and add two new 3 letter words to the dictionary ... the "new" dictionary's file size may be the same or smaller ... which means that comparing size would likely get it wrong. But reading the innards of the dictionary file to compare old vs new would work (would be slower but not so much as the user would ever know!).
THREE
I don't think comparing the dictionary's update time/stamp (file date) would help either ... since I think it is likely re-written every time you type a word it doesn't recognise in non-T mode. So checking if the PC copy of the dictionary is newer than the phone one won't help.
FOUR
Leaving the user to update his dictionary manually and just regularly "apply" it to the phone every time he/she connects is not a very user-friendly attitude, I grant you.
FIVE
Setting a threshold priority level might be an idea though ...? That is: comparing the two dictionaries and inserting into the PC dictionary (over-writing when necessary) any words in the pc-dictionary with words that have a higher priority on the phone than the threshold - then over-writing the phone dictionary with the PC dictionary ... it might work?
Leaving the user a chance to edit the dicitionary directly as well. This way those little words you never really wanted to add to your dictionary get cleared out whenever you sync&check your dictionary.
Gothi ... any ideas?
The thing is: the process would need to open both the dictionary from the phone and the pc-stored copy to compare the two. And once the comparison is complete (and the PC updated with any IMPORTANT new words), to upload the modified version back onto the phone. I suspect Gothi might have to re-architecture a lot of his code.
... a but a little encouragement there for him: Gothi ... you already know the full internal structure of the file on the phone so you have done all the translation grind-work?

Just my two cents worth.

GB,
AidanApWord.

[gothi]

It's easy to check if the amount of words on the dictionary is greater/less/ equal to that of one on the PC (and indeed take a look at the checksums to see if there are the same amount of words but a different collection)

However I'm dubious of overwriting anything, the best compromise would possably be to do a merge of words and allow the user to remove any before syncing back to the phone. This would probably be better achieved by creating a run time parameter and creating a desktop shortcut to start the process. What do you think?

I'll look into it for a future build, for now I want to start work on the simple and advanced modes as well as fix another bug I spotted (it's doubtfull many will have come across it yet so don't panic ) and of course start some serious investigation into the other T9 format.

Keep the suggestions coming, I'll implement what I can and feedback is much appreciated

[jayson2222]

I am new user. where and how to download the msT9 Ed ?

[gothi]

It's in the first post of this thread

[t-team]

Does anyone know if this is available in Dutch, or if not, is there another program like T9 in dutch. My phone is english and i am dutch...

[johna]

Fantastic App!!!!

[stevekay]

Would anyone be interested in a version of this for the phone itself?
It would only have limited functionality such as delete words and maybe add, but it is possible.

gothi - if you want to do it yourself, let me know and I will step aside...

[fozzie]

I'm definitely interested

Posted from my SmartPhone!

[Disco Stu]

Whether you guys work together or individually, you're developing a killer app.
A phone version would be brilliant  

[gothi]

Quote

Would anyone be interested in a version of this for the phone itself?
It would only have limited functionality such as delete words and maybe add, but it is possible.

gothi - if you want to do it yourself, let me know and I will step aside...

Steve, please be my guest, I wouldn't even know where to start on a Smartphone version and you have already shown you know exactly what you're doing (without your initial findings and assistance it would have taken me a lot longer to make msT9 Ed)

If you do want any assistance or I can help you in any way (I seriously doubt you need my help ) feel free to give me a shout, however I'm moving any day now (hence no software update yet) and won't be around for immediate responses

[illi]

I would like to have it on the fone itself. BUT please ensure support Qtek 8080.

Thanks

[Flubster]

Any progression on this? I've got a c500 now, and need to edit the t9 dictionary (I was extremely drunk one night on riverside and added mj as a word. Now when I type OK i get mj, its irritating me!)

msT9 ed doesn't open the dictionary file, are windows mobile 2003SE database's different?

Hope you can get this to work, before I just kill the entire database, just to get rid of this annoying mj!

Flubster

[annab]

phone version, definitely!

[Pagemakers]

here here a T9 editor would be great.

[rubric]

Hey Gothi and Stevekay, just wanted to say you guys are extremely generous. Really appreciate it. Will wait patiently for T9AW version.

[Pagemakers]

Steve you are a star!

Posted from my SmartPhone!