Howdy,

I probably missed it, but how do I download WLCP? And is adding flashcard capabilities on the roadmap in the next few months? Thanks.

WeLoveChinesePod 2008.10.19.testing has been released. This release contains a  bug fix and a new feature:

• As reported by ChenHongJie, certain Pinyin were missing in the Vocabulary section.  The bug which caused this has been fixed.
  
• The lesson, dialogue, and audio review mp3 files are now downloaded.
  

 For more information see the WeLoveChinesePod web page. If you accept the license and disclaimer at the bottom of the WeLoveChinesePod web page, then feel free to download WeLoveChinesePod 2008.10.19.testing

WeLoveChinesePod 2009.01.18 has been released.  This release contains several bug fixes and new features (since 2008.10.19.testing):

• there are tooltips that are actually usable -- they are readable, and contain hyperlinks to various online resources, such as dictionaries and character stroke databases
  
• the dialogue section identifies speakers, the expansion section identifies reviewed characters and vocabulary sections are in tabular form
  
• the generated pages now support sound and look a bit better
  
• there is an XSLT stylesheet to convert from XML to LaTeX to create user-customizable PDFs, as well an option to download the ChinesePod-generated ones
  
• unparsed HTML caching option -- useful for debugging purposes, and so on
• index generation -- WLCP now stores a pretty-looking list of downloaded lessons in a file called "wlcpod-index.xml" in the lessons directory to aid in finding lessons
  

Usage note: the entire directory structure has been overhauled.  Lessons are now stored (by default) in a sub-folder called "lessons", and the "settings.txt" file has been replaced by a much more comprehensive "wlcpod.ini" file that allows for considerable tweaking.  Other than that, usage is pretty much the same, and things still render optimally under Firefox.

 For more information see the WeLoveChinesePod web page. If you accept the license and disclaimer at the bottom of the WeLoveChinesePod web page, then feel free to download WeLoveChinesePod 2009.01.18.

After extensive testing and polishing, WeLoveChinesePod 2009.02.19 has been released! This release contains several bug fixes and new features (since 2009.01.18).

For more information, downloads and a list of changes, please see the fancy new webpage at wlcp.googlecode.com. Comments and feedback are highly appreciated! (Stories and other accounts of using this software are great, too, in case Praxis is paying attention.)

Jonathan

After extensive testing and polishing, WeLoveChinesePod 2009.03.22 has been released! This release contains several bug fixes and new features (since 2009.02.09), such as toggle buttons in the study pages to easily:

• switch between traditional and simplified Chinese characters
• show or hide the original Chinese text
• show or hide the English semantic translations
• show or hide the pinyin sentence translations
• switch between highly readable tooltips and character annotations (with literal translations accompanied by pinyin or bopomofo pronunciation symbols) to provide extra character information
• make the study page suitable for printing

For more information, downloads and a complete list of changes, please see the recently updated webpage at wlcp.googlecode.com. Comments and feedback are highly appreciated! (Stories and other accounts of using this software are great, too.)

Thank you to Andrew, Brent and David for extremely helpful feedback as this release was prepared.

Usage note: WLCP is only designed to work using Firefox, although it may work with other browers as well. It does not work with Internet Explorer. To edit the wlcpod.ini file, any text editor on Linux or Mac OS should work; on Windows, Notepad does not work due to incorrect handling of linefeeds, so use an editor such as WordPad instead. (Thanks to RJ for reporting these issues, as well as providing other instructions below.)

Jonathan

Hi Andrew & Jon,

I'm wondering if the following could be incorporated into the next WLCP version.  These are pretty minor, and just wishful thinking, so if it's not possible (or requires too much work) it's no big deal.  The latest version is nearly perfect.

Audio "Repeat" Button?

This version has completely changed the way I study lessons on Cpod.  I used to listen to the Lesson mp3 and Audio Review in iTunes.  Now I listen to everything (including vocab. and expansion sentences) in the XML file.

One thing I miss is being able to set the Audio Review and Lesson mp3 on repeat.  Not sure if it's feasible, but is there anyway to add a "repeat" button next to the mp3 players?

Using Chinese Pera-kun?

I have a feeling this isn't possible, but is there anyway that the characters (for the vocab. and sentences) could allow the use of Pera-kun?

I know it's possible to use the "tooltips" toggle to get popup information, but I absolutely love the "annotations (with pinyin)" toggle.  Having the pinyin with literal translation is priceless.  But I would also like to use pera-kun at the same time.

I've noticed that Pera-kun works with the expansion sentences headings...

...but I have a feeling that XHTML Ruby prevents Pera-kun from working on the other characters.

Again, just wishful thinking.  I can't say enough about this program and am always thankful for the work you guys put into it!

A new version of WLCP has been released with the following additional functionality:

- two extra play buttons in the XML file for the expansion and vocabulary MP3 files.

- more lesson name and URL validation to improve error handling.

- the simplified and traditional html transcripts are now downloaded.

- WLCP can now be run from any directory and the lesson files will be downloaded to that directory.

The new version can be downloaded from the project site: http://code.google.com/p/wlcp/

Many thanks to Jon for your help with the new version, you are a legend. :)

The new version is available now, just fixes for the latest download problems. You can get it from the usual place:

http://code.google.com/p/wlcp/