Street Dutch Blog

5 August 2009

We have been very busy, so I haven't had much time to make any posts.  If you are curious about our progress, I have opened a personal log here on blogspot.

m.glot.com is up and running.  It is looking good and people are using it on a regular basis.  I suggest checking it out.

12 Jully 2009

Interglot goes Mobile

We have been very busy here at Street Side Software over the past few weeks.  We made an agreement with the folks over at Interglot to help them move to the mobile environment.  In return, we will be expanding our Street Dutch dictionary to include their words.

The beta version of their mobile website is now live.  You can find it at http://m.glot.com/.

2 July 2009

Palm webOS

At this moment, Street Dutch does not work with the Palm webOS 1.0.  The Palm webOS 1.0 is based upon an older version of webkit.  When Palm releases an update based upon the current version of webkit, I expect it will start working.  We will just have to wait and see.

22 June 2009

Google Android

Street Dutch now works on the Google Android!  Try it out.  In some areas, Android is faster than the iPhone.  Searching for words is faster on the Android.  Panning and scrolling is smoother and cleaner on the iPhone.  The performance of the Android greatly depends upon the phone it is running on.

18 June 2009

Street Dutch Simulator

We have had many requests from people without iPhones to allow them to use Street Dutch on their PC.

If you have a PC with either the Safari browser or the Google Chrome, you can now use Street Dutch. 

14 June 2009

Significant Changes

If you are a regular user of Street Dutch, you may have noticed small changes from time to time.  We are constantly improving Street Dutch.  Today, we added a major new feature and adjusted some old ones:

• Hints While Searching -- when you search for Dutch words, there is now a drop down list of available words in the dictionary.  This makes searching for words quicker and easier.
• Search While Typing -- while you were typing in a Dutch word, in the background Street Dutch was busy looking up the word so it could be displayed.  With the addition of the Hints While Searching, this feature isn't as necessary, so we have turned it off by default.  If you really like it, you can turn it back on, in the options screen.
• Auto Correction -- The iPhone has a wonderful feature called Auto Correction.  While you are typing, it will suggest words incase you make any mistakes due to the size of the keyboard.  This works great if your keyboard is set to the language you are typing in.  It is a nightmare if your keyboard is set to English and you are trying to type a Dutch word.  So, by default, we have turned this feature off for the input fields.  If you would like to use this feature, I suggest setting up both the Dutch and English International keyboards in the iPhone settings.  After you have done that, turn the feature on in the Street Dutch options screen.

11 June 2009

iPhone 3.0

Street Dutch now works beautifully with the iPhone 3.0.  We have found workarounds to the compatibility issues introduced with the new version.  In some areas, 3.0 performs smoother and cleaner than with version 2.2.1.

Android

Sadly the workarounds for the iPhone 3.0 did not fix the rendering issues found on the Android.

You are welcome to try Street Dutch out on your Android phone, just remember it may not look very good.

Broken Link to Street Dutch

The link to Street Dutch has been fixed.  For the past few days, the link to the Street Dutch from this site was broken.  Which explains why the number of new users dropped dramatically.  If you already had the dictionary bookmarked, then you wouldn't have seen the problem.  Which is why no one around here noticed it.  All of use have the Street Dutch bookmarked on our phones.  Another reminder to test the full website more often.

Full text Search

We are working extending the English word search to included both English and Dutch words.  This will allow you to find words in Dutch phrases.  It will also allow you to look up multiple words at the same time.

9 June 2009

iPhone 3.0

There are some serious rendering and performance bugs with the 3.0 version of the iPhone.  We are looking into it and hope to have a solution before the official release on June 17.

Android

We took a look at how well Android ran Street Dutch.  It has some of the same problems as iPhone 3.0.  Which makes sense considering both browsers have the same code base.  With any luck, fixes to get iPhone 3.0 fully working will take care of the problems with Android.

8 June 2009

We are working on reducing the initial startup time for the dictionary.  We are doing this by being more systematic in the load process, allowing us to load non-essential resources after the application is up and running.  After this change has be instantiated, you will first see a splash screen showing the loading progress.

There are occasional annoying delays that prevent smooth typing of Dutch words.  We are looking for the cause and ways to fix it to provide a better experience.

 

Under Development

We are busy working on a native iPhone version of Street Dutch.  It will allow you to look up words even when you are not connected to the internet.  We are expected to have it finished by the end of the summer.