2.3 / User Interface Enhancements

[radioman]

When practicing writing characters using HDR (... fill in the blanks; prompt for characters), I thought it would make sense to use a stylus for this to more naturally learn to write, especially if I am going to be “writing” for hours at a time.

So I picked up a stylus to practice writing on my iOS device. It works GREAT, and cost about 5 dollars US. Hold it at any angle, etc. Less obscuring of the screen when highlighting characters or positioning cursor.

However, based on my efforts thus far, there are some things I believe could be made to the GUI that would make it easier to use both finger gestures (current mode) as well as stylus - listed here in no particular order.

1) Single press to clear the writing area. Perhaps one way to do this is just to make it so that if you press the "practice drawing area" button, to close it, that if you quickly press it again, it will clear the drawing area (not technically a single press but would work for me).

2) When in practice drawing mode, the ability to single press (or press and hold) to bring up a character stroke diagram (even if it is on the layer below the practice drawing area.

3) Drawing area controls at the bottom of the iPhone/iPad so that you do not have to run to the top of the screen to access.

 

[mikelove]

However, based on my efforts thus far, there are some things I believe could be made to the GUI that would make it easier to use both finger gestures (current mode) as well as stylus - listed here in no particular order.

1) Single press to clear the writing area. Perhaps one way to do this is just to make it so that if you press the "practice drawing area" button, to close it, that if you quickly press it again, it will clear the drawing area (not technically a single press but would work for me).

2) When in practice drawing mode, the ability to single press (or press and hold) to bring up a character stroke diagram (even if it is on the layer below the practice drawing area.

3) Drawing area controls at the bottom of the iPhone/iPad so that you do not have to run to the top of the screen to access.

For #1, maybe a tap-hold of some kind? That would be pretty easy to add in without affecting any other parts of the interface.

#2 and #3 I'm not so sure about - 2 would probably be better implemented as an optional overlay for the stroke order diagrams screen, which we've already had a few requests for, and #3 would be next-to-impossible to squeeze into that interface on the iPhone at least - since most characters start at the top of the screen I'm having trouble seeing the benefit to putting the controls at the bottom, you're going to have to move up there anyway.

 

[radioman]

Well, perhaps on the iPad getting that control down toward the bottom would be more of a benefit than on the iPhone.

With regard to the clearing of the writing area, I like the idea of double tapping. Basically, any time you open the practice writing area, it is presented as a clean writing area.

In general, Press and Hold I don't like as it is a bit ambiguous, and you need to wait, albeit a short amount of time.

Some other general comments from my recent Pleco sessions. They well might have been requested by others in the past.

1) Allow a new flashcard category to be added when you are in the middle of a flashcard session. So if you hit the + sign, you can select the category, but also can make a new one on-the-spot.

2) When running flashcards, an identification of what category the card is already assigned to.

3) In OCR if you load a photo, have the program default to most recent in your new-photos folder. Maybe have a mode that is similar to the current pasteboard function, where just like loading the pasteboard on re-entry, you could load the latest Photo. So if you are "camping" with the OCR function of Pleco in the background, then you take a snapshot of the screen, you flip back to Pleco, and it immediately loads the latest photo. However, if you last left Pleco running in any other mode (dictionary, flashcards, etc.), it will load the pasteboard per it's current functionality.

 

[mikelove]

With regard to the clearing of the writing area, I like the idea of double tapping. Basically, any time you open the practice writing area, it is presented as a clean writing area.

In general, Press and Hold I don't like as it is a bit ambiguous, and you need to wait, albeit a short amount of time.

That's true, but I don't see any acceptable alternative aside from a separate "close" button - double-clicking to clear I'm very worried is going to come out of nowhere for some people; they won't know why it's happening and the box will appear to keep randomly clearing.

1) Allow a new flashcard category to be added when you are in the middle of a flashcard session. So if you hit the + sign, you can select the category, but also can make a new one on-the-spot.

I think that's on our list, but from a while ago - sensible thing to add, but perhaps only in the full-screen multi-level category picker.

2) When running flashcards, an identification of what category the card is already assigned to.

Already available through the in-session Card Info; I'm not sure where we could wedge a category label into the main flashcard screen interface, but maybe appended at the bottom of the text or something... it'd impose a small performance hit to new cards coming up, though, so I'm not quite sure if it would be worth it.

3) In OCR if you load a photo, have the program default to most recent in your new-photos folder. Maybe have a mode that is similar to the current pasteboard function, where just like loading the pasteboard on re-entry, you could load the latest Photo. So if you are "camping" with the OCR function of Pleco in the background, then you take a snapshot of the screen, you flip back to Pleco, and it immediately loads the latest photo. However, if you last left Pleco running in any other mode (dictionary, flashcards, etc.), it will load the pasteboard per it's current functionality.

A little tricky, but seems doable with iOS 4.0's image access libraries - I guess we'd just make it a fourth option in the screen where you select a photo to use with OCR.

 

[radioman]

I guess I am wondering if people use the writing area, write on it, then close it, and then open it to continue writing where they left off?
I guess I was thinking of it as less of a "clear" function, and more of a "when you open the practice writing area, you start from scratch" function. But maybe I'm missing something.

Perhaps an option switch could be buried in the menus somewhere, where the default behavior is as it always has been.

Anyway, just my two cents.

That's true, but I don't see any acceptable alternative aside from a separate "close" button - double-clicking to clear I'm very worried is going to come out of nowhere for some people; they won't know why it's happening and the box will appear to keep randomly clearing.

 

[mikelove]

I guess I am wondering if people use the writing area, write on it, then close it, and then open it to continue writing where they left off?
I guess I was thinking of it as less of a "clear" function, and more of a "when you open the practice writing area, you start from scratch" function. But maybe I'm missing something.

Perhaps an option switch could be buried in the menus somewhere, where the default behavior is as it always has been.

A lot of people like to use it to draw their best guess about a word, then reveal the word and check to see if they got it correct. So the expectation from them is that it'll persist until they advance to a new card. An option switch is a possibility but I'd rather come up with something more elegant - far too often in the past we've dealt with something like this by adding another option rather than by thinking about how we can simultaneously satisfy people on both sides of that option.

 

[yoose]

Hi Mike,

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but would it be difficult to implement a right and left swipe to switch between different modes of Pleco, mainly dictionary, flashcards, and the reader? They can be continuous so you are never more than one swipe from the module you want to use. I have seen comments about users not liking having to go to the fan menu. This would eliminate the need to use that menu which can remain for the add-ons and settings. Although I also like an idea I read about using a grid style home area, which the fan button can take you to instead of what it currently does. Off the top of my head i can not think of any conflicts with using a swipe, with the exception of the full screen handwriting.

 

[mikelove]

Hi Mike,

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but would it be difficult to implement a right and left swipe to switch between different modes of Pleco, mainly dictionary, flashcards, and the reader? They can be continuous so you are never more than one swipe from the module you want to use. I have seen comments about users not liking having to go to the fan menu. This would eliminate the need to use that menu which can remain for the add-ons and settings. Although I also like an idea I read about using a grid style home area, which the fan button can take you to instead of what it currently does. Off the top of my head i can not think of any conflicts with using a swipe, with the exception of the full screen handwriting.

radioman mentioned it, I think - it became a good bit easier with the introduction of iOS 4, so at whatever point we officially drop support for OS 3 it should be pretty easy for us to add.

 

[yoose]

Hi Mike,

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but would it be difficult to implement a right and left swipe to switch between different modes of Pleco, mainly dictionary, flashcards, and the reader? They can be continuous so you are never more than one swipe from the module you want to use. I have seen comments about users not liking having to go to the fan menu. This would eliminate the need to use that menu which can remain for the add-ons and settings. Although I also like an idea I read about using a grid style home area, which the fan button can take you to instead of what it currently does. Off the top of my head i can not think of any conflicts with using a swipe, with the exception of the full screen handwriting.

radioman mentioned it, I think - it became a good bit easier with the introduction of iOS 4, so at whatever point we officially drop support for OS 3 it should be pretty easy for us to add.

are there any plans to do so in the near future? i think it would be a good change from a usability standpoint.

 

[mikelove]

are there any plans to do so in the near future? i think it would be a good change from a usability standpoint.

Probably, but we're still trying to get a sense of how widespread OS3 is among our user base - a lot of people with jailbroken phones can't or won't upgrade to anything newer than 3.0 or 3.1.

 

[insighter]

This thread seems a little dead but I'll my two cents here anyways. Not sure if anyone has mentioned it before but I'd really like to be able to see two small fixes to the flashcard UI regarding categories. First, once you are working with a created category with flashcards in it I don't believe there is a way to change/edit the name of the category. Second, once you have categories inside categories you cannot move these categories into a different order. So for example if you were studying the Integrated Chinese textbook and had created a category of flashcards for it you would need to make sure you added chapters 1,2,3,4 all sequentially. If you didn't, say for example you studied chapter 3 first but then wanted to go back to chapter 1, and then wanted your list of chapter number categories to be in order the only way would be to waste a lot of time deleting and creating categories while copying and pasting flashcards. Maybe it's a little OCD of me , but I think changes like these could be done easily without adding new setting bars. For example, holding down on a flashcard category to edit the category name.

 

[mikelove]

This thread seems a little dead but I'll my two cents here anyways. Not sure if anyone has mentioned it before but I'd really like to be able to see two small fixes to the flashcard UI regarding categories. First, once you are working with a created category with flashcards in it I don't believe there is a way to change/edit the name of the category. Second, once you have categories inside categories you cannot move these categories into a different order. So for example if you were studying the Integrated Chinese textbook and had created a category of flashcards for it you would need to make sure you added chapters 1,2,3,4 all sequentially. If you didn't, say for example you studied chapter 3 first but then wanted to go back to chapter 1, and then wanted your list of chapter number categories to be in order the only way would be to waste a lot of time deleting and creating categories while copying and pasting flashcards. Maybe it's a little OCD of me , but I think changes like these could be done easily without adding new setting bars. For example, holding down on a flashcard category to edit the category name.

These are actually both doable already - to rename a category, tap on the (>) button next to its name in Organize Cards. To reorder categories, go into their parent category in Organize Cards, then tap on the "Edit" button and (if it's not already selected) tap on the "Categories" button at the top of the screen; you can drag around categories in that list to reorder them.

 

[insighter]

Ahh Pleco wins again. Well, just in an effort to try and contribute something I'll put forward another idea in terms of flashcard UI. It would be nice if when you held down + to create a flashcard during a dictionary search you could also choose a category inside another category. For example, if I was studying the textbook Integrated Chinese right now I could choose this category as the default destination of newly created cards..but if I was going chapter by chapter I would still need to move all the flashcards again in order to put them into their appropriate chapter category. Not a very big issue at all, but if you added one of those little > arrows on each of the main categories this would let you access the subfolders and save some time maybe.

 

[insighter]

Woops, just discovered after reading in the flashcard settings section of the instruction manual that you can actually already do this. I'm giving up on suggestions for now

 

[numble]

Is there a new API for accessing the music library? The QQ app for iPad seems to be able to access it much more seamlessly than Pleco.

 

[mikelove]

Is there a new API for accessing the music library? The QQ app for iPad seems to be able to access it much more seamlessly than Pleco.

There is, but it's another one of those things that we don't want to start using until we drop support for iOS 3.x - maintaining two different versions of a function is almost always something we'd rather avoid.

 

[insighter]

I have a couple questions on how to manipulate the flaschcard test settings. If there isn't a way, then they could be considered user interface enhancement suggestions.

Often when I am testing myself on writing characters I use a pinyin prompt without an English definition, but as we know there are multiple characters and even words that share similar tones. I would like to be able to peek at the English/Chinese definition sometimes to be able to differentiate between two characters with the same tone but currently there doesn't seem to be a way to get out of the writing mode without forcing you to give up and then receive a negative score. Just the ability to look at the card info would be good enough.

Also, I'm not sure but is it possible to have edit the test settings so that after a space based repition test session it would test you again on the ones you answered correctly? Some of my flash card lists are long so if I am doing a writing test on 200 semi-new characters at a time and am only scoring 50%, then it takes a week to drill it into my head instead of a day or two if it allowed me to answer incorrectly several times before a correct answer is finally given.

Thanks

 

[insighter]

Another thing, I don't see why flashcard categories are limited to three layers deep. I'd like to have at least four layers so I could have a category named "textbooks", the various text series, a specific textbook in the series, and finally the textbook chapter vocabulary itself.

 

[mikelove]

I have a couple questions on how to manipulate the flaschcard test settings. If there isn't a way, then they could be considered user interface enhancement suggestions.

Often when I am testing myself on writing characters I use a pinyin prompt without an English definition, but as we know there are multiple characters and even words that share similar tones. I would like to be able to peek at the English/Chinese definition sometimes to be able to differentiate between two characters with the same tone but currently there doesn't seem to be a way to get out of the writing mode without forcing you to give up and then receive a negative score. Just the ability to look at the card info would be good enough.

We actually do offer a mode like that for self-graded via the "Reveal fields separately" option... so you'd basically like a button that reveals the definition in fill-in-the-blanks tests? Out of curiosity, what bothers you about simply having the definition visible on every card?

Also, I'm not sure but is it possible to have edit the test settings so that after a space based repition test session it would test you again on the ones you answered correctly? Some of my flash card lists are long so if I am doing a writing test on 200 semi-new characters at a time and am only scoring 50%, then it takes a week to drill it into my head instead of a day or two if it allowed me to answer incorrectly several times before a correct answer is finally given.

You can turn on "Repeat incorrect" in Flashcard Testing / Commands; have you tried that yet? Is it not working correctly in spaced-repetition tests? If you answer "No" to the prompt about whether you'd like to continue, that should take you right into repeating incorrect cards.

You could also set up a test profile with some card filters to catch cards reviewed within the last few days that were last answered incorrectly - that would let you repeat them ad nauseam until you've memorized them all.

Another thing, I don't see why flashcard categories are limited to three layers deep. I'd like to have at least four layers so I could have a category named "textbooks", the various text series, a specific textbook in the series, and finally the textbook chapter vocabulary itself.

That's a relic of our Palm and Windows Mobile days, where 3 levels made sense for UI reasons (any deeper than that and the controls to open / close each level would take up so much of the screen that you wouldn't be able to see the names of the categories). Should be easy to expand to 4 or 5 now, though some kind of limit is still advisable if we want to be able to usefully present the entire category tree in a single scrolling list.

 

[insighter]

We actually do offer a mode like that for self-graded via the "Reveal fields separately" option... so you'd basically like a button that reveals the definition in fill-in-the-blanks tests? Out of curiosity, what bothers you about simply having the definition visible on every card?

Yes, I suppose a button would be nice but if that's a UI problem just a way to get out of writing mode to look at the card info might work as long as you blanked out the headword.

I tried out that mode and it's not a bad temporary solution. I have grown to like the fill-in-the-blank using HWR for characters, but I guess I could go back to the good old days when I used paper flashcards to maniacally write out all the characters in the air.

Hmm, if for example you were going to test yourself on a single character frequency word list then it might just make sense to show the English definition along with the pinyin because there are so many single character homonyms (characters with similar tones). However there are far fewer multi-character Chinese words that are exact homonyms, so I don't see why you would need always include English. If it was always included, then you might not be sure you could understand the sound w/out a definition. But at the same time it strikes me as overkill/less beneficial to learning Chinese to make whole new profile and duplicate all my cards to just test pinyin-English. Not a bad idea at the very beginner level but that's not what I want to be doing now.

You can turn on "Repeat incorrect" in Flashcard Testing / Commands; have you tried that yet? Is it not working correctly in spaced-repetition tests? If you answer "No" to the prompt about whether you'd like to continue, that should take you right into repeating incorrect cards.

Ok, figured out the 'repeat' mode. Thanks.

That's a relic of our Palm and Windows Mobile days, where 3 levels made sense for UI reasons (any deeper than that and the controls to open / close each level would take up so much of the screen that you wouldn't be able to see the names of the categories). Should be easy to expand to 4 or 5 now, though some kind of limit is still advisable if we want to be able to usefully present the entire category tree in a single scrolling list.

Cool, look forward to seeing 2.3 whenever it comes around.