2.3 / User Interface Enhancements

Bendy-Ren

举人
One idea for scrolling in dictionary view—instead of having the option for the scroll bar at the bottom to appear or disappear, would it be possible do something like the way the Dropbox app handles long PDF files? Which is, dragging your finger along the side of the screen makes the pages scroll like a traditional scroll bar, while dragging anywhere else makes it scroll using the normal iOS method. One less button to deal with, and it's more intuitive
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
One idea for scrolling in dictionary view—instead of having the option for the scroll bar at the bottom to appear or disappear, would it be possible do something like the way the Dropbox app handles long PDF files? Which is, dragging your finger along the side of the screen makes the pages scroll like a traditional scroll bar, while dragging anywhere else makes it scroll using the normal iOS method. One less button to deal with, and it's more intuitive

Actually, we licensed the same PDF viewer they did, and so I believe we'll have the same interface in Pleco when viewing newly-tap-lookup-enabled PDF files.

But this would be problematic in definitions because we're already planning to put some tappable buttons on the right side of the screen where that bar would be - specifically the add-to-flashcard buttons, since we need one of them for each dictionary entry so that you can choose the entry to create a flashcard from. (the plan is that they'll go right below the dictionary icons) There's a strong chance that the Character Info button (now part of the main entry) will go there as well (in the header section).

Actually the current plan with definition scrolling is to simply stick with the basic iOS scrolling system - even very long entries like 打 only require a few swipes to get to the bottom, so we don't see much of a need for an alternate scrolling method. (we came up with a few designs for one before we realized this - tabs for specific dictionaries, page turning, etc - but we've pretty much abandoned them all now)
 

Bendy-Ren

举人
That makes sense, but what I was referring to was actually the main dictionary list—where you can scroll through literally every word in the dictionary if you keep at it long enough. Currently you can push the button that looks like a division sign, in order to make a scroll bar appear along the bottom. It also appears when you're viewing a long list of flashcards.
I was talking about replacing that bottom scroll bar with one that automatically appears on the side.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
That makes sense, but what I was referring to was actually the main dictionary list—where you can scroll through literally every word in the dictionary if you keep at it long enough. Currently you can push the button that looks like a division sign, in order to make a scroll bar appear along the bottom. It also appears when you're viewing a long list of flashcards.
I was talking about replacing that bottom scroll bar with one that automatically appears on the side.

We've actually moved that whole-dictionary view to a separate screen now - wasn't a popular enough feature to justify such a prominent spot. But we could certainly consider this sort of scrolling for that screen.
 

tangent

Member
Idea for an enhancement. Sometimes when I look up a word and add it to flashcards, the "duplicate card" reminder pops up. So obviously, those words are words that I have come across more often, but have yet to remember. Could there be an automatic "duplicate card" flashcard category? Any word that is added to flashcards at least twice or at least 3x gets added to "duplicate card" category. Just a thought.

Thanks for the great product.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Idea for an enhancement. Sometimes when I look up a word and add it to flashcards, the "duplicate card" reminder pops up. So obviously, those words are words that I have come across more often, but have yet to remember. Could there be an automatic "duplicate card" flashcard category? Any word that is added to flashcards at least twice or at least 3x gets added to "duplicate card" category. Just a thought.

We've actually had quite a few requests for this - not quite sure how we'd implement it, though, a "times added" log of some sort might be more useful than a separate category (perhaps along with a "times looked up" log tied to history in some way).
 

atatakai

Member
First of all, I love this app. It is very helpful. However, I was thinking that it might be helpful to have a function to distinguish between "ALL" words fitting the word one is looking for and "common words only". Often I find words Chinese would not use, are old-fashioned or just an odd combination of Hanzi.

Just an Idea. Thank you very much.
Kind Regards,
atatakai
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
First of all, I love this app. It is very helpful. However, I was thinking that it might be helpful to have a function to distinguish between "ALL" words fitting the word one is looking for and "common words only". Often I find words Chinese would not use, are old-fashioned or just an odd combination of Hanzi.

Already coming in our next update, which (by default) will frequency-sort all search results.
 

moelicious

秀才
This is just a very minor issue: When adding a new flashcard from the Pocket Oxford dictionary and then converting it to a custom card ("Convert to custom card"->"Edit card"), the definition field appears to be empty. I just sometimes like to edit / clean up the definition field while creating my custom flashcards. It works fine with all the other dictionaries, as far as I know.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
This is just a very minor issue: When adding a new flashcard from the Pocket Oxford dictionary and then converting it to a custom card ("Convert to custom card"->"Edit card"), the definition field appears to be empty. I just sometimes like to edit / clean up the definition field while creating my custom flashcards. It works fine with all the other dictionaries, as far as I know.

For licensing reasons, the definitions from some dictionaries cannot be (directly) converted to plain text - you'll also find you can't export POCD definitions to a text file for the same reason.
 

trickyt

Member
The biggest improvement I would like is a count down time for flash cards. The idea is that if you can't solve a character within a certain number of seconds, it is marked "wrong"
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
We do offer an option now to add a card timer to the top bar - won't score it for you automatically but will at least let you see exactly how long it took you to answer so that you can then score yourself based on that.
 

gato

状元
I am using it to memorize writing characters. I have it set at self-grade. With the pinyin and definition as the prompt, I try to write the character in the sketch box and grade myself on whether I got it right.
Makes sense; wouldn't be too hard to add an option to have it open on test startup. Or we could just remember its previous state, I suppose.
Do you know this update for the "sketchbox" setting will be added in the next iOS update? It doesn't seem to have been done yet.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
No, probably not until we revamp the flashcard session UI which is another big update or two away.
 

rhizome

秀才
1. a way to easily turn an example sentence into a custom card. Now, you have to copy/paste (I think that's the best way?) and the formatting gets screwed up a bit.

2. A way to look up a word and change the scorecard for it right there in the dictionary entry (sometimes I realize I forgot a word from an earlier lesson, I look it up, and then I want to adapt the score so that it will come up again that day or the next day in SRS, but that seems difficult/impossible?)

3. THIS ONE WOULD BE AWESOME: push notifications everyday with an overview how many cards are waiting to be reviewed that day.
Would be nice be able to customize on which categories you want to be notified too. e.g. you could get a notification (via email or the app) on 5 categories that you are reviewing with SR, and a breakdown of the amount of words per category. I think this would be super encouraging!

If it would be possible to project how many words you have due even further in the future (if you stick to the plan) that would be awesome too. I think this would really help me feel like I know where I am on my learning track, what I've accomplished and what I am learning. Right now, I feel like this is still an area where Pleco has most potential for development--really giving you insight on how far you've come, what you need to do now (how many words, projection of amount of time you need to spend on them), and what you will achieve if you stick to the plan. Ideally, you would have a super clear training plan--like marathon runners or other athletes have.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Thanks! 1) is definitely coming - one of the top few most requested flashcard features.

2) would really just be a matter of adding editing to the scoring section of Card Info, so it's a logical change but one that would probably make the most sense after our SRS algorithm revamp.

3) might work farther off as we work to add more game-type features, yes - that's a few updates away, though.
 
Top