Flashcards
- Thread starter elipio
- Start date
Hmm... any chance they might have been created in the same second? (did you add them with the + button or via an import?) Would you mind exporting the cards in question to an XML file and emailing it to me (mikelove@pleco.com), or better still, using "Backup Database" to back up your entire flashcard database and zipping / emailing me that (along with exactly which words aren't coming up in order?)? That might shed some more light on this problem.
Obviously I needed to download the update from itunes before the flashcards would become available to download. Duh.
Agree with all the positive comments, this is an absolutely brilliant piece of software and I have been showing it off to everyone I know who has even the slightest interest in studying Chinese. It's been a great shot in the arm for my studying, especially the ability to add flashcards straight from the document reader. I've been making a mental list of things I'd like to suggest for the next update, then striking them when I discover they've in fact already been incorporated. I think I still have a couple of things left on there though: one, which I think has already been mentioned, would be the ability to see the meaning of the character you entered when you make a mistake. This would be really handy for clarification when you confuse one character with another that only differs by a stroke or two. Another good feature would be the ability to set a default flashcard list for different documents in the reader.
Agree with all the positive comments, this is an absolutely brilliant piece of software and I have been showing it off to everyone I know who has even the slightest interest in studying Chinese. It's been a great shot in the arm for my studying, especially the ability to add flashcards straight from the document reader. I've been making a mental list of things I'd like to suggest for the next update, then striking them when I discover they've in fact already been incorporated. I think I still have a couple of things left on there though: one, which I think has already been mentioned, would be the ability to see the meaning of the character you entered when you make a mistake. This would be really handy for clarification when you confuse one character with another that only differs by a stroke or two. Another good feature would be the ability to set a default flashcard list for different documents in the reader.
Thanks! Default flashcard categories for different documents are an interesting idea - the two questions are, #1, how can we make sure people remember they've set those default categories, and #2, would we want this to replace the already-set default category or supplement it (add the card to both categories).
Mike,
Success downloading flashcards from Chinesepod. All it took was putting up an 11N wireless local area network at home and using the Pleco app's mini-browser. XML files from Chinesepod load flawlessly.
BTW, I went ahead and bought a 32G Wireless/non-3G iPad. The Pleco experience is much improved with the iPad port. I recommend the investment to anyone leaning toward the iPad.
Success downloading flashcards from Chinesepod. All it took was putting up an 11N wireless local area network at home and using the Pleco app's mini-browser. XML files from Chinesepod load flawlessly.
BTW, I went ahead and bought a 32G Wireless/non-3G iPad. The Pleco experience is much improved with the iPad port. I recommend the investment to anyone leaning toward the iPad.
I would personally choose it to replace the overall default choice rather than supplement it, but I guess that could be an option. How about it after you add a flashcard a box flashes up saying "this card has been added to suchandsuch list", and you can tap on the box to change that if you so desire.
laodie - great! Though even their text files should work almost 100% reliably in 2.1.1. Glad you're liking the iPad version.
magicdave - makes sense, most of the time I think people tend to stick with chapter- or material-specific "lists" as their primary organization system and only dabble with more flexible uses of categories; really the biggest reason to have the same card belong to multiple categories is if the same word shows up in multiple textbooks / vocabulary lists, better to have one copy of it / one score / review history than two.
I'm not wild about making the flashcard popup interactive because that tends to slow things down somewhat - however, if you'd like to be prompted for which list to add the card to every time you tap on the + button, just turn on "Always prompt for cat" in Settings / Flashcards; even without enabling that, you can bring up the prompt by tap-holding on the +.
magicdave - makes sense, most of the time I think people tend to stick with chapter- or material-specific "lists" as their primary organization system and only dabble with more flexible uses of categories; really the biggest reason to have the same card belong to multiple categories is if the same word shows up in multiple textbooks / vocabulary lists, better to have one copy of it / one score / review history than two.
I'm not wild about making the flashcard popup interactive because that tends to slow things down somewhat - however, if you'd like to be prompted for which list to add the card to every time you tap on the + button, just turn on "Always prompt for cat" in Settings / Flashcards; even without enabling that, you can bring up the prompt by tap-holding on the +.
At the moment I have mine set up to always prompt for the category. But how about this: the first time you add a word from a document you get a pop-up asking you if you want to use your overall default category, set a specific category for this document, or choose a category manually each time you add a word.
A few other suggestions (you know, just in case you're not busy or anything): could you make it so that when you return to a list it remembers your last position rather than returning to the top? I have some quite long lists, and I've often found myself adding a word from the reader, going to the flashcards to edit the entry, returning to the document reader and then having to exit and re-enter the flashcard list when I next add a card, and having to flick back down to the bottom every time. Another possibility would be to have the list check to see if any new cards have been added when you return to the list from an individual card.
And finally, how about the ability to create some sort of practice routines/workouts? I tend to do the same kind of routine every time - first a fill-in-the-blanks headword test, then a fill-in-the-blanks on pronunciation, then both again with a different list, then a big tones test on both lists, and finally another fill-in-the-blanks headwords focusing on words I've got wrong in the past. It would be lovely if I could set it up to run that for me automatically without having to fiddle with the settings in between each one.
Not that I mean to sound as though I'm dissatisfied with the software as it is...
A few other suggestions (you know, just in case you're not busy or anything): could you make it so that when you return to a list it remembers your last position rather than returning to the top? I have some quite long lists, and I've often found myself adding a word from the reader, going to the flashcards to edit the entry, returning to the document reader and then having to exit and re-enter the flashcard list when I next add a card, and having to flick back down to the bottom every time. Another possibility would be to have the list check to see if any new cards have been added when you return to the list from an individual card.
And finally, how about the ability to create some sort of practice routines/workouts? I tend to do the same kind of routine every time - first a fill-in-the-blanks headword test, then a fill-in-the-blanks on pronunciation, then both again with a different list, then a big tones test on both lists, and finally another fill-in-the-blanks headwords focusing on words I've got wrong in the past. It would be lovely if I could set it up to run that for me automatically without having to fiddle with the settings in between each one.
Not that I mean to sound as though I'm dissatisfied with the software as it is...
Vzzzbx - not at the moment, though I agree it can be a little jerky on a 3G - does it help any if you turn your phone off completely (hold down the power button) and then turn it back on?
magicdave - that could work for document-specific categories. We could also just make it configurable through the same screen where you change the document's name and text encoding (the one you get to by tapping on >) - that way people who didn't want to deal with it wouldn't have to.
Remembering the list position in categories might be nice, though I like the idea of showing / flagging newly added words too... interesting area to consider in general.
As far as practice routines, have you set up separate profiles for each of those tests? That at least would save you from having to go through and change a lot of settings - you'd do a test with the fill-in-the-blanks headword profile, then the fill-in-the-blanks pronunciation profile, and so on. You can create new profiles via the "Manage" button at the bottom left corner of the profile selection screen.
magicdave - that could work for document-specific categories. We could also just make it configurable through the same screen where you change the document's name and text encoding (the one you get to by tapping on >) - that way people who didn't want to deal with it wouldn't have to.
Remembering the list position in categories might be nice, though I like the idea of showing / flagging newly added words too... interesting area to consider in general.
As far as practice routines, have you set up separate profiles for each of those tests? That at least would save you from having to go through and change a lot of settings - you'd do a test with the fill-in-the-blanks headword profile, then the fill-in-the-blanks pronunciation profile, and so on. You can create new profiles via the "Manage" button at the bottom left corner of the profile selection screen.
Actually I think we may have a fix on transparent handwriting in flashcards at least - it turns out there's an undocumented API that helps with this which Apple has now officially said developers are free to use in spite of its being undocumented. Still not 100% sure if it'll work but there's a good chance at least.
pufftissue
秀才
Hi, I do not have the flashcards module on my ipad. I have restored purchases already. I have the flashcard module working on my ipod touch, and I already paid for it. Do I need to re-buy flashcards again in order to use them on the ipad? I'm not sure what I need to do. Thanks!
Are you sure you're using the latest version of Pleco on your iPad? Are the toolbars coming up in standard iPad gray or are they shaded blue like in our iPhone software? If you're running the latest version they should be gray.
If you're already running the latest version, perhaps there's some particular purchase you're not being credited for - if you PM me with the Registration IDs (from the top of the "Settings" tab) of your iPod and your iPad I can check on that for you.
If you're already running the latest version, perhaps there's some particular purchase you're not being credited for - if you PM me with the Registration IDs (from the top of the "Settings" tab) of your iPod and your iPad I can check on that for you.
I'm still at a bit of a loss regarding my flashcard settings. Just like I did in Anki, I would like to be able to define a maximum number of *new* cards I want to learn daily, and tell Pleco it should present them to me before repeating older cards. I just don't see how to do this in Pleco, and I am not sure whether this is at all possible... Thanks for any helpful answers!
Regards,
Fluhkes
Regards,
Fluhkes
Pleco is actually designed to do the opposite of that - show you new cards last, so that if you don't have time to even keep up with your older cards you won't keep getting loaded up with new ones until you've cleared your existing to-do list. We've generally found from customer comments that a lot of people have issues with keeping up with their flashcard reviews, so the last thing we want to do is introduce new cards when they already have a lot that are overdue for review. This is also why we dole out new cards with a system that mains a total number of new cards (the "limit unlearned" system) rather than giving you a certain number per day.
However, the features you describe certainly might be possible as options in a future release - would the maximum-number-per-day meet your needs if it worked in addition to the limit-unlearned feature, so that along with limiting you to 100 or 200 "unlearned" cards at once it would avoid introducing more than 5 or 10 per day even if there was more space than that in the unlearned pool?
However, the features you describe certainly might be possible as options in a future release - would the maximum-number-per-day meet your needs if it worked in addition to the limit-unlearned feature, so that along with limiting you to 100 or 200 "unlearned" cards at once it would avoid introducing more than 5 or 10 per day even if there was more space than that in the unlearned pool?
How exactly does the record of how well you know a card work? It seems there's only one overall score - is that added to each time you get it correct, regardless of whether you're testing yourself on the headword, pronunciation, or the tone? This is only something I've noticed because I have my fill-in-the-blanks profile for concentrating on headwords I've made mistakes on before (using the history filter) has been throwing up some cards whose headwords I haven't looked at before on the basis of the fact that I've made mistakes on the tones. I have no idea how feasible this would be, but would it be possible to have separate scores for each card's headword, pronunciation and tone?
Not only possible but already implemented - you can have multiple scores for the same card through the "scorefile" system. Basically, you'd create a separate flashcard profile for each type of test you want to do (tap on the profile selector on the main Flashcard Testing screen, then on the Manage button at the bottom left corner of it and you can create / edit / delete / rearrange profiles through there), then give each of them an independent "scorefile" (configured through the "Scoring" settings screen). Each scorefile has its own independent review history / score / easiness factor / etc for a particular card, a bit like Anki's "fact" system but (we think) even more powerful and flexible.
llammamama's excellent guide for flashcard power-users uses that approach to separate tone practice scores from other scores.
llammamama's excellent guide for flashcard power-users uses that approach to separate tone practice scores from other scores.
I am having trouble creating vocab lists on my computer and importing them to flashcards. I can import lists that others have created. I have tried to type up the lists of vocab for a chapter, using just the characters, in NJStar. It seems like the fastest way to create a list would be to let Pleco fill in the pinyin and definition itself, and edit as I see fit later. That said I have used no "tabs" in my list, only "enter" between vocab terms. I have tried saving it in NJStar as UTF-8 encoding and in Notepad as well. Both ways, I can upload the list to my Ipod Touch, but when I try to import the cards (identifying the UTF-8) encoding, it manages to import only a few then Pleco shuts down. Ideas on what I'm doing wrong? I know a default method of creating lists would be to look up all the vocab and add each to a flashcard as I go, but it just seems to be a bit faster to import a list of typed vocab. Apologies if this is addressed elsewhere, but I've been reading through forums and haven't found an answer yet. Thanks...