2.3 / User Interface Enhancements

[insighter]

Ok, I'm starting to feel like I'm abusing this forum by bombarding it but suggestions seemed to be encouraged.

First of all just to summarize my points for the show English button/ability. Without it is currently almost impossible to test yourself on the English/or the character component of a single character from just the pinyin unless you are memorizing which cards you have in your deck, and not necessarily Chinese characters or their meaning. If you have a category/deck with both multi-character words and single character ones but don't necessarily want the English given to you then it can be a problem.

There's another three things I'd like to comment on. One is when you have the delete flashcard button open during a session it asks if you want to delete this flashcard from all categories. What if you want to just delete it from the category you are currently testing in? I think that either setting the option to delete from the current category as the default or providing a choice would both be better. Currently I am using the toggle categories button to move the flashcards to another area where I can delete them later, but I don't think this was how it was meant to work.

Two, when using flashcards I like to make sure I've gotten every card right at least once in a session. So when I start wasting time by failing with the same card over and over again multiple times I've that found the character analysis option under 字 such as character uses, components, stroke order, etc. are really useful in helping me remember these difficult 'leecher' cards. Another thing that would help me in session if I kept failing on a complicated character would be to practice getting the stroke order down first. I've heard other people mention doing this with a pen and paper, but we have Pleco for a reason so why not include a self-stroke order test as another option under the 字 menu.

Last, is it possible to remove the 'change score' button? Under commands I see 'score button action' to change it but not how to remove it.

 

[mikelove]

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.

Your cards aren't duplicated in a new profile - it's really just a collection of settings; it can share the same scores / cards / etc with your original profile, it would just give you an easy way to switch between configurations. I see your point about wanting to make sure that you can understand the sound without a definition, I'm just not sure if an option to manually reveal the definition is the right solution - I'd almost rather just add an option to only show the definition for single-character words, that way users are spared constantly having to hit a "reveal defn" button.

First of all just to summarize my points for the show English button/ability. Without it is currently almost impossible to test yourself on the English/or the character component of a single character from just the pinyin unless you are memorizing which cards you have in your deck, and not necessarily Chinese characters or their meaning. If you have a category/deck with both multi-character words and single character ones but don't necessarily want the English given to you then it can be a problem.

Well my recommended solution for that at the moment would be to set up two profiles, one with a card filter "Length filter" set to only include 1-character cards and the other to include cards with 2-16 (or whatever your max is) characters, the 1-character one showing you pinyin + defn and the multi-character one just showing the definition. Reviewing the two batches separately is probably a good idea anyway, since the mental process you're applying is significantly different for one set than it is for the other. Both would share the same scorefile so the results of both tests would be shared / be applicable to any other type of test you wanted to do in the future.

There's another three things I'd like to comment on. One is when you have the delete flashcard button open during a session it asks if you want to delete this flashcard from all categories. What if you want to just delete it from the category you are currently testing in? I think that either setting the option to delete from the current category as the default or providing a choice would both be better. Currently I am using the toggle categories button to move the flashcards to another area where I can delete them later, but I don't think this was how it was meant to work.

The problem is that we really don't have a concept of a "current category" - you can have more than one included in a session, you can have dozens of them in fact. And since a card can belong to more than one, it's very ambiguous which category you'd want to remove it from - all categories connected with this session, or just one specific one?

But if you set "category button default" in "Commands" to whatever category you're interested in, the category button will act as a toggle for that specific category rather than popping up a list, so you can then remove it from the category with a single button press.

Two, when using flashcards I like to make sure I've gotten every card right at least once in a session. So when I start wasting time by failing with the same card over and over again multiple times I've that found the character analysis option under 字 such as character uses, components, stroke order, etc. are really useful in helping me remember these difficult 'leecher' cards. Another thing that would help me in session if I kept failing on a complicated character would be to practice getting the stroke order down first. I've heard other people mention doing this with a pen and paper, but we have Pleco for a reason so why not include a self-stroke order test as another option under the 字 menu.

Mostly because I hate our current stroke order test - tapping on strokes is just very awkward, we didn't want to do it this way on iOS and we didn't want to do it that way on Android but in both cases we were simply under too much time pressure to come up with something nicer. Once we redesign it to something we like better we'll be pushing it in all sorts of places, but until then it'll probably be confined to basic flashcards.

However, if you just want to draw a character over and over again after you get it wrong, why not just tap on the sketch box button (second from the right in the toolbar at the top of the flashcard screen)? You can practice writing there after every card for as long as you like - it won't analyze your writing in any way, but it'll give you the same sort of "muscle memory" boost you get with pen and paper at least.

Last, is it possible to remove the 'change score' button? Under commands I see 'score button action' to change it but not how to remove it.

Not possible at the moment - do you find that you keep hitting it by accident? What would you suggest we put in that space instead of it?

 

[insighter]

Your cards aren't duplicated in a new profile - it's really just a collection of settings; it can share the same scores / cards / etc with your original profile, it would just give you an easy way to switch between configurations. I see your point about wanting to make sure that you can understand the sound without a definition, I'm just not sure if an option to manually reveal the definition is the right solution - I'd almost rather just add an option to only show the definition for single-character words, that way users are spared constantly having to hit a "reveal defn" button.

Having a setting option to always display a single character's English definition is a good idea and probably better than having another another "reveal defn" button.

I have to admit that even though I am using different profiles to test myself on different categories, but I am a little confused about the scoring. Say for example I am working through a big category with many sub-cateogries (a textbook series) and I want to know all aspects of the characters comprehensively. The final challenge to mastery of a character is writing it, but making sure you have the definition and and pinyin + tones down pat first is also a good idea too. Right now I'm trying to test myself on recognition of a character which prompts for the definition and pinyin and afterwards test myself on writing. I set up two different profiles to do this but I am not sure if this helps if they share the same score file. Doesn'ttesting yourself on the character in different ways interfere with the usefulness of card selection in another category? For example if I recognize a character and know the pinyin + tones on the first test session, the default scoring system will boost the score to 600. However after I switch to my writing practice profile and subsequently can't write out the character it will still have a score in the high 400-500's, and furthermore it probably won't show me the card very often even though I have problems with it.

I'm not sure there is any way around this, maybe you have a suggestion, but I think the end goal would be to have a score file that recognizes what you have learned about a character and what you are struggling with. Besides my above example it possible to be able to write a character but not know the pinyin, or know the pinyin but not the English, or any combination. However it seems that right now that if you don't balance yourself in your testing moralities a high score might not reflect a high understanding. What would be awesome would be to use that data to have Pleco make automated tests for that test you on the individual components of the characters you are struggling with.... but maybe that is for Pleco update v. 99.9, not 2.3.

Well my recommended solution for that at the moment would be to set up two profiles, one with a card filter "Length filter" set to only include 1-character cards and the other to include cards with 2-16 (or whatever your max is) characters, the 1-character one showing you pinyin + defn and the multi-character one just showing the definition. Reviewing the two batches separately is probably a good idea anyway, since the mental process you're applying is significantly different for one set than it is for the other. Both would share the same scorefile so the results of both tests would be shared / be applicable to any other type of test you wanted to do in the future.

The filter was another good idea, and I am using it until you incorporate that display option in the next update.

The problem is that we really don't have a concept of a "current category" - you can have more than one included in a session, you can have dozens of them in fact. And since a card can belong to more than one, it's very ambiguous which category you'd want to remove it from - all categories connected with this session, or just one specific one?

But if you set "category button default" in "Commands" to whatever category you're interested in, the category button will act as a toggle for that specific category rather than popping up a list, so you can then remove it from the category with a single button press.

I'm afraid I wan't quite clear on this. So if I set my category default button to the category I am currently testing then clicking the toggle category button will only delete that card from the category I've selected?

However, if you just want to draw a character over and over again after you get it wrong, why not just tap on the sketch box button (second from the right in the toolbar at the top of the flashcard screen)? You can practice writing there after every card for as long as you like - it won't analyze your writing in any way, but it'll give you the same sort of "muscle memory" boost you get with pen and paper at least.

Ok, sure. But why not just include that little 字 next to the stroke order animation? If a blank box appeared where the stroke animation had just played and you were able to draw over what had just played, then I think that would be potentially useful and easy to add. The only thing I'd like is to be able to erase what I just wrote and write fresh again. Maybe another tiny erase button?

Not possible at the moment - do you find that you keep hitting it by accident? What would you suggest we put in that space instead of it?

No, I'm not hitting it on accident, it does slow me down though when I'm trying select either toggle category or select card info. I just don't see it as a button that is so useful as to be an irremovable default.

Hmm, I can't think of anything I'd want to replace it but, do I need to? I think it's up to the button to prove it's own utility in order for it to be present. Otherwise you can just get rid of one in order to simplify the layout, leave space for future buttons, etc.

 

[Shun]

It's clear that during a test session, one cannot change the set of cards that is being tested. But couldn't the Test Type, what is being shown, and other test settings (like auto-pronounce), be changed on-the-fly during a session? That way, you aren't re-tested on the same words if you only made a small change to test settings. Last but not least, does parallel development of Pleco for Android and iPhone slow down the development of each, or can most code be used for both? Greetings.

 

[mikelove]

Having a setting option to always display a single character's English definition is a good idea and probably better than having another another "reveal defn" button.

OK, we'll try to get that in there soon.

I have to admit that even though I am using different profiles to test myself on different categories, but I am a little confused about the scoring. Say for example I am working through a big category with many sub-cateogries (a textbook series) and I want to know all aspects of the characters comprehensively. The final challenge to mastery of a character is writing it, but making sure you have the definition and and pinyin + tones down pat first is also a good idea too. Right now I'm trying to test myself on recognition of a character which prompts for the definition and pinyin and afterwards test myself on writing. I set up two different profiles to do this but I am not sure if this helps if they share the same score file. Doesn'ttesting yourself on the character in different ways interfere with the usefulness of card selection in another category? For example if I recognize a character and know the pinyin + tones on the first test session, the default scoring system will boost the score to 600. However after I switch to my writing practice profile and subsequently can't write out the character it will still have a score in the high 400-500's, and furthermore it probably won't show me the card very often even though I have problems with it.

You would probably want two different scorefiles in that case, but another option you could consider would be to have the test fields vary based on the card's score - it's an obscure little feature, and it only works within the same test type, but if you set "Subject selection" to "Score-based" in Test Settings, you can configure Pleco so that it will start off testing a specific card one way (show only characters) but then test it a different way (show only Pinyin) once the score reaches a certain threshold.

I'm not sure there is any way around this, maybe you have a suggestion, but I think the end goal would be to have a score file that recognizes what you have learned about a character and what you are struggling with. Besides my above example it possible to be able to write a character but not know the pinyin, or know the pinyin but not the English, or any combination. However it seems that right now that if you don't balance yourself in your testing moralities a high score might not reflect a high understanding. What would be awesome would be to use that data to have Pleco make automated tests for that test you on the individual components of the characters you are struggling with.... but maybe that is for Pleco update v. 99.9, not 2.3.

That would be a great long-term goal, yes - right now our biggest-priority major flashcard improvement is more detailed statistics tracking, both so that we can give you better graphs / reports / etc and (perhaps more importantly) so that we can finally add iCloud sync (with the ability to combine the results of tests conducted separately on both devices), but an overhaul to the way we think about test types and sessions should probably rank higher too.

The filter was another good idea, and I am using it until you incorporate that display option in the next update.

Great, glad I could help.

I'm afraid I wan't quite clear on this. So if I set my category default button to the category I am currently testing then clicking the toggle category button will only delete that card from the category I've selected?

Yes, and the icon will change to indicate whether or not the card is currently in that category.

Ok, sure. But why not just include that little 字 next to the stroke order animation? If a blank box appeared where the stroke animation had just played and you were able to draw over what had just played, then I think that would be potentially useful and easy to add. The only thing I'd like is to be able to erase what I just wrote and write fresh again. Maybe another tiny erase button?

We certainly could, yes - if the Character Info screen weren't being totally gutted for 2.3 we probably would have done it in a minor update. You can erase what you've written with a two-finger tap, just as in the regular handwriting recognizer.

No, I'm not hitting it on accident, it does slow me down though when I'm trying select either toggle category or select card info. I just don't see it as a button that is so useful as to be an irremovable default.

Hmm, I can't think of anything I'd want to replace it but, do I need to? I think it's up to the button to prove it's own utility in order for it to be present. Otherwise you can just get rid of one in order to simplify the layout, leave space for future buttons, etc.

Well the precedent makes me a bit nervous - you can make an argument that all of our toolbars ought to fully customizable, but we've moved away from that approach in recent months since we think it leads to sloppy designs; I'd rather wait until we actually have something we need to replace that button with and consider it then. (we have implemented some toolbar customization on Android, but we did it reluctantly and only because a lot of devices mis-report their screen size so that the toolbars will have too many / too few buttons if people can't customize them)

 

[mikelove]

It's clear that during a test session, one cannot change the set of cards that is being tested. But couldn't the Test Type, what is being shown, and other test settings (like auto-pronounce), be changed on-the-fly during a session? That way, you aren't re-tested on the same words if you only made a small change to test settings.

Why not just handle that with a Card Filter? Set up a "time filter" to exclude cards that were reviewed within the last hour / day / whatever.

Last but not least, does parallel development of Pleco for Android and iPhone slow down the development of each, or can most code be used for both? Greetings.

The tricky code can mostly be used for both - Android has actually been helpful for that since we can distribute our Android beta-test versions much more freely and widely than our iPhone ones. (where we have Apple's 100-device limit to contend with) So some dicey new features like merged multi-dict search have already been widely circulated and well tested because we released them in Android betas.

However, we have had to take some resources away from iPhone development for the last few months in order to get the initial Android release finished; we don't like delaying our iOS updates, but user-demand-wise, we have far more iOS users writing to ask when the finished Android version will be ready (so that they can switch to Android) than we have writing us to ask when 2.3 will be out. In fact I think that even if we put it to a vote among our iOS customers we'd find more people wanted us to work on finishing Android than 2.3.

That being said, once Android's finally done (as it should be very soon) our focus can turn back to iOS, and since we won't have that Android port hanging over us, we should be able to keep iOS improvements coming out at a good pace - if we'd delayed Android to finish 2.3 then there would have been another interminable wait for 2.4 (2.3's flashcard-oriented follow-up) while we went back and finished Android.

 

[Shun]

Well, I wanted a less daunting, more readily accessible solution, but thanks for the other info.

 

[dcarpent]

So I guess those of us with no interest in Android who have been trying not to pester you about iPhone updates should have been more vocal.

 

[mikelove]

So I guess those of us with no interest in Android who have been trying not to pester you about iPhone updates should have been more vocal.

Well there are an awful lot of non-pestering Android users too, I'm mostly going by People Whose Opinions I'm Not Already Reasonably Familiar With for this particular nonscientific survey

But along with the code-testing help, Android is doing wonderful things for us licensing-wise - we finally got through to two Chinese publishers we've never had much luck with due in no small part to Android-related excitement, iPhone may be the status symbol but it seems like every darn Business Development Manager in the country is carrying some sort of Android gadget. And if (as we hope / expect) it expands the size of our market then it also helps us potentially charge less for some of our new dictionaries than we otherwise would, since it makes it easier to cover royalty advances / meet quarterly quotas / etc.

Android development has also led to some revelations on the UI front that wouldn't have happened if we'd released 2.3 six months ago - I'm really happy with the new combined word/character info screen, for example, and I'm also increasingly convinced of the usability of multi-row popup menus (which I was on the fence about last summer, so we probably would have stuck with the tab bar). Plus it's now clear that the best way to handle the confusing settings issue is to stick descriptive text right below each setting, rather than linking to an (i) popup. And while I'm still not 100% solid on the UI for merged multi-dict searches it's come a long way in a few Android betas and hopefully will really sing on iOS.

Still, I don't like taking our existing customers for granted this way (for the second time in 3 years - I never felt good about dropping 2.0 development on WM so soon either), and I'm hoping that once Android is finally done we can stop worrying about ports for a while - even if Windows Phone 7 manages to pick up a respectable market share, Android and iOS aren't going away anytime soon, and we're no longer one capricious Apple reviewer away from being put out of business, so nobody's going to be able to make the argument that Pleco risks catastrophe if we don't support WP.

 

[dcarpent]

If the Android version gives you more clout with important publishers then that alone justifies the wait. And if Android development has led to improvements that will eventually appear on the iPhone, so much the better. Not to mention the added security that this second market gives your business as a whole. Thanks for the explanation.

While I have no interest in Android, I have recommended Pleco to a number of students who lost interest as soon as they learned that was not on Android. So I see how the Android version is going to be important for Pleco's growth. Do you have an idea at this point of when the Android version will be officially released? I'll be happy to promote it with these people when it does.

Waiting for updates and new dictionaries for the iPhone version is made easier by the fact that Pleco for iPhone 2.2 is already so useful as it is.

 

[mikelove]

If the Android version gives you more clout with important publishers then that alone justifies the wait. And if Android development has led to improvements that will eventually appear on the iPhone, so much the better. Not to mention the added security that this second market gives your business as a whole. Thanks for the explanation.

While I have no interest in Android, I have recommended Pleco to a number of students who lost interest as soon as they learned that was not on Android. So I see how the Android version is going to be important for Pleco's growth. Do you have an idea at this point of when the Android version will be officially released? I'll be happy to promote it with these people when it does.

Very soon - we do have to put out one more beta since we found a number of reasonably-significant bugs in B7, but hopefully that'll be the version we can ship.

Waiting for updates and new dictionaries for the iPhone version is made easier by the fact that Pleco for iPhone 2.2 is already so useful as it is.

Thanks! And I really appreciate this attitude in general - I know the wait has been frustrating for a lot of people, though, and I hope that after this we'll never again have to go this long without a major update to our primary product.

 

[gato]

Mike, I started using the flashcards again to practice my writing. I notice that the flashcard "sketch box" toggle is a bit obscure. I looked for it in "testing setting", but couldn't find it. Then then I randomly tapped "字" while doing the flashcards, and voila, I could write characters. Perhaps you can change "字" to "写" to make it more obvious. Using "字" is also confusing because of its association with character dictionary entries. I had thought it was to toggle definition display. It might also be good to add the sketch box toggle in "test settings" because many people might expect to find it there and there aren't too many settings on that page yet.

I would guess that this applies to both the iPhone and Android version.

http://www.pleco.com/ipmanual/flash.html#session

 

[mikelove]

Mike, I started using the flashcards again to practice my writing. I notice that the flashcard "sketch box" toggle is a bit obscure. I looked for it in "testing setting", but couldn't find it. Then then I randomly tapped "字" while doing the flashcards, and voila, I could write characters. Perhaps you can change "字" to "写" to make it more obvious. Using "字" is also confusing because of its association with character dictionary entries. I had thought it was to toggle definition display. It might also be good to add the sketch box toggle in "test settings" because many people might expect to find it there and there aren't too many settings on that page yet.

We replaced it with a paintbrush icon on Android, actually - the problem is that that's also the icon we use for HWR and we're not entirely sure how people will react to the two. If it works well we'll use it on iOS, if not we'll come up with something else (maybe a notepad? but that would suggest notes)

 

[gato]

We replaced it with a paintbrush icon on Android, actually - the problem is that that's also the icon we use for HWR and we're not entirely sure how people will react to the two. If it works well we'll use it on iOS, if not we'll come up with something else (maybe a notepad? but that would suggest notes)

How about "写", as I mentioned above? Should be fairly unambiguous.

 

[mikelove]

How about "写", as I mentioned above? Should be fairly unambiguous.

Could work, but it's a bit hard to read at that size (especially in the 繁体字 version - we'd need to update the icon when the software was in traditional mode to avoid offending people). We'll see how people react to the paintbrush on Android and go from there.

 

[gato]

How about showing an "eraser" icon whenever the sketch pad is selected (maybe to the right of the definition box) so that one can erase what's there and start fresh?

Is there way to keep the sketch pad enabled from session to session? It seems as if one needs to tap on "字" to re-enable it in every new flashcard session.

Would it be possible for you to outline your plans to streamline the flashcards UI (and other parts, if possible) at some point so that regular users could give you feedback? Might make sense to get the feedback early, even before you get to the beta stage.

 

[yoose]

How about showing an "eraser" icon whenever the sketch pad is selected (maybe to the right of the definition box) so that one can erase what's there and start fresh?

if you tap with two fingers it will clear the writing area.

 

[gato]

if you tap with two fingers it will clear the writing area.

Thanks. Might be good to have an eraser-type icon anyway for those of us who've only skimmed the manual (the flashcard section alone has 80 pages when copied into MS Word).

 

[mikelove]

Is there way to keep the sketch pad enabled from session to session? It seems as if one needs to tap on "字" to re-enable it in every new flashcard session.

It's designed as more of a temporary overlay - turn it on, sketch something, turn it off, turn it back on again to compare to the results. We hadn't really envisioned people leaving it on all the time - is that what you're doing?

Would it be possible for you to outline your plans to streamline the flashcards UI (and other parts, if possible) at some point so that regular users could give you feedback? Might make sense to get the feedback early, even before you get to the beta stage.

To be honest, aside from making it look a little cleaner we're not planning a whole lot of immediate changes to the flashcard session interface layout - it's far and away the part of Pleco's UI that people seem to have the fewest issues with.

We are adding an in-session dictionary switch button, since that's a popular request, and we'll also be changing some icons and perhaps resizing a few things for iPad, but most of the changes we're planning to flashcards are in the configuration screens rather than the actual test interface. The only significant layout change we might do would be to move the menu button to the bottom right corner of the screen (carving out a little chunk of the bottom right test button) since it'd be nice for consistency's sake to have that appear in the same place everywhere, but that one's very much up for debate since we don't want to annoy people by having them hit it accidentally.

Broadly speaking I'd say these are our big flashcard priorities at the moment (in no particular order)

• iCloud sync
• Custom fields (add your own mnemonics or notes, e.g.)
• Custom audio / images (with support for capturing both on-device)
• Automated (hands-free) testing
• Nicer statistics charts
• Text-to-speech for sentences etc
• Mixing multiple test types in a session
• Better custom card / entry creation (fill in pinyin/characters for you, edit everything on one screen)
• More sensible configuration options (embrace the rep-spaced idea more fully by having the options talk about it instead of "scores," e.g.)

 

[spherelander]

Congrats Mike on the Android release! I can't wait for the next iPhone release. Wink wink nudge nudge. :wink:

A few features I would like to see:

1) I often confuse similar looking characters and to address this I create a "combined flash card" of two or three of these characters. For example I might setup of the headword field like "薄/簿", the pronunciation field as "bao2 / bu4" and the definition as "flimsy / book". I find these sort of flashcards very helpful but creating them is currently very time consuming. I would love some sort of option that would allow one to create a new flashcard then enter multiple characters (with some limit to the number of course) separated by a delimiter and then have Pleco fill in delimited pronunciations and delimited definitions (which both could be hand edited to shorten the otherwise long definition).

2) In the statistics screen something to show the number of unique characters and unique "learned characters" in a deck(s). Even though the number of characters one recognizes is a fairly poor gauge of one's reading ability but can still be quite motivating.

3) An option to easily compare a deck(s) of flashcards (both all and only learned cards) against lists of characters such as TOP, HSK, frequency lists, custom list in other deck(s) etc. Perhaps it could list the TOP or HSK levels showing for each the percent/number/number-missing of all or learned characters found in a deck(s).

4) In the "character details" tab it would be nice to see the TOP Level, HSK Level, etc. in addition to the "Frequency" and "GradeLevel" that is currently provided. This would be helpful to determining if I should or shouldn't add a newly encountered character to a flashcard set.

5) Sometimes when I get to "exploring a character" by clicking on several level of "character components, "words containing the character", then clicking on other encountered characters, etc... and find myself having to click "back", "back", press the background to suppress the character popup window, "back", and so on to get back to the original dictionary entry or flashcard. Perhaps I'm too easily distracted by the wealth of information Pleco provides but I would love a button that takes me all the way back to the beginning.

6) In Lyric Reader an option to slow down playback would really be helpful when my ears just can't keep up with a Chinese podcast.

Also ever since iOS5 I've had problems with the Lyrics Reader where the pause button doesn't stop playback. This seems to be an iOS5 issue since I also started having similar problems with music playback in RunKeeper.