2.3 / User Interface Enhancements

[radioman]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

Sorry if something related is on the board... but...

Would it be possible to cycle dictionaries by a left or right swipe? rather than having to click the small icon to switch the dictionaries.

I find myself on many of my lookups wanting to see how the different dictionaries represent a definition. I am just thinking a more "macro" type of gesture might be a bit easier, and relatively natural.

 

[mikelove]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

It would be possible, but I'm a bit wary of left-right swipe gestures because in order to properly distinguish them from regular taps they have to really "big," and it's considerably easier to do "big" gestures up-down than left-right; people scroll up/down all the time, but they scroll left/right considerably less often, and there's a reason the iPhone is designed that way.

However, there may be other gesture-related approaches to switching dictionaries that could work well - something that didn't require a big scroll but rather a small scroll-and-hold - the Twitter app, e.g., with its "pull down to refresh" gesture that would probably also work left/right, or a gesture that involved a tap-hold; something where the confirmation comes not from the size of the gesture but rather from holding your thumb down for a moment before releasing it. We could also try doing something with multi-touch - lots of requests for that already.

 

[psucom]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

I greatly enjoy using the document reader. It is significantly helping me to improve my Chinese reading skills, just like the Chinese tv series do wonders for my listening comprehension. In fact I got the iPad because of the document reader functionality. Although the available dictionaries are largely inclusive, there are still many gaps when reading novels, news websites, and blogs. Therefore the more extensive dictionaries that are available, the valuable this product becomes. I've read about the new dictionary possibilities that were recently mentioned with the OCR update, but I also wanted to contribute by 2 cents.

Along these lines, when reading a Chinese text, I will tap to look up a word or phrase which will sometimes lead to an entry on in the Chinese-Chinese GF dictionary. It would then be nice if the Chinese characters in the popup entry could also be clickable so as to fully comprehend the GF popup entry.

Also regarding the popup, sometimes there are hyperlinks to other words, but sometimes, probably depending on the dictionary, only the pinyin pronunciation is provided for the word and not the characters. One can easily look up the characters after clicking on the pronunciation, but it would still be nice having the character in brackets like it is done with some of the entries.

Regarding the user options--I love the great user customizability that is granted to the users, but I struggle to understand many of the options that are available. I have learned a considerable amount from the user manual, but it would much easier if explanations could be embedded somehow where the options are located so as to not require looking them up in the extensive manual.

Is popup available for English words? I often encounter the scenario in which, say, only the Ads dictionary has an entry for the word, and it translates it to an English word that I'm unfamiliar with. It would be nice to simply click the popup English word and find a definition from Wiktionary (for example) and possible even display relevant pictures. Indeed, this would also be nice for the Chinese words as well.

One final note--jumping to the top. When reading text with the web browser and the popup bar hits the last character on the page, it seems to automatically advance the page putting the popup bar at the top of the page. This natural functionality does not seem to be present in the pasteboard document reader. When I hit the bottom of the page there, it seems to jump only one line and remain at the bottom of the page. It would be nice if the pasteboard document reader would also automatically advance the page. Also, there is no pinch zoom functionality in the document reader, though I'm note sure how it might be best utilized, which is probably why it is not currently incorporated.

 

[mikelove]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

Along these lines, when reading a Chinese text, I will tap to look up a word or phrase which will sometimes lead to an entry on in the Chinese-Chinese GF dictionary. It would then be nice if the Chinese characters in the popup entry could also be clickable so as to fully comprehend the GF popup entry.

You can get to those if you tap on the > button to bring up the popup in a separate screen - we're a bit wary of adding more things to tap (and a second popup layer on top of the first) since it's already tough enough to tap on the other buttons in the popup / drag it for scrolling.

Also regarding the popup, sometimes there are hyperlinks to other words, but sometimes, probably depending on the dictionary, only the pinyin pronunciation is provided for the word and not the characters. One can easily look up the characters after clicking on the pronunciation, but it would still be nice having the character in brackets like it is done with some of the entries.

That's been requested quite a few times - certainly doable, we just need to add some extra tagging to our data files the next time we revise the ABC.

Regarding the user options--I love the great user customizability that is granted to the users, but I struggle to understand many of the options that are available. I have learned a considerable amount from the user manual, but it would much easier if explanations could be embedded somehow where the options are located so as to not require looking them up in the extensive manual.

Been playing with a few ideas for that, though some of them (along with many other 2.2 enhancements) may have to wait for 2.3 since the OCR announcement has intensified the pressure for us to hurry up and release an update with that. How about if you could simply tap on the name of the option (instead of the switch / field / etc next to it) to pop up an alert with an explanation of what it does? Maybe there'd be an (i) icon next to the name to make it clearer. We're also planning to reorganize Settings a bit to make some expert options more separated / make frequently-used options easier to get to.

Is popup available for English words? I often encounter the scenario in which, say, only the Ads dictionary has an entry for the word, and it translates it to an English word that I'm unfamiliar with. It would be nice to simply click the popup English word and find a definition from Wiktionary (for example) and possible even display relevant pictures. Indeed, this would also be nice for the Chinese words as well.

This has been much-requested, but we'd probably need to get Wiktionary converted first - there's also some question as to whether adding this would make our software a more attractive target for pirates (since it would considerably improve its utility in the Chinese market), though that's probably not much of a justification for withholding it

One final note--jumping to the top. When reading text with the web browser and the popup bar hits the last character on the page, it seems to automatically advance the page putting the popup bar at the top of the page. This natural functionality does not seem to be present in the pasteboard document reader. When I hit the bottom of the page there, it seems to jump only one line and remain at the bottom of the page. It would be nice if the pasteboard document reader would also automatically advance the page. Also, there is no pinch zoom functionality in the document reader, though I'm note sure how it might be best utilized, which is probably why it is not currently incorporated.

Sounds like a bug, not one that's been reported yet - thanks!

 

[yuvalcho]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

First of all I have to apologize of these issues have already been asked, as my connectivity is really bad here at the hostel, and it took me along time just getting to this page so I'm not "wasting" the time in a search, so sorry (-:

Flash card system:
Moving files/folders - I think it's a little bit awkward how you have to move files and folders. some times you just want to move a folder or a word inside a folder to a folder inside, but the UI takes you back to the main folder, which sometimes by a slip of a finger sends all the files not the place you wanted.
I think that there should be a way to "drag" files in to a folder (if they are in the same one clearly) like when you can rearrange them.
another thing about it, is I think it would be really useful to have a confirmation popup or something that you'll be sure you are moving it to the right place and not hoping your finger pressed the right place on the screen.

Saving a Flashcard session. would it be possible to save more than one session?
sometimes i start a really long session (hundreds of words), and sometimes I just studied a few more words which I want to practice, but I'm unable till I finish the really long one. I think it could be useful.

Dictionaries:
You've got all of these fancy dictionaries (paid ones), the only problem with them, that I don't want to pay for a dictionary that I don't think is good for me.
so...is there a way to make a Trail version for a dictionary, I mean a really short one, even an hour, just to see how it looks.
It's like going to a bookstore and before making a decision which dictionary you'll buy, you would definitely open some of them to see which one is for you.

BTW I was really impressed by the OCR, it's a shame I on;y have an iPod, though at least it's really useful with the Pleco app (-:

Thank you.

 

[mikelove]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

Flash card system:
Moving files/folders - I think it's a little bit awkward how you have to move files and folders. some times you just want to move a folder or a word inside a folder to a folder inside, but the UI takes you back to the main folder, which sometimes by a slip of a finger sends all the files not the place you wanted.
I think that there should be a way to "drag" files in to a folder (if they are in the same one clearly) like when you can rearrange them.
another thing about it, is I think it would be really useful to have a confirmation popup or something that you'll be sure you are moving it to the right place and not hoping your finger pressed the right place on the screen.

Dragging files into a folder would be rather complicated because it's not supported by the official iPhone UI control that we use to display lists of cards - we'd have to implement our own alternative from scratch. An optional confirmation popup would certainly be doable, though, and we might be able to add an option to display only the current parent category in the Move screen, though I'm a little wary of that because there wouldn't then be an obvious way to move categories up to a higher level in the hierarchy in that case.

Saving a Flashcard session. would it be possible to save more than one session?
sometimes i start a really long session (hundreds of words), and sometimes I just studied a few more words which I want to practice, but I'm unable till I finish the really long one. I think it could be useful.

Very tricky because flashcard sessions assume that there won't be any other reviews going on outside them while they're running; if it was possible to exit, start a new session, then go back to the old one, the spaced repetition / frequency / etc calculations in the original session would be totally screwed up. Though one thing we have been thinking about is abandoning "sessions" altogether and switching instead to two different concepts - a spaced repetition mode that you can jump into / out of continuously (no "session" at all, it just shows you whatever cards you have due) and a "quick review" mode that shows you all of the cards in your selected categories / card filters / etc; this would reduce flexibility a bit, though, so I'm worried it might create a backlash from people who were using spaced repetition in unconventional ways.

so...is there a way to make a Trail version for a dictionary, I mean a really short one, even an hour, just to see how it looks.
It's like going to a bookstore and before making a decision which dictionary you'll buy, you would definitely open some of them to see which one is for you.

You can download demo versions of all of our dictionaries, actually - just tap on the name of a dictionary in Add-ons, then tap on the button to download it. Generally you can see all of the headwords along with definitions for entries beginning with 'a' or 'b' (in Pinyin for C-E dictionaries).

 

[yuvalcho]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

Hey.

Thanks for the reply.

Moving the folder by dragging... if the iPod UI doesn't support it, I'm definitely not expecting you to do "their" job.
The confirmation though is needed in my point of view.

About sessions...maybe a new session type? like a type that doesn't consider any calculations, "at user's own risk". well, it's just a thought. This would enable using the really long one at the "normal" types, and maybe the "new type" will be able to run along side without any consideration to the marks... though again maybe it's difficult to implement after you made the system in a way that doesn't allow that...I don't know.

EDIT:
------
Maybe making a second user? thus will not interfere with the second user's grades...just a thought. Clearly also depends in the way you implemented the whole system. just trying to find a workaround...

About the trial...I feel ashamed
Though I already bought other stuff before related to the app, I haven't bought a dictionary yet and I just assumed that there is no trial mode, as I saw the money sign.
How is that saying? "Assumption, the "Mother" of all mistakes.

Though maybe all of this is for nothing (for me) as the Chinese don't want to extend my visa, and I'm "forcefully" and unwillingly will get "kicked" out of China.

BTW I hate you guys. After I've seen the video(OCR), it made me want to buy the new iPod with the camera (if there will b 1). AHHHHHHHHHH. Good stuff and great job you are doing there. The apple "Monster" should definitely be happy that you guys exist.

Thanks.

 

[mikelove]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

About sessions...maybe a new session type? like a type that doesn't consider any calculations, "at user's own risk". well, it's just a thought. This would enable using the really long one at the "normal" types, and maybe the "new type" will be able to run along side without any consideration to the marks... though again maybe it's difficult to implement after you made the system in a way that doesn't allow that...I don't know.

We could always allow it for separate scorefiles - rejigger the interface in general to have a profile selector appear above the resume / clear session buttons, show an error message when choosing another profile with the same scorefile as an in-progress session but allow people to initiate a brand new session from a profile with a different scorefile.

BTW I hate you guys. After I've seen the video(OCR), it made me want to buy the new iPod with the camera (if there will b 1). AHHHHHHHHHH. Good stuff and great job you are doing there. The apple "Monster" should definitely be happy that you guys exist.

Heh, thanks! Though I'm starting to worry that the new iPod will only support a front-facing "FaceTime" camera, which would be utterly useless for OCR unless you want to look up a word that's tattoed on your forehead

 

[mikeo]

tap-reduction

The HWR is really great - I'm now routinely entering 3 or 4 character phrases quickly by drawing them on the screen without looking -- the double-tap clear/accept/start new char is the key function that enables this. Drawing the character in HWR is, I think, much better for remembering it than entering its pinyin-- leads naturally to mental character drawing.

But, I also find myself slowed down by having to stop sometimes and look at the screen to find buttons to press in order to continue. Something similar may have been discussed earlier on this fairly long thread, so sorry if I'm repeating anything.

Here are some possibilities, with the obvious caveats (maybe they won't work as well as another approach, maybe they have unfortunate consequences, etc.):

In the Dictionary Lookup section there is, I think, only one screen where 2-finger tap is used. It could be extended to reduce tapping in other screens, generally by being made equivalent to buttons, which have the disadvantage of having to be found on the screen. 2-finger taps can occur anywhere and done blindly.

1) make 2-finger tap = "Done" button on input if input field is empty.

2) make 2-finger tap = "Back" button when a full dictionary definition is being displayed

3) make 2-finger tap = the "field clear" button (the circle with the x inside it, next to the input field) on the results screen (the screen which appears after a search).

 

[mikelove]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

Thanks for the suggestion! This has been discussed before, but you've put it in a nice simple / concrete form here.

In the Dictionary Lookup section there is, I think, only one screen where 2-finger tap is used. It could be extended to reduce tapping in other screens, generally by being made equivalent to buttons, which have the disadvantage of having to be found on the screen. 2-finger taps can occur anywhere and done blindly.

1) make 2-finger tap = "Done" button on input if input field is empty.

2) make 2-finger tap = "Back" button when a full dictionary definition is being displayed

3) make 2-finger tap = the "field clear" button (the circle with the x inside it, next to the input field) on the results screen (the screen which appears after a search).

#2/3 make a lot of sense - particularly #3 as we've had many many people ask for an easier way to get at that. I'm not quite seeing the value of #1, though - would the idea be that you'd type in a search, tap on a result to view it, go back, clear the input field tap-by-tap and then exit? I'm worried that people would accidentally double-tap one too many times in the process of backspacing and end up closing the input when they didn't want to - I suppose one more double-tap would then reopen it, but it could still get rather annoying.

 

[mikeo]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

#2/3 make a lot of sense - particularly #3 as we've had many many people ask for an easier way to get at that. I'm not quite seeing the value of #1, though - would the idea be that you'd type in a search, tap on a result to view it, go back, clear the input field tap-by-tap and then exit? I'm worried that people would accidentally double-tap one too many times in the process of backspacing and end up closing the input when they didn't want to - I suppose one more double-tap would then reopen it, but it could still get rather annoying.

Yes, as you say the problem with #1 is that people might double-tap one too many times. This may not be the best solution but I think the problem still needs a solution.

Maybe someone can think of a better solution: The problem is that often I find myself on the screen with the "Done" button, and I need to press it in order to get to the "History" screen, because when "Done" is visible there is no "History". I'm tapping two buttons to get to that screen, instead of one. That was the idea behind the 2-finger tap, to just clear the "done" button so "History" button would reappear.

One possibility would be to offer a configuration option to have "History" button visible instead of one or both of the wildcard buttons, or the dictionary change button.

 

[mikelove]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

One possibility would be to offer a configuration option to have "History" button visible instead of one or both of the wildcard buttons, or the dictionary change button.

We could certainly consider an option for that - heck, we could even just have an option to put two buttons on the right side of the toolbar, there'd still be room in the search input box for two Pinyin syllables. Or we could move the dictionary switch button to the bottom left corner of the screen and make it part of the keyboard tone bar.

 

[mikeo]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

Flash card system:
Moving files/folders - I think it's a little bit awkward how you have to move files and folders. some times you just want to move a folder or a word inside a folder to a folder inside, but the UI takes you back to the main folder, which sometimes by a slip of a finger sends all the files not the place you wanted.
I think that there should be a way to "drag" files in to a folder (if they are in the same one clearly) like when you can rearrange them.
another thing about it, is I think it would be really useful to have a confirmation popup or something that you'll be sure you are moving it to the right place and not hoping your finger pressed the right place on the screen.

Also, if you create sub-category folders, and you use the "+" button (which moves to a new screen listing the categories and prompting "Choose a clashcard category") to add a looked-up phrase to a non-default category (probably one of those sub-folders you just created), the program gives you no way of adding to a sub-folder - you're forced to add to the main category folder... there's no way I can figure out to add directly to one of the sub-category folders. Because of this, I'm probably going to abandon the sub-folders altogether and stick with a single-layer category file structure. Unfortunate, and it gets messy, but it's less time-consuming than moving all those words again into the sub-folders through "Organize Flashcards".

So a really useful addition would be to enhance this "+" button screen to allow adding flashcards to sub-category folders as well as to root-level category folders.

 

[mikelove]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

So a really useful addition would be to enhance this "+" button screen to allow adding flashcards to sub-category folders as well as to root-level category folders.

Already supported - Settings / Flashcards / Card Categories / Multi-level cat prompt. You can tap on the triangles at the right of category names on that screen to open up / choose between their subcategories.

 

[mikeo]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

One possibility would be to offer a configuration option to have "History" button visible instead of one or both of the wildcard buttons, or the dictionary change button.

We could certainly consider an option for that - heck, we could even just have an option to put two buttons on the right side of the toolbar, there'd still be room in the search input box for two Pinyin syllables. Or we could move the dictionary switch button to the bottom left corner of the screen and make it part of the keyboard tone bar.

I use History a lot, so for my use it would be best if it were accessible from as many screens as possible. Right side of the input field sounds great. There does seem to be enough space to shorten the search input field a bit, but if you're typing pinyin in you may want all that space. So personally I'd rather be able to choose which buttons to give that space to.

Not sure what you're pointing to with your description "bottom left corner of the screen and make it part of the keyboard tone bar". The bar with "DICNAME", "言x" (traditional/simplified), "+", etc.? That screen is only visible when definition is present...probably not what you meant. ALso, keyboard is only visible when text entry underway, so I guess you don't mean that. Do you mean the ribbon of characters that's at the bottom of the screen when HWR button is pressed?


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[mikeo]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

So a really useful addition would be to enhance this "+" button screen to allow adding flashcards to sub-category folders as well as to root-level category folders.

Already supported - Settings / Flashcards / Card Categories / Multi-level cat prompt. You can tap on the triangles at the right of category names on that screen to open up / choose between their subcategories.

Fantastic! Thank you!

And yet, I can't help but think that (since it's very unlikely that anyone who set up sub-folders would not EXPECT them to be visible under the "+" button) the system should just auto-enable this whenever such a folder is created.

 

[radioman]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

While 2 finger clears nicely the screen, I would like to see 3 finger tap to clear out the entry completely. So if there are 5 characters written, it would delete all of them without having to 2 finger tap 5 times.

 

[Entropy]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

I'm starting to worry that the new iPod will only support a front-facing "FaceTime" camera, which would be utterly useless for OCR unless you want to look up a word that's tattoed on your forehead

Sadly for *us* it's *your* lucky day. We won't get to see you with a tattooed forehead.

The new iPod Touch will have two cameras. FWICT, the back camera can only do still pictures at 960x720, with no LED light. But I assume you use the video feed rather than still images.

 

[mikelove]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

I use History a lot, so for my use it would be best if it were accessible from as many screens as possible. Right side of the input field sounds great. There does seem to be enough space to shorten the search input field a bit, but if you're typing pinyin in you may want all that space. So personally I'd rather be able to choose which buttons to give that space to.

We're still working on customizable toolbars, but they should certainly be in 2.3 if they're not in 2.2.

Not sure what you're pointing to with your description "bottom left corner of the screen and make it part of the keyboard tone bar". The bar with "DICNAME", "言x" (traditional/simplified), "+", etc.? That screen is only visible when definition is present...probably not what you meant. ALso, keyboard is only visible when text entry underway, so I guess you don't mean that. Do you mean the ribbon of characters that's at the bottom of the screen when HWR button is pressed?

The tone bar's an optional thing which you can turn on using one of the very last options on Settings / Panels; puts a toolbar just above the keyboard which you can tap on to enter tones without having to switch into numeric input mode. But yes, this would only work in keyboard and not HWR mode, so not a full solution in any case unless we also added a corresponding button to HWR/Rad (and in HWR there really isn't any room).

And yet, I can't help but think that (since it's very unlikely that anyone who set up sub-folders would not EXPECT them to be visible under the "+" button) the system should just auto-enable this whenever such a folder is created.

Possibly - it's certainly a leading candidate for "options we should get rid of since everybody's better off with them enabled" - but the default interface is a bit more iPhone-like; it's about time we gave up trying to be iPhone-like, though, iPhone apps were never designed to have anywhere near as many options / commands / etc as we do.

While 2 finger clears nicely the screen, I would like to see 3 finger tap to clear out the entry completely. So if there are 5 characters written, it would delete all of them without having to 2 finger tap 5 times.

That makes sense, though we'd have to do some testing to make sure people weren't using three fingers for a normal clear / backspace (since right now it interprets any number of fingers > 1 as a clear / backspace gesture).

The new iPod Touch will have two cameras. FWICT, the back camera can only do still pictures at 960x720, with no LED light. But I assume you use the video feed rather than still images.

We do, but owing to the (apparent) lack of autofocus, it doesn't seem like it will work for OCR, unfortunately.

 

[Entropy]

Re: 2.2 / User Interface Enhancements

Oh! THAT's why you keep calling it a full screen NWR module! That seemed like a silly name for something that only took up a third of my screen! If I'd known about that, I might not have gotten an iPad. :-/

So I turned on Pleco on my iPhone. Using various tips from elsewhere, I turned on the right-side definitions, and now it has the sensible interface I like on the iPad.

If you can find a better stroke order font, I'd like to see the upper part of the right-hand side (the top of the definition) devoted to stroke order diagrams. Of course, maybe I'm the only person who finds SODs *extremely* useful in learning to write, and maybe I'm the only person using Pleco to learn to read instead of to speak. (If I felt I could master the tones, I might be inclined to learn Sichuanese, but I bet you don't have audio files for that. )

The fan makes much more sense here than it does on the iPad, BTW. But the arrow keys seem superfluous since I can just scroll the list and tap as needed. And the "whole dictionary" scroller button (the one which brings up the slider) just annoys me--are people really going to navigate the dictionary that way? Much better to somehow let them enter a percentage or something.

Are you keeping and tracking statistics on which buttons are pressed (&c)? That would probably really help in figuring out what the defaults should be, and what parts of the app people are actually spending time in.

~ Kiran <entropy@io.com>