Add notes and highlight dictionary entries

[Th41]

Hello,

I am studying Chinese as part of my Sinology major and we very often get a list of words to memorize for the next lessons and exams. I love Pleco because it is so much easier to create flashcards when compared to other flashcard software, but as the amount of dictionaries and versatility brings a lot of advantages, it also comes at the disadvantage of sometimes becoming a bit confusing. Furthermore, very often not every definition is widely used and useful to learn. In this case I would like to add notes or highlight certain definitions. This would come in especially handy when learning classical vocabulary, as definitions here can very even more.
Right now the only way to achieve this is by creating custom flashcards, but this obviously comes at the disadvantage of making all the other entries less accessible. Except for this post I have not found anything and it has already been almost 2 years.
http://www.plecoforums.com/threads/rethinking-user-dictionaries.4162/#post-34495

Th41

 

[mikelove]

How does a custom flashcard make the other entries less accessible? You can still flip between them in pretty much the same way.

 

[Th41]

I suppose you are correct, switching between the original dictionary entries is not really a problem.
I think my problem lies more in the creation of custom flash cards. I am used to being able to create flashcards in Pleco really fast through the +-button. Right now there seem to be 4 different ways to create a custom flashcard: 1) Through "Organize Cards">New Card 2) Select a word in the reader unknown to Pleco and press the +-button 3) import them from a text file 4) (When enabled in options) add it from the +-button in "Dictionary", but this, too, only works for words Pleco does not find a corresponding dictionary entry for.

It would be way easier to be able to somehow create these cards from the +-button as well.
Let's say I want to add a card for a word with a specific meaning, so I look it up in Pleco and find it. Now I only need one meaning out of the many offered. I can not create a custom flashcard from where I am and instead have to go back and use option 1) and put in all the info by hand, as long with the traditional characters which are hence not created. Maybe I am missing something?

 

[mikelove]

Fastest way to do that is to create a regular card with the + button, tap on the [+] button after creating a card, tap Card Info (you can save that tap by making it the default duplicate card prompt behavior in Settings / Flashcards), then tap on the button to convert it to a custom card and edit the definition to your liking.

 

[Th41]

Thank you!
There is, however, a problem when that word has already been added to a different category. Pleco does only seem to keep one flashcard at a time and "link" it to each category. Is this correct? In this case editing the card text (one of the given options) is not what I want to do. Same for converting the flashcard to a dict-based card and user-dictionary card. (I am also not sure in what ways these differ from custom flashcards.)
What would be the best way to add a duplicate card here, but as a custom flashcard?

 

[mikelove]

Yes, but you can create a second one if you tap on the [+] and tap New Card or Create New. You should then be able to tap on [+] a second time and edit that one (it should let you scroll between them in cases of multiple duplicates).

Dict-based card = card that links to a regular dictionary entry. User dictionary card: card that links to a user dictionary entry; you can dump a card's entry to your user dictionary entry and then link to that new entry in one step using that button.

 

[Th41]

Right, in that case the tap can not be saved, though (when making card info the default when trying to add a duplicate card).
Thank you for your explanations!

 

[mikelove]

Ah, true - should all get better shortly with custom fields.