Custom flashcards creation questions

[Eddy]

Hi,

I've set up 2 decks of custom cards to review common grammar constructions and vocab. It's working beautifully so far but there are some points that I'd like to improve on. I was wondering if somebody had found a work around for:

1. Adding Pinyin tonemarks to the definition section of custom flashcards
In the definition section I'd like to add one or two example sentences in Pinyin. However, I cannot find a way to add Pinyin tonemarks to the text. Nor did I see a way to add other font style elements that I see being used in the definition sections of dictionaries such as PLC and TL (eg bold text).

Would anybody know how to add Pinyin tonemarks (or other font style elements) to the definition section of custom flashcards?

2. Adding non-Pinyin text to the Pinyin section of custom flashcards
Similarly, when adding non-Pinyin text to the Pinyin section it turns into gibberish after saving.

Is there a way to add non-Pinyin text to the Pinyin section of custom flashcard?

3. Adding mnemonics notes to custom flashcards
Also, at the moment I'm keeping an excel file with a column reserved for mnemonic notes (character, Pinyin, definition, mnemonic notes columns). Ideally I would like to add these notes to my flashcards, preferably in a separate section, instead of going back to the excel file each time I need to check up on my mnemonic.

For those that are using Tuttle/Matthews&Matthews, Heisig, or similar mnemonic aid, how are you adding your mnemonic notes to your flashcards (if at all)?

Would be of great help if such a section could be added in a future Pleco update

Thanks
cheers Eddy

 

[mikelove]

1. Adding Pinyin tonemarks to the definition section of custom flashcards
In the definition section I'd like to add one or two example sentences in Pinyin. However, I cannot find a way to add Pinyin tonemarks to the text. Nor did I see a way to add other font style elements that I see being used in the definition sections of dictionaries such as PLC and TL (eg bold text).

That's doable if you import your custom cards from a text file - you can use a tool like http://www.mandarintools.com/pyconverter.html to convert all of your tone numbers to tone marks - but there's not currently any way to do it in Pleco's built-in editor. You can use font styling elements in an imported text file too, with our very very unofficial set of private use Unicode character formatting codes - see this post for more on that. (note that these are CHARACTER CODES - you can't just type in "EAB1", you have to use an "insert symbol" or "insert character" type command and insert the private use Unicode character with that code point)

2. Adding non-Pinyin text to the Pinyin section of custom flashcards
Similarly, when adding non-Pinyin text to the Pinyin section it turns into gibberish after saving.

Put a @ at the start of it and Pleco will ignore the rest / not try to convert it to Pinyin.

3. Adding mnemonics notes to custom flashcards
Also, at the moment I'm keeping an excel file with a column reserved for mnemonic notes (character, Pinyin, definition, mnemonic notes columns). Ideally I would like to add these notes to my flashcards, preferably in a separate section, instead of going back to the excel file each time I need to check up on my mnemonic.

Support for separate "note" fields (and other custom fields) should be forthcoming in a future update (probably 2.4) - now that we've finally finished the Android port we can do all sorts of cool new things.

 

[Eddy]

Mike, many thanks for the speedy response.

1. Adding Pinyin tonemarks to the definition section of custom flashcards
In the definition section I'd like to add one or two example sentences in Pinyin. However, I cannot find a way to add Pinyin tonemarks to the text. Nor did I see a way to add other font style elements that I see being used in the definition sections of dictionaries such as PLC and TL (eg bold text).

That's doable if you import your custom cards from a text file - you can use a tool like http://www.mandarintools.com/pyconverter.html to convert all of your tone numbers to tone marks - but there's not currently any way to do it in Pleco's built-in editor.

Great, got that working. In an excel file I've added Pinyin tonemarks to some text in the definition section (using IMKQIM on Mac), exported it to a txt file which I imported into Pleco.

You can use font styling elements in an imported text file too, with our very very unofficial set of private use Unicode character formatting codes - see this post for more on that. (note that these are CHARACTER CODES - you can't just type in "EAB1", you have to use an "insert symbol" or "insert character" type command and insert the private use Unicode character with that code point)

I'm happy to hear there is a (unofficial) work around. Excuse my ignorance on this - how do I use an "insert symbol" or "insert character" type command? In excel for Mac there is no "insert character" command. For the "insert symbol" command I could not see a way to insert terms such as "EAB1". In the Mac TextEdit program I could find neither ...

2. Adding non-Pinyin text to the Pinyin section of custom flashcards
Similarly, when adding non-Pinyin text to the Pinyin section it turns into gibberish after saving.

Put a @ at the start of it and Pleco will ignore the rest / not try to convert it to Pinyin.

I used @ in front words but they still come out garbled (but without tonemarks). Eg I used "@construction" and "@vs" but after saving these came out as "congstructi'on" and "u5s". Adding a @ at both the beginning and the end of word did not have an impact on the way it came out ...

3. Adding mnemonics notes to custom flashcards
Also, at the moment I'm keeping an excel file with a column reserved for mnemonic notes (character, Pinyin, definition, mnemonic notes columns). Ideally I would like to add these notes to my flashcards, preferably in a separate section, instead of going back to the excel file each time I need to check up on my mnemonic.

Support for separate "note" fields (and other custom fields) should be forthcoming in a future update (probably 2.4) - now that we've finally finished the Android port we can do all sorts of cool new things.

That's great news! Pleco has been an absolute life-saver for my Chinese studies. Looking forward to seeing the extra field in a future update

 

[mikelove]

I'm happy to hear there is a (unofficial) work around. Excuse my ignorance on this - how do I use an "insert symbol" or "insert character" type command? In excel for Mac there is no "insert character" command. For the "insert symbol" command I could not see a way to insert terms such as "EAB1". In the Mac TextEdit program I could find neither ...

There's actually an easy way to do it on Mac - enable "Unicode Hex Input" in Settings / Language & Text / Input Sources. Then, select that keyboard, and when you want to enter a character like this just hold down the option key and type in its code. (once you've done it once you can copy-and-paste it into the other places you want it, or do a find-and-replace)

I used @ in front words but they still come out garbled (but without tonemarks). Eg I used "@construction" and "@vs" but after saving these came out as "congstructi'on" and "u5s". Adding a @ at both the beginning and the end of word did not have an impact on the way it came out ...

Sorry, I should have been clearer - it has to be the very first character in the section, and it affects the entire section. So you can't use it to (say) combine some Pinyin and some English in the pronunciation field by putting the @ before the English part.

 

[Eddy]

Thanks for that.

Am now creating custom flashcards using the above pointers. I do find working with the character codes somewhat cumbersome though. But great to be able to keep all my flashcards within Pleco.

While making the cards I came across the following:

After importing flashcards into Pleco some of the cards unexpectedly show (") punctuation marks in the Definition section. I sometimes get the same in my user dictionary as well. The (") punctuation marks show up in the txt file after conversion from the original excel sheet (which does not have (") punctuation marks in any sections). Apart from removing them by hand from the txt file, is there another way of avoiding the unwanted (") punctuation marks?

 

[mikelove]

After importing flashcards into Pleco some of the cards unexpectedly show (") punctuation marks in the Definition section. I sometimes get the same in my user dictionary as well. The (") punctuation marks show up in the txt file after conversion from the original excel sheet (which does not have (") punctuation marks in any sections). Apart from removing them by hand from the txt file, is there another way of avoiding the unwanted (") punctuation marks?

That comes from Excel saving files out in a way that allows it to reliably re-import them later. The best workaround for this is to copy and paste the text into a regular text editor and save it from there - that will give you tabs without " marks.

 

[Eddy]

That comes from Excel saving files out in a way that allows it to reliably re-import them later. The best workaround for this is to copy and paste the text into a regular text editor and save it from there - that will give you tabs without " marks.

Thanks. I can't seem to get it to work however. After copy-pasting into Word and saving as a Unicode 6 UTF-8 txt file the (") marks still show...

 

[mikelove]

Thanks. I can't seem to get it to work however. After copy-pasting into Word and saving as a Unicode 6 UTF-8 txt file the (") marks still show...

It won't work in Word since Word interprets the text copied out of Excel as text from a spreadsheet - you'd want a regular text editor like Notepad / EmEditor / UltraEdit / etc.

 

[Eddy]

Thanks for that! Have been working with TextWrangler for Mac as a text editor. In the meantime the custom grammar flashcards have been finished and they look great. The process has been somewhat laborious but well worth it.

While reviewing the cards I ran into the following - I can only review a maximum of 100 cards at a time. Which setting do I need to adjust to change the maximum nr of cards to review in a session?

For basic review I am using: Flashcard Testing / Basic settings / Test type / Review Only. Also, in Basic settings / Max number of cards is set to All. And More Settings / Command / Amount is set to 200.

Any suggestions? Thanks again

 

[Eddy]

While reviewing the cards I ran into the following - I can only review a maximum of 100 cards at a time. Which setting do I need to adjust to change the maximum nr of cards to review in a session?

Never mind! Found the solution. In Card Selection screen I turned "Limit # of unlearned" to the off position for the review test profile.

Sorry for any confusion. Still learning the many options Pleco has

 

[Eddy]

Hi, I'm using custom grammar flashcards with three test profiles: SRS pinyin testing, SRS headword testing and Review Only.

The Review Only profile I use to read up on the flashcards and check where corrections and additions are needed in the excel file. Upon going through the flashcards I notice that the order sometimes changes after uploading an updated deck. Ideally when reviewing I'd like to flip through the deck in the same order that it is in my excel file. However I have not found a way to do that.

In the Review Only profile the card selection is set to: Flashcard testing / Card selection / Sort by: created.

Is there a way to review flashcards in the same order as they appear in the original excel sheet (or .txt file for that matter) in which they were created?

Thanks again!

 

[mikelove]

Is there a way to review flashcards in the same order as they appear in the original excel sheet (or .txt file for that matter) in which they were created?

If the cards themselves were created in the same order, yes - Card selection system -> "Fixed" and "Sort by" to "Created" just as you say. There's not yet a way to sort them by the order in which we appear in a given category's card listing, though, which is what you'd want if some of the cards you imported already existed in another category (and hence had creation dates that predated those of your other imported cards). Though adding one is on our to-do list - the main wrinkle is that it's not clear what we're supposed to do when you're reviewing more than one category's cards at a time; do we sort them by category display order too (what about if they're children of two different parent categories?) or do we alternate between categories but show cards within a given category in that category's order or do we do something else?

In the meantime, the best bet would be to import the list again with duplicate card handling set to "allow" - that way, all of the cards will be newly created and hence their creation dates will match the order in which they appear in the import file.

 

[inbtw33n]

Is there a way to input unicode in the iOS app itself? I screwed up one custom card's font styling by copy/paste and don't really want to create a txt etc for one card.

Just in case I wasn't abundantly clear, I want to add a bolded word on a pre-existing card that I've studied on iOS already, within the iOS app.

Thanks

 

[mikelove]

There are some third-party iOS 8 keyboards that will let you enter custom Unicode characters, or insert custom text clippings, so you might be able to streamline the process a bit using one of those.