Customize dictionary order based on flashcard test direction (Help with Alternating test direction)

[jaygid]

I normally set my dictionary order as (1) User (2) Outlier Linguistics and (3) Pleco. My user dictionary and of course Outlier are full of hints about the character itself, and Outlier often shows many of the components of the character in the definition. This works well when I am testing the reading direction, and showing just the character first. Once I answer and see the definition, I like to be reminded of all the semantic hints/mnemonics I've developed to strengthen those connections.

But, it doesn't work so well when I am testing the character writing direction and showing the definition first - these dictionaries give me too many hints about the character so it's not pushing me hard enough to remember the character itself. So if possible I would love to put Pleco first ONLY when testing character writing.

I didn't used to have this problem when I used separate profiles for each direction - an effective but unwieldy approach - but have been trying to streamline my flashcard studying. Toward that end I've been playing with having an intake profile set to Reading and an SRS review profile set to Alernating test direction, and in this setup I noticed the challenge with dictionary order. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

 

[Shun]

Hello jaygid,

to my knowledge, there isn't any way to set the dictionary order from the Flashcards Add-on based on the test direction in the Alternating test mode (only with different profiles and the "Remap cards to dicts" option), but as a possible makeshift solution, would it perhaps work if you set the dictionary order to the following?

(1) Pleco
(2) User dictionary
(3) Outlier Linguistics

The only disadvantage I see here is that you would have to tap the dictionary abbreviation at the lower right (if you have the "Display > Show switch dict option" setting enabled) twice to switch to the user/Outlier dictionaries whenever you wish to be reminded of the character structure mnemonics when you are being tested in the Chinese-English direction. In the English-Chinese direction, you would be seeing the Pleco dictionary first, which is what you want.

It isn't perfect, but perhaps worth a try. Might that be a workable solution?

Cheers,

Shun

 

[mikelove]

Yes, this is about the best solution possible at the moment - there’s no way to customize the order for a specific test.

 

[jaygid]

Thank you, I appreciate the advice!