Flashcard overhaul wishlist

[mikelove]

@HW60 - we're not entirely sure yet either, actually; we're a few months away from that part of the design since we're overhauling the database engine first. (in part in order to allow us to track more advanced statistics for the subsequent SRS improvements - our current statistics are quite limited because we were worried about taking up more than a few MB of internal storage on a Palm Pilot)

@adam.hamilton - hands-free flashcards are a long-standing request, yes; much easier since Apple added their own English TTS in iOS 7. (on Android we already have an English TTS license from the same people we licensed Hui from - their iOS software doesn't allow for multiple voices in one app but their Android software does) For voice commands, there are a couple of open-source libraries we could tap into, but we've also been considering button control - not sure how consistent the API is for that on Android, but on iOS we can read presses of the pause button on the headphones that come with every iPhone, and that single button might be enough to mark a card correct or incorrect. (we wait a few seconds and do one thing or the other depending on whether you press the button)

Embedded audio and images are both on our roadmap, we just have to sort out how we're going to synchronize them on iCloud.

 

[adam.hamilton]

Awesome to hear!

Hmmm - you know, I wonder if it would be possible to some how make it possible to use any kind of bluetooth remote to control cards, and its buttons could be re=mappable. I'm no programmer, so I have absolutely no idea if this would work, but, you can connect cars and countless other third-party remotes pretty easily through bluetooth, and even with third party music-playing apps, all the buttons always seem to work amazingly well (or maybe just my experience.) So what if you could just make that while you were in Pleco, any time the "play music" command came in from a bluetooth remote, it would instead rate a card as "good". Anytime (while in Pleco) the rewind button was pressed once, it would mark it as forgotten. Any time the skip button was pressed, Pleco would interpret that as an "easy card".

Or, for the spaced repetition system, where you first rate a card on being right or wrong, and then you rate it's rightness or wrongness, it could be something like this:

Remembered perfectly: play + Skip
Remembered well: play + play
Barely remembered: play + rewind
Almost remembered: rewind + skip
Forgotten: rewind + play
Don't know: rewind + rewind

...Or something like this. This way, you wouldn't have to worry about it the Zeemote people stop making the product or something, and costumers could buy any bluetooth remote they wanted, and wouldn't feel limited to one option only. Also, bluetooth remotes should probably be around for a while yet. Would this be at all possible?? I mean, I have no idea how the programming works, but it seems that if so many different bluetooth remotes are compatible with so many different music-playing apps, there must be some kind of standard mapping of the buttons that you could use to make any bluetooth remote work just as consistently with Pleco... What do you think?

 

[mikelove]

It's certainly doable, but I'm skeptical as to whether enough people would use this option to justify supporting button control unless we also had a workable system based on the stock Apple headset.

 

[adam.hamilton]

I'll be crossing my fingers!

 

[adam.hamilton]

One more thing that would be cool to see:

As it is, I have two scorefiles set up, and a few categories. Lets say that "Profile A" is uses "scorefile 1" and "Profile B" uses "Scorefile 2". Profile A Tests 1 category, whereas Profile B tests that same category, and then another category. If I go to view my stats, I can choose what category I want to view my stats from, but not which scorefile. However, if I go to review cards, and change from Profile A (using Scorefile 1) to Profile B (using Scorefile 2), and then go back to the main screen and select stats again, they have changed - which I'm assuming is because I've selected a different profile with a different score file. What doesn't change, however, is the number of "Total Cards" it displays, which is kind of weird, because all the cards that are in Scorefile 1 are in Scorefile 2, but there are some cards that Scorefile 2 uses that Scorefile 1 does not use - so it's weird that the total cards would remain the same and the stats would change.

So what would be nice to see in the next flashcard version is the ability to not only choose which categories to display the stats from, but which scorefiles as well - including an option to do "all categories, all scorefiles".

 

[etm001]

Hi,

Desired functionality: when reviewing a flashcard, be able to display the pop-up definition of the word/phrase with a single press/touch.

Background: when studying flashcards with custom definitions, I'll often want to check the built-in dictionaries' definitions as well. Currently this requires pressing the 字 button, then click the --> button as many times as necessary to highlight the entire word/phrase.

This functionality would be most helpful when studying idiomatic expressions that are 4+ characters long.

 

[mikelove]

@adam.hamilton We don't consider a card to be 'in' or 'out' of a particular scorefile, so it's normal that the total cards count would be the same. But we've already added a scorefile selector to the Statistics screen on iOS and will probably do so in our next Android update too.

@etm001 - Turn on the option in More Settings / Display to "show switch dict option" - that will let you change dictionaries from within the flashcard screen after the card is revealed.

 

[etm001]

@etm001 - Turn on the option in More Settings / Display to "show switch dict option" - that will let you change dictionaries from within the flashcard screen after the card is revealed.

Does this work with custom cards? I enabled the option but don't see what I'm supposed to press after reveal...

 

[mikelove]

Ah, looks like there's a bug that's keeping the icon from appearing for custom cards. But if you just tap in the empty space in the bottom right corner of the flashcard definition area, it should then switch to a dictionary and display an abbreviation for it.

 

[etm001]

Wasn't sure which existing thread to put this in...

On my HTC One I have a flashcard list that is really large, and scrolling the list - literally dragging the scroll button to the bottom of the list - takes a long time. It'd be great to have that "fast scroll" option that I've used in Android and other apps, i.e. you start scrolling down the list a little bit, and then the scroll button enlarges and you can zoom down the list quickly.

 

[mikelove]

That should be accessible, but it's a little harder to get at on newer Android devices - start scrolling and the blue scroll handle should appear, you can then drag it around to jump rapidly through the list.

 

[etm001]

A thought I had recently: with the popularity of small form factor tablets (e.g., iPad Mini, etc.), and the increasing popularity of larger sized phones, has any thought been given to optimizing the flashcard UI - specifically the testing UI - to make some elements easier to use while holding the phone/tablet with one hand?

Scenario: commuting on public transportation while standing, using one hand to hold a rail, etc., the other to hold the mini table/phablet. You want to run through some flashcard tests to kill time. Your cradling/palming the device with four fingers, using your thumb to tap the screen (the device is in landscape orientation). Holding the device in this way, with the current UI, it's easy to use your thumb to mark a card correct/incorrect. But some functionality, i.e., audio pronunciation, toggling dictionary entries, stroke diagram, etc., might be hard to reach with an out stretched thumb (at least in the current UI).

Maybe a "single hand" toggle mode could be offered that, after card reveal, would offer these functional elements on the far right or far left side of the screen (depending on left or right hand usage)? Perhaps the user could select from a pre-defined list which elements they'd like to have accessible, kind of like the new favorites functionality.

 

[mikelove]

Possibly, yes - we haven't really hit the UI redesign portion of this yet, we're mostly still trying to sort out the low-level stuff first (in part because we get far more complaints about spacing algorithms / inability to use Cantonese / etc than we do about the UI, but also because it's easier to build the UI on top of a newer version of that other stuff).

 

[xiang1jiao1]

I'd really like to have a way to create cards (or even just a ref list) that includes the context from the source in which I saw the word. I.e., when I'm reading a doc in the reader and find myself looking up a word, I'd like to be able to create a card that allows me to see later (when reviewing the card) the original sentence context (as well as perhaps a link to the original article). Is that what you mean by 'contextual sentence integration'?

 

[mikelove]

Yes, that's pretty much exactly what we're thinking of.

 

[xiang1jiao1]

Great!!

 

[debera]

Lots of interest in sentence flashcards! Also would love it if you had audio in organize card section, so you can hear what the card says at the same time you input or update it

 

[mikelove]

Probably coming in a tap-hold command, as is already possible in search results.

 

[etm001]

A better flashcard system, and better integration with the reader are updates that (as an advanced learner) I'm really desperate for.

Contextual sentence integration like this is definitely something we're working on, yes - been a popular feature request for a long time. Likewise for sentence-based flashcards / clozes (not sure if either of those websites features them, but Anki does).

Just another +1 for better integration between flashcards and reader. I didn't use reader when first learning Chinese (as I didn't have enough Chinese language skill to read very much), but now I use it daily. I now see the huge benefit that better reader/flashcards integration could provide to me. Some thoughts:

• Allow text in reader (or a document saved in Pleco/Dropbox) to become the source for a new flashcard set. I want to Pleco to select the words in the source text for inclusion in the flashcard set, based on flashcard database metrics that I either pre-define and/or I select at run time. I want to see the candidate words that Pleco selects for the flashcard set and be able to easily remove words that I don't want in the set.
• Provide a toggle in reader that visually indicates all words/terms that in either a) in any existing flashcard set, or b) in any set(s) that I specify. For highlighted words, I want to able to easily see which set(s) the words are in (there's probably other card info/metrics that others might want to see). I don't want to have to select each highlighted word in order to see card info.
  • See what I wrote below about a " right/left vertically split screen" for displaying reader/flashcard text simultaneously.
• Be able to conduct a flashcard test while I'm reading text in reader.
  • I load text in reader.
  • I tell reader which flashcard set and test mode I want (test modes and options might be limited).
  • The words in the flashcard set are visually indicated in the reader text (maybe highlighted)
  • I begin to read and reach the first highlighted word. At this point I need to tell Pleco whether I know/don't know the word. A few ways I can envision the functionality:
    • Tap the highlighted word/term, indicate whether correct/incorrect, "remembered", "forgotten", etc.
    • Only tap the word if the user doesn't know it (then indicate "forgotten", etc.) What I'm really thinking about here is reading speed, overall comfort, and a balance between reading and testing. In short, my reading experience will be better the less I have to tap the screen. So how do we indicate a correct answer if we don't tap? Basically, if I don't tap a flashcard word, then Pleco scores it as correct/remembered by default.

• • What about the UI when you are in this hybrid read/test mode? I think a vertically split screen works best. Reader text is in the lefthand pane, answer/scoring inputs are in the right. (And this isn't an evenly split screen - we want as much real estate as possible to go to the reader's pane for text display). So, you'd tap a highlighted flashcard word in the reader text, then use the inputs on the left to answer/score.

After thinking about it, having to move your hand to the lefthand reader pane to select a highlighted flashcard word, then move it to the righthand pane to answer/score can get really annoying/uncomfortable really fast (especially when using a phablet/tablet). So why not eliminate the need to tap the highlighted flashcard word in the lefthand reader text pane? Can I do everything with just my righthand? You can, and I think this is the ultimate (fantasyland) solution:

• The lefthand pane has reader text with highlighted flashcard words/terms.
• The righthand pane has a scrollable flashcard list.
• The two panes are scroll locked. If I scroll to the third paragraph in the reader text, the flashcard list scrolls to display the flashcard words in that paragraph (if any).
• Rather than tapping a highlighted flashcard word in the reader text in the lefthand pane, I simply tap the flashcard entry in the righthand pane to answer/score, which happens one of two ways:
  • Each flashcard entry in the list has the UI control for answering correct/incorrect. Personally, I think this could look a little ugly, but it'd be fast.
  • You tap a card to reveal the answering/scoring UI controls. By "reveal", maybe the card "flips over" in place (i.e., like flipping over a physical flashcard), or a pane drops down from the bottom of the card.

Earlier above I mentioned an test mode whereby the user only selects which words he doesn't know. In keeping with that, in this left/right split screen UI, tapping a flashcard in the righthand pane indicates that you don't know it, and immediately reveals the answer and the scoring UI inputs "remembered", etc.

Finally, I think this left/right split screen UI could work great for simple flashcard review (not testing), and as you scroll the reader text (lefthand pane), your flashcard list synchronously scrolls along with it, with each card displaying the card details. (Or, maybe there is an option to "collapse" all cards, and tapping a card "expands" it. Maybe a little less distracting to the eye, especially if you are working with a flashcard list for which you know most of the words, and don't need to see every definition, etc.)
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I've seen in other posts/threads that contextual awareness is part of the future for Pleco flashcards (i.e., pulling in the sentences from source documents into the flashcard, etc.), but I think the ultimate "context" is the source document itself. Everything that I wrote above assumes that the reader UI, and not just the flashcard UI, is an important "entry point" into flashcard testing/review. It would be really, really awesome if you guys figured out some elegant solutions to integrating reader and flashcards, even if it doesn't resemble any of my blathering above.

 

[mikelove]

Thanks for all of this.

I'm a little wary of extracting all of the words from a document automatically, for two reasons: no Chinese text segmenter is 100% accurate (especially when your dictionaries have differing definitions of what constitutes a 'word' versus a 'phrase'), and typical documents contain quite a bit of noise - rare words / proper nouns / etc that aren't really worth building flashcards out of.

Highlighting flashcard words in a document is also something I'm not wild about, though that one's had quite a few requests - think I'd have to do some experiments with it in a developer build and see whether it's worth polishing up / shipping, but other attempts I've seen at it have all been more distracting than helpful. I'd be more inclined to keep them invisible in the document but to add an extra step to view their definitions - for example, a little message in the popup bubble telling you this is a flashcard word and offering to reveal it when tapped; that's unobtrusive / doesn't disrupt your reading flow but at the same time it encourages you to try to remember the words you're supposed to remember.

With this split mode you're talking about, why does it even need to be split screen at all? Seems like it would be easier to simply show little correct / incorrect buttons in the reader bubble or in a toolbar somewhere. I'm not really seeing the utility of the extra list of flashcards - feels like you're being taken out of the document context in precisely the situation where you're trying hard to stay within it.

So my initial approach to this would involve a somewhat lighter touch - still basically just reading a document, but now it's a document infused with some flashcard logic and with the opportunity for your behavior to feed back into the flashcard system.