Highlighting Parts of Flashcards

[Shun]

Hi,

will it be possible to highlight parts of flashcards while being tested on them in version 4.0? I miss this ability to mark especially important or as-yet unknown meanings. (word-level highlights) This would direct the learner to the right meanings while studying and allows them to stress elements that are important to them, without having to create a personal flashcard or losing the other meanings.

The highlights could only be saved with the flashcards, the corresponding Dictionary entries should remain untouched, of course.

Thanks,

Shun

 

[mikelove]

Highlighting the original entry: probably not, that would require the ability to track specific parts of entries between dictionary updates.

However, since 4.0 will support multiple custom fields, it should be possible to copy the bits of a card you find meaningful to a different field while preserving the link to the full original entry; those parts would of course no longer update if the original entry did but you'd get to keep them separated at least.

 

[Shun]

Thanks, but what if one allowed highlighting of original dictionary entries under the limitation that highlights will be lost if the underlying dictionary entry changes? (happens maybe once a year for 20% of definitions) Would that be a too technical/not clean enough solution? I just think that highlights would help a great deal in stressing those parts that keep getting forgotten. I wouldn't mind having to re-highlight cards that have changed.

The custom fields solution would probably be more work than just highlighting while learning.

 

[mikelove]

I think a lot of people would have a problem with their highlights going missing - people expect stuff like that to stick around.

Are you highlighting arbitrary ranges of text or just picking, say, definitions #1 and #3 but not trying to further refine the card beyond that? We could probably come up with a really simple interface for picking sub-definitions out to a custom field, e.g. a little button next to each one to copy it to that new field.

 

[Shun]

You're right, no amount of advance warning helps here.

I'd also be pretty happy with the solution you suggest.