iPhone Feature Requests

[simakaiwen]

Mike,
Thanks for the great work.

here are my feature requests...


1. Keeping our devices synced via the cloud. it would be nice to keep our flashcards in the cloud so my ipad and iphone are automatically synced.

2. search flashcards only. how many times have you known you have a flashcard, but only remember one character (out of a chengyu or yanyu)? I know this is possible through the organization tab, but it is not user friendly/effecient at all.

3. synonym dictionary. yanyu dictionary

Thanks

 

[mikelove]

Thanks!

1. Keeping our devices synced via the cloud. it would be nice to keep our flashcards in the cloud so my ipad and iphone are automatically synced.

This is very high on our priority list now that Apple has announced iCloud (though we're still not 100% sure if we'll actually be able to use it for this).

2. search flashcards only. how many times have you known you have a flashcard, but only remember one character (out of a chengyu or yanyu)? I know this is possible through the organization tab, but it is not user friendly/effecient at all.

Also a high priority - probably by a drag-down search bar at the top of Organize Cards.

3. synonym dictionary. yanyu dictionary

Any titles you'd particularly recommend?

 

[character]

http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/08/311528 ... art-cover/

It’s called Evernote Peek, a free app for the iPad 2 that is designed around the smart cover. It is the first smart cover app, and it may even make you smarter.

Evernote Peek is a simple Q&A quiz app. You lift the cover a little and to see a question like “How fast does light travel?” or “Who was the fifth President of the United States”? Then lift the cover a little more to see the answer. Yup, people are going to be killing a lot of time in coffee shops with this app.

 

[wajubalo]

An awesome feature would be the function to look up "recently looked up words" and also to have a back button to cycle through the last few words you've looked up in the dictionary.

The idea came from me using Pleco this very moment. I'm reading through my text book this very moment and as I do, I'm looking up words via pleco. If I don't recognize it, I draw the character, find the meaning and add it to my flash database. After reading onwards, I sometimes come across the same word I just looked up. My brain still hasn't had enough time to memorize this word yet, so I have to re-look it up. This means I have to do the whole drawing process again to find it.

A way to solve this would simply be to "search recently searched words" or a "back button" to cycle through previously defined words.

 

[character]

@wajubalo, tapping the clock icon might get you what you need.

 

[wajubalo]

@wajubalo, tapping the clock icon might get you what you need.

Brilliant. Thanks for pointing me to this feature.

 

[yoose]

I haven't read all the posts so this might have been said already, but it would be nice to be able to have different sessions or profiles for the flashcards. I saw an older post that said this might be difficult, is it possible to have each session self-contained so the spaced repetition / frequency / etc calculations as well as the settings are independent for each session? Not sure how the program is setup up, but it would be essentially making a flashcard sessions class. I am taking a class right now and would like to have a long list as an on going review, but want to study new chapters independently as well without having to exit and change the deck all the time.

That's already possible - it was difficult years ago but we fixed that problem in 2008 and our flashcard system now supports multiple profiles. Create / manage them by tapping on the "Manage" button at the bottom left corner of the Profile selector screen (tap on "Profile" in the Flashcard Testing screen). You can track statistics independently via Scorefiles, which you can configure for each profile through the "Scoring" settings screen under "More Settings" in Flashcard Testing.

Hi Mike,

I have made different scoring profiles, but is there a way to pause a session and resume it later? I want to have multiple sessions going at the same time.
Example: I have one profile that is a cumulative collection of all the chapters in one of my textbooks. I go through that, but as it gets large sometimes it takes too long for one sitting and sometimes I need to just study the current chapter. However, I need to exit the previous session and start that all over again.

Also, is there a way to exclude a certain card without deleting it? I want to keep my flashcard sets complete, but for words I know I want to turn them off. I know there are certain ways to filter it with scores and such, but I haven't really figured that all out yet to make it do what I want.

 

[goldyn chyld]

goldyn chyld

Any way you could get 汉语大字典 licensed? That would be crazy to have on one's phone... the entire thing...

 

[mikelove]

I have made different scoring profiles, but is there a way to pause a session and resume it later? I want to have multiple sessions going at the same time.
Example: I have one profile that is a cumulative collection of all the chapters in one of my textbooks. I go through that, but as it gets large sometimes it takes too long for one sitting and sometimes I need to just study the current chapter. However, I need to exit the previous session and start that all over again.

No way to do that yet, unfortunately - the checks required to keep one session from corrupting another would be rather complicated, and it's one of those cases where the benefits from the feature are difficult relative to how much time it would take.

However, in Spaced Repetition testing at least you can fully exit a session without really losing any "progress" (the same cards will still be remaining / due); are you using that or some other mode?

Also, is there a way to exclude a certain card without deleting it? I want to keep my flashcard sets complete, but for words I know I want to turn them off. I know there are certain ways to filter it with scores and such, but I haven't really figured that all out yet to make it do what I want.

You can do that with the "Exclude from all sessions" command in the 'Statistics" tab (in the Card Info screen that comes up after tapping on a card in Organize or Search) - applies only to a specific scorefile, so you can even use it to keep the card out of one profile but include it in another.

 

[yoose]

No way to do that yet, unfortunately - the checks required to keep one session from corrupting another would be rather complicated, and it's one of those cases where the benefits from the feature are difficult relative to how much time it would take.

However, in Spaced Repetition testing at least you can fully exit a session without really losing any "progress" (the same cards will still be remaining / due); are you using that or some other mode?

I am using some custom profiles that I created which uses a random card selection system. Spaced repetition might work for me; seems like the default settings have cards not showing up for days. I will play with it when I have some time to customize the settings and see how that goes.

You can do that with the "Exclude from all sessions" command in the 'Statistics" tab (in the Card Info screen that comes up after tapping on a card in Organize or Search) - applies only to a specific scorefile, so you can even use it to keep the card out of one profile but include it in another.

This looks great. Seems like I can get to it during a session as well if I go to the card info section, which is convenient. Thanks for the tip.

 

[mikelove]

I am using some custom profiles that I created which uses a random card selection system. Spaced repetition might work for me; seems like the default settings have cards not showing up for days. I will play with it when I have some time to customize the settings and see how that goes.

Yes, but if you increase the "points per day" setting in Card Selection you can get it to be more fine-grained. Not really practical to have cards showing up again just a few minutes later yet, though - we still need to do some more design work on that, ultimately we'd like to get everybody using Spaced Repetition but we recognize that there are some styles of learning it doesn't work well with yet.

 

[yoose]

I am using some custom profiles that I created which uses a random card selection system. Spaced repetition might work for me; seems like the default settings have cards not showing up for days. I will play with it when I have some time to customize the settings and see how that goes.

Yes, but if you increase the "points per day" setting in Card Selection you can get it to be more fine-grained. Not really practical to have cards showing up again just a few minutes later yet, though - we still need to do some more design work on that, ultimately we'd like to get everybody using Spaced Repetition but we recognize that there are some styles of learning it doesn't work well with yet.

Ideally I think it would be a good system for me to use, but without any consistency in me using flashcards its hard to get it the way I want. I want to be able to get through a set without repeating. If I have a full set that are all due and I start the session, then I go through the first few cards and they are set to repeat in a few minutes, will they automatically be thrown back into the queue or be behind all the other cards that were do at the beginning of the session?

 

[msilber]

Would love to see integration of Pleco with iBooks in both directions -- CE and EC. Would not only facilitate reading books in Chinese, but would be immensely useful for Chinese nationals reading English books. My wife would love you.

 

[mikelove]

Ideally I think it would be a good system for me to use, but without any consistency in me using flashcards its hard to get it the way I want. I want to be able to get through a set without repeating. If I have a full set that are all due and I start the session, then I go through the first few cards and they are set to repeat in a few minutes, will they automatically be thrown back into the queue or be behind all the other cards that were do at the beginning of the session?

They'll be behind, and in fact at the moment they'd only be repeated at the end of the session and only if you configure the software to re-test you on incorrect cards at the end of each session; the rep-spaced algorithm pulls a list of cards that are due at the start of a session but doesn't update it as you go along.

Would love to see integration of Pleco with iBooks in both directions -- CE and EC. Would not only facilitate reading books in Chinese, but would be immensely useful for Chinese nationals reading English books. My wife would love you.

That's not technically possible at the moment, unfortunately - for security reasons there's no way for one app to inject itself into another app on iOS.

 

[Azimuth]

After a couple of days of intensive Pleco use, I most often find that I want quickly to initiate a new search from wherever I am inside the app. There seem to be two possible pathways: the first is to hit the Back arrow and follow one's trail to the search screen, though this can be one step or several, depending on where one is (and sometimes it's hard to remember exactly how many steps away from the search screen I am). The second, regular one, is to hit the bottom right button, then Dict, then clear search field. Three steps guaranteed, every time.

Would it be possible to get somewhat more instant access to a fresh search screen?…

Shelly

I've been trying out a few dictionaries and pleco seems by far the best of the bunch; however, I'm in agreement with the poster above (back in 2009): I'd love it if there was a search button, always accessible, that instantly returned you to a search field that was clear of text and ready for input. The other things (flashcards, audio etc) that pleco can do are wonderful but at heart it's a dictionary - shouldn't the best iOS dictionary always be one simple click away from looking up a word?

 

[mikelove]

I've been trying out a few dictionaries and pleco seems by far the best of the bunch; however, I'm in agreement with the poster above (back in 2009): I'd love it if there was a search button, always accessible, that instantly returned you to a search field that was clear of text and ready for input. The other things (flashcards, audio etc) that pleco can do are wonderful but at heart it's a dictionary - shouldn't the best iOS dictionary always be one simple click away from looking up a word?

We actually do have an option that makes that a bit more efficient; Dictionary / Overall Interface / Exit button everywhere + Search instead + Open input on exit + Clear input on exit; turn all of those on and you'll have a search icon at the top right corner of the character info and definition screens that instantly brings you back to a fresh search input field on the main screen.

We still haven't come up with a way to make this single-button in other screens like flashcards / reader for our UI redesign, but work on that is ongoing and hopefully we'll come up with a brilliant solution soon...

 

[Azimuth]

Thanks for pointing that out, that's just what I was looking for. What does the "Clear input on exit" option do? I expected it to clear the text from the search bar when I returned to it, but that doesn't seem to be the case - whatever I typed in last is still there.

 

[mikelove]

Thanks for pointing that out, that's just what I was looking for. What does the "Clear input on exit" option do? I expected it to clear the text from the search bar when I returned to it, but that doesn't seem to be the case - whatever I typed in last is still there.

Sorry, I should have said that you want "search instead" to be turned off - with "search instead" on, tapping on that button copies the current word to the search field, while with "search instead" off it clears it. (conflicts with "clear input on exit," we should probably note that or disable one when you enable the other)

 

[numble]

I've been trying out a few dictionaries and pleco seems by far the best of the bunch; however, I'm in agreement with the poster above (back in 2009): I'd love it if there was a search button, always accessible, that instantly returned you to a search field that was clear of text and ready for input. The other things (flashcards, audio etc) that pleco can do are wonderful but at heart it's a dictionary - shouldn't the best iOS dictionary always be one simple click away from looking up a word?

We actually do have an option that makes that a bit more efficient; Dictionary / Overall Interface / Exit button everywhere + Search instead + Open input on exit + Clear input on exit; turn all of those on and you'll have a search icon at the top right corner of the character info and definition screens that instantly brings you back to a fresh search input field on the main screen.

We still haven't come up with a way to make this single-button in other screens like flashcards / reader for our UI redesign, but work on that is ongoing and hopefully we'll come up with a brilliant solution soon...

Have you thought of context-sensitive settings? A tiny popup if you hold down on a button to adjust what it can do, or something similar? I've been using Pleco for so long that I didn't even know this "search-everywhere" was a feature that was available.

 

[Azimuth]

Sorry, I should have said that you want "search instead" to be turned off - with "search instead" on, tapping on that button copies the current word to the search field, while with "search instead" off it clears it. (conflicts with "clear input on exit," we should probably note that or disable one when you enable the other)

Great, that's exactly the behaviour I was after. Could be worth highlighting this in some sort of faq in your upcoming wiki/knowledge base - much easier than figuring it out from the manual's descriptions of what the various buttons do. Thanks!