Some Feature Requests for Flashcards

[adam.hamilton]

1) It would be nice if it were possible to "mark" cards for later editing

2) If you press the arrow in the bottom left of the screen when testing, it will bring you to the definition screen of that entry. It would be cool if there were an option similar to this that would search the most recent document in the document reader for the word (instead of having to copy the headword, navigate to the document, open the search, paste, etc.). This would be helpful when you were learning the words for a book and you want to see the context of the word in the book. Maybe a long press on the arrow?

3) I think I've already mentioned this, but a way to combine all the different fields of a flashcard from different dictionaries. This way, you could use the pronunciation from a Taiwanese dictionary with a dictionary entry that you prefer from a different dictionary, and wouldn't have to worry about custom cards, reformatting, etc.

3) I'm sure you've already thought of this, but the pinyin entries in the cross-straits dictionary make it not very usable for flashcards where the pronunciations differ.

4) The flashcard timer seems to continue timing if you have an open session but in other parts of the app, not doing flashcards. Similarly, sometimes I've reopened a session to find that the timer has somehow been on the whole time. It would be nice if there were a time limit for each card after which the timer would stop timing (1 min is the default in anki, I believe).

5) Although there are different combinations for "show", it seems that reveal will always reveal everything. I think there is something to be said for being able to control what is revealed. For example, I find that if I am always reading the pinyin, it does less for me than listening to it and figuring it out for myself, so it would be nice if I could choose not to reveal the pinyin (and if I couldn't get it through just listening, I could use the pop-up definition).

6) It would be nice if I could change the font of the definition entries separately from the headword. This way I could practice reading one of the harder-to-read fonts while reading the example sentences and such, but the new words that I'm learning I'd still be able to see in a clear font.

7) Finally, it would be awesome if there were a flashcard mode that used the already present sentences feature. What I have in mind is something like having a "random sentence feature" where for each headword, each time you saw the card it would choose a random sentence from the sentence list that includes that word. This could be used to test for reading and pronunciation, while allowing the user to be exposed to the word in multiple contexts.

 

[mikelove]

1) Why not just add them to a 'needs editing' category?

2) The new Card Info screen will include a history of recent views of the word, which would include any lookups made in a document, so assuming that you did in fact look up this word in that document you should be able to get to it that way; would also include the context text right on that screen so you don't need to go out to the document to find it.

3) For Taiwan pronunciation specifically at least this should be populate-able just like the Cantonese field is now (i.e. it'll pull from a later dictionary if it can't find it in your default one). Should also be possible to embed entries from multiple dictionaries on the same card.

4) That's a bug, thanks. As for time limits, I'm not quite clear what purpose would that serve? If the time is over a minute then what difference does it make?

5/6) Already implemented for 4.0.

7) Also already implemented, we now support auto-populated cloze deletions with the word. (can also manually link sentences to a specific card if you prefer to limit the set, or create sentence flashcards + search those)

 

[adam.hamilton]

1) I thought I had thought of a good reason that marking them would be better, but I can't think of it now...

2) But would there be any way to automatically search the most recent document without having looked it up previously? Or even, search a folder of documents? The latter would be helpful if, say, I import a list of words for a text book, and I want to see if the word exists in context in any of the books I have on the reader. The former would be helpful if, say, I import a list of words to study for reading an actual book (but I didn't generate the list by using the popup in the reader and adding each one - I downloaded the list from somewhere), and I want to see the word in the context of the actual book, so I know which definition/example sentence in the dictionary entry I should be using.

3) Do you mean this is now possible, or will be?

4) There have been a few times when I think I've been out of the app (I think - or at least the phone has gone to sleep), but the timer continues and I open the app to see 6 hours have passed. Something else I've seen, rarely, is the timer resets in the middle of a flashcards session (after, say, going to the home screen and resuming later). Maybe these are just easy bugs to fix, in which case the time limit wouldn't really be needed (I was more thinking in terms of a "safety feature")

5/6/7) excellent!

8) another thing: I wish it was easier to submit feedback for incorrect entries. When I spot errors/typos/etc. usually it's when I'm doing flashcards. As it stands now, If I merely select the headword with the popup def screen, it won't show up on the recently viewed entries list on contact us > report incorrect entry. Even if I go to the dictionary arrow with the arrow, it still won't show up. So, as far as I can tell, I have to copy the headword, go to the dictionary, paste, and select the actual entry from the list. Even there, though, it automatically selects my first dictionary as the entry in which there's a mistake, so then, before selecting the entry, I first have to use the box by the search bar to select the dictionary where I found the incorrect entry, then select the entry. It's kind of a pain, it would be nicer if there was an easier way to do it.

 

[mikelove]

2) I'm not sure if doing that in a single document would be useful, and doing it for a whole folder would be slow (unless we full-text indexed every document you loaded into Pleco, but that would eat up a ton of battery / storage space). I suppose we could theoretically add some sort of option to manually generate indexes for specific documents if you wanted to then be able to quickly find instances of words in them, but that's not something we can realistically do for 4.0.

3) Will be.

4) OK, so if we fix the bug + get the timer to stop when you're not in Pleco then that seems like it would deal with the problem, correct?

8) You can also submit feedback from the definition screen - long-press a dictionary abbreviation and you'll see an option to do that.