Some simple/not-so-simple - but super useful - updates!

[scoob_e_doo]

Hey All,

I haven't read through the forums, but from using this program about every hour for the past 4 months , I've come to realize it needed the following few things which weren't included in the latest update.

1. When you're testing yourself with flash cards, how about save/resume capability? I really hate when I get through 30/100 cards and then I have to switch out of that program to check something else... Would really help.

2. When you hold the '+' icon to add a card to a list, can you extend that drop down box to something larger than 4 items? There's loads of space and it would save me from having to click the down arrow every time to get to the list I wanted.

3. Hierarchical card lists. As an even better addition to the above, if you could store cards in sub-directories, good Lord would that be useful. Hold '+', click the folder, and then the list you want to add to. This would be crazy awesome for people like me with tonnes of lists.

4. This is more of a bug, but the left handed drop down box (which shows the last few entries into the search field) is missing when the HWR is enabled on-screen and on the left side. If you tap around beside the search field you'll eventually 'find' it, but it doesn't appear visually. This is a useful feature for lefties as well, you know. : )

5. Traditional/Simplified testing of flash cards. It would be great to be able to have another field, the fanti/jianti zi, as an option for testing. That way you could go through your card list of simplified and hide the traditional character until you reveal the fields.

Anyway, love the program. Things like #2 and #4 are super simple! How about another point release? 1, 3, and 5... not so simple. But would be amazing features.

Gah. Back to studying.

Cheers,
C

 

[Anonymous]

3. Hierarchical card lists.

Please! This would be great. I know I'd use it all the time.

 

[sfrrr]

I vote for 1, 3 and maybe 5. the ability to resume would save my marriage. I'm always saying, "Wait, I have to finish this list."

Sandra

 

[mikelove]

Thanks for these suggestions. I'm still amazed to see this much interest in the flashcard program - if we eventually manage to do everything with it that we'd like to do we really should look into offering it as a standalone product, it seems like there are a dearth of good PDA flashcard programs out there.

#1 is probably the single most oft-requested flashcard improvement, and hence is at the top of our list for future improvements.

#2 is already fixed on Pocket PC (I think) so it should hopefully be pretty easy to get working on Palm.

#3 would probably be implemented as more of a "category" system (we've already got a place reserved in the flashcard data file for each list to be assigned a category) but the basic idea is definitely something we'd like to add.

#4 does sound like a bug, yes - should be easy enough to fix. (we're probably going to put all of this stuff in a single "left-handed interface" option in the next major PD release)

#5 is a great idea - we're already dreaming up ideas for some other new testing modes (like one that gives you Pinyin but requires you to supply the tone marks) so this seems like it might fit in with that stuff nicely.

Another point release might happen (see my posting on Chinese-Chinese dictionaries) but I'm not sure if #s 2 and 4 would make it in - we really prefer to make feature changes in a few big updates rather than a lot of smaller ones, it's hard to get people interested enough to try out a beta version of a minor bug-fix release but it's very easy to get them to test out a new version when there are lots of big new features. Plus it's easier/cleaner to add new features in an organized/integrated manner than to make lots of little potentially-buggy tweaks in every release.