any formatting possible for Definition field?

[jyh]

So this "arbitrary text" could/would include a sort of "page break" to force creation of a third or fourth side to the flashcard?

It would basically just let you put something other than Pinyin in the Pinyin field; since you can configure Pleco to reveal any combination of the character / pinyin / definition fields, and reveal them separately, you'd simply create a flashcard list with the format:

character<tab>@Heisig keyword<tab>Heisig mnemonic

I guess I was not clear in my post from a few months back (http://www.plecoforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2461#p20782). That's in fact exactly what I was asking for.

I've been going back and forth about whether or not to approach UH Press (which publishes Heisig) or Tuttle (which publishes Matthews' "Learning Chinese Characters") about licensing one of these character mnemonic books officially - we already have relationships with both publishers.

The problem of course is that flashcards being exportable to text files, both editors would certainly be concerned about illegal copies circulating. Certainly, in the case of the Heisig, there couldn't be any kind of "locking" of the cards since the user would need to edit them to write in their own mnemonic story for each character.

LCC however is challenging to present in Pleco because of all of the embedded images (though that's something we need to work on anyway), and Heisig seems rather controversial in general.

IMHO, the controversy about Heisig is both deserved (I have a long list of criticisms of the book, starting of course with pronunciation being avoided) and also due to many of the critics misunderstanding the book's purpose (it's not for nothing that the book's title is "Remembering [trad/simpl.] Hanzi" and not "Learning...").

 

[mikelove]

I guess I was not clear in my post from a few months back (viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2461#p20782). That's in fact exactly what I was asking for.

You were quite clear, it just took us this long to get it implemented

The problem of course is that flashcards being exportable to text files, both editors would certainly be concerned about illegal copies circulating. Certainly, in the case of the Heisig, there couldn't be any kind of "locking" of the cards since the user would need to edit them to write in their own mnemonic story for each character.

Not all flashcards are exportable to text files - ABC and PLC ones are but GF and TTL aren't, for example. The new dictionaries we're launching in 2011 (lots of them - could be as many as 8 I think) are likewise going to be a mix. Those locked-down dictionaries are also unable to have their definitions copied into custom cards - if you edit a GF or TTL based card you'll see the definition field becomes blank.

However, with it looking very likely that we'll finally add annotations to the flashcard system (at least) sometime in 2011, it might be possible for us to have a locked-down Heisig database that still allowed you to add your own mnemonics.

IMHO, the controversy about Heisig is both deserved (I have a long list of criticisms of the book, starting of course with pronunciation being avoided) and also due to many of the critics misunderstanding the book's purpose (it's not for nothing that the book's title is "Remembering [trad/simpl.] Hanzi" and not "Learning...").

But they are talking about it, which is worth something... OCR is pretty controversial too - some people love it, some people hate it, some people think it's a time-wasting gimmick that has needlessly delayed the release of the Android version - but after two record-breaking months of sales I'm not exactly feeling like it was a bad move.