Some ideas for the future

[MarcoD]

Hi,

First of all: thanks for this nice product, I LOVE it.
I use Pleco for studying Chinese and use mainly the flashcards, but also all the other functionalities. During the last few weeks I wrote down some of the things that would be nice to have. However, I of course understand that sometimes they are not easy to implement, please just just use them as suggestions for further development:
1. I use the Reader functionality to study texts I entered myself before. It would be nice to have a read aloud function while following the characters. As far as I know I can so far click on each character separately and listen to the pronunciation, but nothing automatically that reads words step by step? I know that might sound a bit wired and not fluent at all, still would help a lot while scanning through the texts.
2. Also regarding the reader: is it possible to see the Chinese characters coloured depending on their tone? I have seen this in your flashcard section where you have used the different colours. It would be nice while studying a text to see the colours so that I can focus on the right pronunciation.
3. This has been mentioned before but I also would support flashcards with pictures. I think the visual aspect would make memorizing easier. You said it would take lots of MB due to high data volume, still would be nice to have simple, small pics attached in the flashcards maybe just for the most important words.
4. Also regarding the flashcards and also mentioned before: it would be nice to have the “stroke order test” type for words with more characters. I think the stroke order section is a great way to study the flashcards, however if half of the flashcards are not available (as they consist of two or more characters) it significantly reduces its usage. If you can't let them test together, maybe there is some option to split them somehow so that the user tests separately or something (no idea whether this works or whether it is useful)
5. Is it possible to use the “stroke order” test type and somehow show the translation somewhere? So far I see a character, memorize the stroke order but often don't remember the translation. In this case I have to go to “Edit”, then “Card Info”, then go back, etc. etc.
6. If I study the words the first time I just use the test type “Review only”. Is it possible to somehow not only directly print the characters but also let them “draw” according to the stroke order (like you also have in the dictionary section)? If you don’t only look at the character when it is prompted directly but see (and memorize) how it is drawn I think that would help me studying the words more easily.
7. Last but not least: a widget would be nice for example with “flashcard of the day” which shows some flashcards out of a predetermined list for memorizing on that day. I know, I know, I start dreaming now ;-)

OK, I know that was really a lot, just ran across those things from time to time. Maybe some of that is already possible but I just don’t know how. Thanks in advance, please continue your great work.

Marco

 

[mikelove]

1. I use the Reader functionality to study texts I entered myself before. It would be nice to have a read aloud function while following the characters. As far as I know I can so far click on each character separately and listen to the pronunciation, but nothing automatically that reads words step by step? I know that might sound a bit wired and not fluent at all, still would help a lot while scanning through the texts.

That's coming soon via our new Text To Speech add-on. (unfortunately not a free upgrade, though, due to license fees we have to pay - may be free for some users, though, or at least heavily discounted)

2. Also regarding the reader: is it possible to see the Chinese characters coloured depending on their tone? I have seen this in your flashcard section where you have used the different colours. It would be nice while studying a text to see the colours so that I can focus on the right pronunciation.

This is one that we get a lot of requests for, but we haven't yet come up with a reliable system to handle characters with multiple possible pronunciations. (the one the TTS system uses is a black box that we can't access directly for other features like this)

3. This has been mentioned before but I also would support flashcards with pictures. I think the visual aspect would make memorizing easier. You said it would take lots of MB due to high data volume, still would be nice to have simple, small pics attached in the flashcards maybe just for the most important words.

Also coming, in the next big update once the current dictionary-search-focused one is finished.

4. Also regarding the flashcards and also mentioned before: it would be nice to have the “stroke order test” type for words with more characters. I think the stroke order section is a great way to study the flashcards, however if half of the flashcards are not available (as they consist of two or more characters) it significantly reduces its usage. If you can't let them test together, maybe there is some option to split them somehow so that the user tests separately or something (no idea whether this works or whether it is useful)

Our tentative plan on that is to add a feature to automatically generate single-character flashcards from multi-character words - basically we'd check every character in every word and create a new card for it if one didn't already exist. That way you still get character-specific score tracking, which we think is very important to avoid a lot of wasted effort.

5. Is it possible to use the “stroke order” test type and somehow show the translation somewhere? So far I see a character, memorize the stroke order but often don't remember the translation. In this case I have to go to “Edit”, then “Card Info”, then go back, etc. etc.

Not yet, but that's a good idea - thanks.

6. If I study the words the first time I just use the test type “Review only”. Is it possible to somehow not only directly print the characters but also let them “draw” according to the stroke order (like you also have in the dictionary section)? If you don’t only look at the character when it is prompted directly but see (and memorize) how it is drawn I think that would help me studying the words more easily.

Possibly - so you're basically looking for a "review only" option for stroke order? Or would you want this to work independently, drawing each character in order for multi-character cards?

7. Last but not least: a widget would be nice for example with “flashcard of the day” which shows some flashcards out of a predetermined list for memorizing on that day. I know, I know, I start dreaming now

Widgets are tough to justify adding at the moment because they involve a lot of Android-specific work, whereas every other feature you've mentioned would be almost entirely done in cross-platform C code and hence usable on both Android and iOS. With us running so far behind schedule on a variety of upgrades, we really need to make our programming time count, at least for the next year or so - most of the time we can afford to spend on platform-specific improvements has to go to dealing with the consequences of OS updates (menu button on Android 4, e.g.).

 

[MarcoD]

Thanks for the quick reply.
Regarding the 6th question: I am looking for a way to see how a character is drawn with all the strokes step by step, then click the "next" button to see the translation. I think that is a good way to approach characters you don't know. If it is a multi-character card it would be nice to see the stroke order of each character step by step (just for review). I guess that is what you also mean: a "review only" with the stroke order ...

 

[mikelove]

Thanks for the quick reply.
Regarding the 6th question: I am looking for a way to see how a character is drawn with all the strokes step by step, then click the "next" button to see the translation. I think that is a good way to approach characters you don't know. If it is a multi-character card it would be nice to see the stroke order of each character step by step (just for review). I guess that is what you also mean: a "review only" with the stroke order ...

Makes sense, thanks.

 

[mnanon]

This update sounds promising, any estimated date for its availability?

Will you be launching any additional Mandarin dictionaries?

 

[mikelove]

This update sounds promising, any estimated date for its availability?

Won't even start thinking about that until we finish the current Big Update - in fact in general I'm going to try to avoid pinning quite so much on any particular update because it's going to make everybody a lot happier if we do this stuff more incrementally from here on out.

Will you be launching any additional Mandarin dictionaries?

A whole bunch of them, yes.

 

[burdenofhope]

I don't know whether this has already been mentioned, but what about a possibility to synchronize flashcards on different devices? Would that be possible?

 

[mikelove]

I don't know whether this has already been mentioned, but what about a possibility to synchronize flashcards on different devices? Would that be possible?

Possibly, but we'd really like Google to do the heavy lifting for us so that we don't have to handle setting up / maintaining our own sync servers; Android 4.1 didn't bring seamless iCloud-esque document syncing, but Android 5.0 probably will. So we'd rather wait on that than roll out our own Android-specific sync server solution.

 

[fulaihulai]

About the document reader: would it be possible to add some themes to it? Reading on a white background is tiring to my eyes, and most ebook readers come with ways to modify the colours and font styles. Moonreader is a good example, but there's no dictionary in that, which makes reading in chinese a bit too difficult for me at the moment.

 

[mikelove]

About the document reader: would it be possible to add some themes to it? Reading on a white background is tiring to my eyes, and most ebook readers come with ways to modify the colours and font styles. Moonreader is a good example, but there's no dictionary in that, which makes reading in chinese a bit too difficult for me at the moment.

Already supported - Settings / General / Interface Colors. (though only in non-Night Mode). You can customize your Chinese font in Settings / General too.

 

[fulaihulai]

Oh. Here I was thinking I had looked everywhere for that feature Thanks.

 

[burdenofhope]

I don't know whether this has already been mentioned, but what about a possibility to synchronize flashcards on different devices? Would that be possible?

Possibly, but we'd really like Google to do the heavy lifting for us so that we don't have to handle setting up / maintaining our own sync servers; Android 4.1 didn't bring seamless iCloud-esque document syncing, but Android 5.0 probably will. So we'd rather wait on that than roll out our own Android-specific sync server solution.

What about Android 4.2? Is it supported or did they skip it again?

 

[mikelove]

What about Android 4.2? Is it supported or did they skip it again?

It sounds like a more minor update - few interesting tweaks like widgets on the lock screen but nothing really major.

 

[HW60]

Just before the forthcoming big update may not be the right time for wishes, but shortly before christmas maybe ...

1. I would like to have some more definitions for duplicate flashcards:
a) when both headwords (simplified and traditional) are equal (as today)
b) when simplified headwords are equal
c) when simplified headwords AND pronunciations are equal including pronunciations with "@+Kana"

2. I have 2 big groups of categories, one for the words I want to learn, one for the characters that are part of the words to learn. I synchronise these 2 categories with Excel and Visual Basic, so that the character category has all necessary characters, and that there is no character without a word in the word category (and I know at once how many characters I should know). It would be very convenient if Pleco could produce a list of those characters that either need to be added to or deleted from the character category.

3. The 2 card selection systems Repetition-spaced (RS) and Frequency-adjusted (FA) both have some problems for me. I prefer RS, but after 2 or 3 days without a flashcard session it is very difficult to catch up again. I would like to have a third card selection system: Basically it works like FA, but it only presents those flashcards that are due according to the RS rules. Then I can define the number of cards I want to repeat, catch up with the "missing" RS cards, and still repeat those cards that are selected by FA (but not those that are due in the future). With the actual RS system I can only reduce the number of cards to the number I like to repeat by selecting some of the categories. Maybe only an additional filter "only due cards" is needed.

4. Not too important, but nice to have (it works in WM for some reason): Search for flashcards with pronunciation and also find those cards which start with @ and mainly consist of Kana. Alternatively: extend full-text-search on the pronunciation.

 

[mikelove]

1. I would like to have some more definitions for duplicate flashcards:
a) when both headwords (simplified and traditional) are equal (as today)
b) when simplified headwords are equal
c) when simplified headwords AND pronunciations are equal including pronunciations with "@+Kana"

Something configurable like this has been on tap for a while, but it's really waiting on the new "custom field" system which we're hoping to roll out within the next year or so - right now it would be kind of silly to do this when cards are about to get a lot more customizable anyway, not enough people are using the @+ hack to justify doing something for that by itself.

2. I have 2 big groups of categories, one for the words I want to learn, one for the characters that are part of the words to learn. I synchronise these 2 categories with Excel and Visual Basic, so that the character category has all necessary characters, and that there is no character without a word in the word category (and I know at once how many characters I should know). It would be very convenient if Pleco could produce a list of those characters that either need to be added to or deleted from the character category.

This one has also been on tap for a while, mostly to feed into the stroke order testing system - to be honest we still haven't quite decided how we want to handle the interplay between character and word learning internally yet; the simplest approach would be to add an option to automatically generate cards for any characters that aren't currently covered, but it introduces a lot of extra management and potentially forces people to spend a lot of time learning characters that are rarely used outside of the context of a particular word. (how often do you see 俄 outside of 俄国, e.g.?)

3. The 2 card selection systems Repetition-spaced (RS) and Frequency-adjusted (FA) both have some problems for me. I prefer RS, but after 2 or 3 days without a flashcard session it is very difficult to catch up again. I would like to have a third card selection system: Basically it works like FA, but it only presents those flashcards that are due according to the RS rules. Then I can define the number of cards I want to repeat, catch up with the "missing" RS cards, and still repeat those cards that are selected by FA (but not those that are due in the future). With the actual RS system I can only reduce the number of cards to the number I like to repeat by selecting some of the categories. Maybe only an additional filter "only due cards" is needed.

FA is pretty much done for, the only question is when we get up the nerve to officially remove it. So a more flexible RS is probably what will replace it - once we stop worrying about FA we can give the scoring system over exclusively to RS and start operating on the assumption that everybody is learning in that way, which makes it very easy to add an option to (say) "stretch out" RS cards over a few days to give you time to catch up.

4. Not too important, but nice to have (it works in WM for some reason): Search for flashcards with pronunciation and also find those cards which start with @ and mainly consist of Kana. Alternatively: extend full-text-search on the pronunciation.

Again a custom field thing, but not likely to happen until then.

 

[MarcoD]

Hi Mike,

first of all thanks to you and your team for the terrific job you are doing, new Pleco version is even better.
I have been reading that you are still working on new dictionaries as well as the voice of Lulu/Hui. As I am interested in both I wanted to ask whether you have some more information on that: I wrote in the past that I am more interested in something like "explanation of the meaning of the characters" to easier memorize characters from the dictionary. The one that comes closest is the Tuttle Learner's Chinese-English dictionary, but if it is possible to buy a different dictionary that better matches what I look for I would prefer to wait a bit longer. Same with the voices of Lulu/Hui. Do you plan any changes here (as you label it as experimental)???

OK, thanks in advance
Marco

 

[mikelove]

I have been reading that you are still working on new dictionaries as well as the voice of Lulu/Hui. As I am interested in both I wanted to ask whether you have some more information on that: I wrote in the past that I am more interested in something like "explanation of the meaning of the characters" to easier memorize characters from the dictionary. The one that comes closest is the Tuttle Learner's Chinese-English dictionary, but if it is possible to buy a different dictionary that better matches what I look for I would prefer to wait a bit longer.

We are working on an expanded Tuttle, but it mostly adds more entries rather than adding detail to the existing entries. Explanation of character meanings is something we're feeling like we're probably going to have to commission on our own, since nobody who offers such data now is willing to license it to us (and we've contacted pretty much everyone).

Same with the voices of Lulu/Hui. Do you plan any changes here (as you label it as experimental)???

Mainly bug fixes and a better UI - we need to make it easier to follow along with audio in a document, e.g. We certainly plan to make all of those improvements available to people who purchase the current versions of TTS, though.

 

[MarcoD]

Hey Mike,

thanks for the quick reply. After your reply I ordered both, the Tuttle dictionary as well as the Lulu voice, but I directly have new questions:
I was positively surprised that I suddenly had an audio icon next to the sample sentences in the dictionary. However, I can't play text that I have in the pleco reader (which I thought was the original intention)? Also if I use flashcards and show the sample sentences there (next to the definition, e.g. with the multiple choice test), the audio icon does not pop up. Does that mean I can only use the Lulu voice for reading the sample sentences as I have purchased the extra voices for the words already?
Another minor question is about the flashcard section with the dictionary. If I do the multiple choice test and have a look at the solution in form of definition + sample sentences, which dictionary is used as a standard? I want to use the Tuttle one but I always get "PLC" first. Even if I change the settings (Manage Dictionary" where I can change the priority, I get "PLC" as a standard in the flashcard answer.
The Tuttle dictionary seems to be quite good so far, especially as the sample sentences seem to be a bit easier and therefore well suited for beginners/intermediate learners. However if you could add more words or definitions that would be greatly appreciated (just as an example: I get one definition for "fang4", put or put in, but get 14 different definitions under "PLC").

Thanks again
Marco

 

[mikelove]

However, I can't play text that I have in the pleco reader (which I thought was the original intention)?

Just select it (tap-hold on the |-> button to advance to cover a whole sentence) and tap on the audio button to play it. Needs a better UI but it should be fairly usable at least with that one. It'll also kick in any time you try to play a dictionary entry for which no exact audio is available, or a custom flashcard.

Another minor question is about the flashcard section with the dictionary. If I do the multiple choice test and have a look at the solution in form of definition + sample sentences, which dictionary is used as a standard? I want to use the Tuttle one but I always get "PLC" first. Even if I change the settings (Manage Dictionary" where I can change the priority, I get "PLC" as a standard in the flashcard answer.

Manage Dicts only affects priority in dictionary searches; in a flashcard test you'd want to customize this in Card Text (the "remap" option). We do it this way so that you can vary the order between tests and have that order differ from the order in dictionary searches - you might prefer very short definitions for one type of test and longer ones for another, e.g.

The Tuttle dictionary seems to be quite good so far, especially as the sample sentences seem to be a bit easier and therefore well suited for beginners/intermediate learners. However if you could add more words or definitions that would be greatly appreciated (just as an example: I get one definition for "fang4", put or put in, but get 14 different definitions under "PLC").

Tuttle's single character coverage is rather spotty, yes - expanded edition should help with that though the added entries generally have far fewer examples.

 

[burdenofhope]

I don't know whether this has already been mentioned, but what about a possibility to synchronize flashcards on different devices? Would that be possible?

Possibly, but we'd really like Google to do the heavy lifting for us so that we don't have to handle setting up / maintaining our own sync servers; Android 4.1 didn't bring seamless iCloud-esque document syncing, but Android 5.0 probably will. So we'd rather wait on that than roll out our own Android-specific sync server solution.

Still hoping for this.