User Interface Feedback Thread

[Giraffe]

When I'm doing flashcards in night mode the big buttons at the bottom of the screen (show answer, correct/incorrect) are still dark text on light. Since these buttons are a huge chunk of real estate (about 1/4 or 1/3 of the screen) it's far too bright in the dark and I have to hold my hand over the bottom part of the screen to reduce the glare. It would be much more comfortable to use at night if the whole UI was light on dark.

 

[mikelove]

When I'm doing flashcards in night mode the big buttons at the bottom of the screen (show answer, correct/incorrect) are still dark text on light. Since these buttons are a huge chunk of real estate (about 1/4 or 1/3 of the screen) it's far too bright in the dark and I have to hold my hand over the bottom part of the screen to reduce the glare. It would be much more comfortable to use at night if the whole UI was light on dark.

Yeah, there are a number of places where night mode needs to be improved - thanks.

 

[Giraffe]

There could be a couple of other tiny tweaks on the big buttons in the flashcards. The text seems a little too
small compared to the text on the small buttons and you probably want to use sentence case on the text (cap first letter as in "Mark correct").

 

[mikelove]

There could be a couple of other tiny tweaks on the big buttons in the flashcards. The text seems a little too
small compared to the text on the small buttons and you probably want to use sentence case on the text (cap first letter as in "Mark correct").

Good point on the text size. The lowercase-ness is a deliberate style decision - we do the same thing on iOS; it looks better once we add icons (which we've done for the next beta).

 

[kyococo]

Flashcards ideas

First of all thanks for the great work! I bought the dictionnary thinking that the flashcard module (not available in demo) was just a crappy tool... wow... I'm spending all my commuting time on it now, it's A GREAT TOOL

But sure the launching interface could be improved

Here are some ideas:
- as many suggested, put the most used flashcards functions in a single page graphical interface, allow to change from test types and themes easily (sure you get used to the menu very quickly but it's a poor marketing for a great tool!)
- most importantly, access the FC with a direct shortcut, as a beginner I'm running it more often than the dictionnary (I know it's the same program, it would be a direct shortcut to the FC module). Also when you switch to another application and get back to pleco, you loose your FC and start back in the dict environnement
- implement a new type of testing with drawing (I listen to or read it in pinyin, and draw the character), maybe a simple one, just by opening the existing interface and letting select the proposed character....
- make an export of the program parameters (including the many FC parameters...)
- Allow a direct access to the character from the cards list. Now you can filter/organise them but you can't open the char definition, stroke etc. from the list... that could be useful if you want to review the char wich gave you the most troubles etc.
- allow the control of the volume!!! (that could be classified as a bug), because the control in the app change the phone ring vol and not the app one...

Thanks again for your great work, I've never been so happy with an app purchase!

Dan

 

[mikelove]

Re: Flashcards ideas

First of all thanks for the great work! I bought the dictionnary thinking that the flashcard module (not available in demo) was just a crappy tool... wow... I'm spending all my commuting time on it now, it's A GREAT TOOL

Thank you!

- as many suggested, put the most used flashcards functions in a single page graphical interface, allow to change from test types and themes easily (sure you get used to the menu very quickly but it's a poor marketing for a great tool!)

I'm not quite sure what you mean on that - which "most used" functions would you want to access in this way? In general we prefer the text-with-descriptions approach since icons and short names can be confusing to people who don't already know the system well. And how exactly could we make it easier to change the test type? It's already a menu right on the main Flashcard Testing configuration screen - if we hide the other options on that screen like "number of cards" and "show" then people will have a harder time finding those.

- most importantly, access the FC with a direct shortcut, as a beginner I'm running it more often than the dictionnary (I know it's the same program, it would be a direct shortcut to the FC module). Also when you switch to another application and get back to pleco, you loose your FC and start back in the dict environnement

That one should definitely be happening, yes - probably with a little extra .apk that you download from our website. We'll also be automatically saving the flashcard session whenever you switch into the background so that you can resume it later even if you reopen Pleco in dictionary mode.

- implement a new type of testing with drawing (I listen to or read it in pinyin, and draw the character), maybe a simple one, just by opening the existing interface and letting select the proposed character....

We already support that with fill-in-the-blanks tests, but it requires our handwriting recognizer add-on; in our next beta we're adding the ability to use a regular Android IME instead, so you could use a third-party Chinese handwriting input method if you don't want to pay for ours.

- make an export of the program parameters (including the many FC parameters...)

You can export them now by backing up a copy of your flashcard database from your SD card, but I agree it would be nice to support them in our regular XML export files as well - surprisingly tricky, though. (have to validate that options don't conflict with each other / that they're compatible with a particular device, etc, and make sure that any resulting changes don't screw up any other options)

- Allow a direct access to the character from the cards list. Now you can filter/organise them but you can't open the char definition, stroke etc. from the list... that could be useful if you want to review the char wich gave you the most troubles etc.

Good idea - you actually can open the definition (tap on "Change dictionary / entry") but a regular dictionary definition view would be helpful as well.

- allow the control of the volume!!! (that could be classified as a bug), because the control in the app change the phone ring vol and not the app one...

Already fixed for the next beta.

Thanks again for your great work, I've never been so happy with an app purchase!

Thanks for all the great feedback!

 

[kyococo]

I'm not quite sure what you mean on that - which "most used" functions would you want to access in this way? In general we prefer the text-with-descriptions approach since icons and short names can be confusing to people who don't already know the system well. And how exactly could we make it easier to change the test type? It's already a menu right on the main Flashcard Testing configuration screen - if we hide the other options on that screen like "number of cards" and "show" then people will have a harder time finding those.

For example when you launch the flashcard module you directly reach "Review flash card' menu (ie begin test etc), as this is the most used functionality. The others menus (card stats, organize, search, import, export cards) could be added in a new "manage cards".

Regarding the graphical UI versus menus, I quite agree with you... maybe creating a graphical UI with the minimal options with the menu still accessible if needed:
- extra minimal: choose your profile, begin session, browse cards with stats (a direct access to the cards of the selected profile, like in "organize card"). That way you start in a nice interface but can access the menu to customize the profiles etc.
- less minimal: you can add some more options, like number of cards, test types and show. That way you can work 95% of the time from the graphical UI
The graphical UI could be deactivated for the menu fanatics (I also like it as you can manage everything).

We already support that with fill-in-the-blanks tests, but it requires our handwriting recognizer add-on; in our next beta we're adding the ability to use a regular Android IME instead, so you could use a third-party Chinese handwriting input method if you don't want to pay for ours.

Wow great! I missed the option "prompt for character"!!! I was using the sketch function and self graded... That's just perfect, it's already Christmas

Good idea - you actually can open the definition (tap on "Change dictionary / entry") but a regular dictionary definition view would be helpful as well.

That could maybe become another function like "browse cards" with option to sort by success rate. Also maybe making it easier to spot the troublesome chars as I don't really understand what "score" stands for (even less after checking the parameters haha I'm not good in mathematics)... maybe introducing a simple ratio #correct/#incorrect, colored green if more than 1, red if less. I'll try to tweak the score generation.

As it is Christmas soon... I had another functionality in mind. I found myself sometimes pressing "incorrect" when self grading although it was correct just because I wanted to practice this character more and wanted it to show again... maybe being able to create "favorites" for chars you want to keep showing up despite their good score? But ok I know that's gold plating! That's all for tonight!

 

[stephanhodges]

Document Reader

I'm on an ASUS 10.1 (Honeycomb 3.2) tablet.

In the document reader, I miss a couple of things that I (dimly) recall from my Palm...

First, there doesn't seem to be a list of recently opened files. I've defined a couple of bookmarks, so I'm hoping that will help, but I also don't see a way to access ALL bookmarks (and then automatically open and go to that place in that file).

Another item that I can't find is how to add my own definitions. I also can't select arbitrary sets of characters and define them (as proper names, etc. ) For example xuzhang 序章 won't appear as a single word.

I'd also like to be able to take advantage of the large screen, and have multiple dictionary definitions show up at the same time. I have the pop up window anchored to the bottom (and read in portrait mode). Would be good to have multiple dictionary entries available at the same time (all visible at once with scroll bar and resizable window as long as I'm wishing ) If there's still a user defined dictionary, I'd personally want that to show up first. Otherwise, being able to set an order, to the dictionaries that show up, etc.

Another small item is that the document reader insists on selecting multiple characters if it finds a dictionary match, even when it's the wrong selection. Example: 一道白光瞬的闪过 won't allow selecting "dao" separately. I'm probably missing something in the interface! Press and hold doesn't seem to do anything (that's what my impulse was to try, for example).

Most important for me is: user dictionary stuff followed by list of last nn files opened.

One more thing would be to have it auto-read, where I could set the pace...

 

[stephanhodges]

Another feature would be to be able to "add new category" as a menu item when press/holding the "+" key to add a new vocabulary word.

 

[mikelove]

Re: Document Reader

I'm on an ASUS 10.1 (Honeycomb 3.2) tablet.
First, there doesn't seem to be a list of recently opened files. I've defined a couple of bookmarks, so I'm hoping that will help, but I also don't see a way to access ALL bookmarks (and then automatically open and go to that place in that file).

Good idea - someone else mentioned an "all bookmarks list" too, actually.

Another item that I can't find is how to add my own definitions. I also can't select arbitrary sets of characters and define them (as proper names, etc. ) For example xuzhang 序章 won't appear as a single word.

You can expand the selection using the |-> buttons; to add a new flashcard / dictionary entry when you tap + after doing that, go into Settings / Popup Reader and set "Unknown word handling" to "Custom Card" or "Custom Dict Entry".

I'd also like to be able to take advantage of the large screen, and have multiple dictionary definitions show up at the same time. I have the pop up window anchored to the bottom (and read in portrait mode). Would be good to have multiple dictionary entries available at the same time (all visible at once with scroll bar and resizable window as long as I'm wishing ) If there's still a user defined dictionary, I'd personally want that to show up first. Otherwise, being able to set an order, to the dictionaries that show up, etc.

That would be a good optimization, but it's rather complicated to implement, so since it primarily benefits tablet users it's probably one that we would debut first on iPad - Android tablet sales are rather anemic and it's not really possible to justify adding a tablet-specific feature on Android that we don't offer on iPad yet.

Another small item is that the document reader insists on selecting multiple characters if it finds a dictionary match, even when it's the wrong selection. Example: 一道白光瞬的闪过 won't allow selecting "dao" separately. I'm probably missing something in the interface! Press and hold doesn't seem to do anything (that's what my impulse was to try, for example).

Tap on the |<- button at the bottom of the screen.

One more thing would be to have it auto-read, where I could set the pace...

That's coming with our text-to-speech add-on.

Another feature would be to be able to "add new category" as a menu item when press/holding the "+" key to add a new vocabulary word.

We've had a bunch of requests for that - not too difficult to add but I'm not sure if it'll make it into the initial release.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[stephanhodges]

I tried setting Unknown word handling to "Custom Dict" but pressing forward arrow to highlight an extra character (To define a name of a person) doesn't seem to do anything. Pressing "+" just puts the single character (1st) into the flashcards.

Being able to say which dictionaries to use when reading a document would help also. I believe I asked for this a few years ago. Useful for user dictionaries of proper names (reading novels, etc.) as well as technical specialty stuff. Perhaps just being able to turn on/off 1 or more custom dictionaries when reading?

Perhaps add same "unknown word handling" setting in the document reader (same setting, in two menus). That's where I would have expected it.

What happens when you want both a custom card and a custom dictionary entry? First do dictionary, then someone (automatically?) generate a card from it?

Anyway, it doesn't seem to be working for me (Custom Dict Entry)

I'm linking into a US computer from India, and it's very slow. This took 15 minutes just to type.

 

[lenix]

hey,

i recently switched from the windows mobile (6.1) version to the latest android beta.. there are some things i'm missing, but maybe i was just to blind to see them.

first of all there seems to be no "clear" / "reset" / "empty" button for me when drawing characters in a flashcard session, i always have to hit "undo" multiple times to start over with a character.

next to this i had some troubles with flashcards. on windows mobile i used to do 20 or 50 cards in a row, showing definition, asking for character. it somehow managed to present me a selection of cards which were rated worst in my collection. after importing the .xml-export i created in wm into my android version, i had to go through all of my cards one by one and reset the stats to get this working again, no idea why... would be nice to have a global "reset scores/stats" button for all cards. all these options in flashcards appeared pretty confusing to me, i spent a lot of time trying to find a setup which suits my needs.

when using a stylus as a left handed guy on my phone i tend to choose a character in flashcards before i'm done writing it, i think it's the middle finger while holding the short pen.. i really liked the windows mobile left-handed layout of the flashcard-screen.

apart from these things i really love the android beta, going to buy stroke order and ocr soon!

thanks for this great app and your support, lenix

 

[mikelove]

I tried setting Unknown word handling to "Custom Dict" but pressing forward arrow to highlight an extra character (To define a name of a person) doesn't seem to do anything. Pressing "+" just puts the single character (1st) into the flashcards.

Have you created a user dictionary database yet? The system is supposed to create one for you the first time you add a new user dictionary entry, but perhaps that's not working correctly.

Being able to say which dictionaries to use when reading a document would help also. I believe I asked for this a few years ago. Useful for user dictionaries of proper names (reading novels, etc.) as well as technical specialty stuff. Perhaps just being able to turn on/off 1 or more custom dictionaries when reading?

Already possible in Settings / Dictionary / Manage Dicts; just turn off "Use in reader" for the ones you don't want.

Perhaps add same "unknown word handling" setting in the document reader (same setting, in two menus). That's where I would have expected it.

Maybe, but I hate putting the same option in two places since it's never clear to people whether or not they have to configure it separately. And the popup reader is used for other things you might want this feature with too, like reading example sentences in dictionary entries.

What happens when you want both a custom card and a custom dictionary entry? First do dictionary, then someone (automatically?) generate a card from it?

It already does that with the dictionary option - creates a new flashcard at the same time that links to the dictionary entry.

I'm linking into a US computer from India, and it's very slow. This took 15 minutes just to type.

Sorry about that - once our website move is done we'll look into getting a spam-filtering service running so that we can hopefully stop having to block entire countries

 

[mikelove]

first of all there seems to be no "clear" / "reset" / "empty" button for me when drawing characters in a flashcard session, i always have to hit "undo" multiple times to start over with a character.

Tap in the box with two fingers to clear it - sorry that's not clear, we really need to add some explanatory text at the bottom of the box.

next to this i had some troubles with flashcards. on windows mobile i used to do 20 or 50 cards in a row, showing definition, asking for character. it somehow managed to present me a selection of cards which were rated worst in my collection. after importing the .xml-export i created in wm into my android version, i had to go through all of my cards one by one and reset the stats to get this working again, no idea why... would be nice to have a global "reset scores/stats" button for all cards. all these options in flashcards appeared pretty confusing to me, i spent a lot of time trying to find a setup which suits my needs.

That's available through the "Batch" screen - do a "Search cards" for "All cards," then tap "Edit," "Batch," and scroll down to / tap on "Reset all card statistics."

Sorry about the confusing settings - a flashcard system redesign has been in the works for a while, but we've been under so much pressure to release this Android port that we had no choice but to do it with the old interface design; we'll update it later once the redesign is done. (the basic situation is "feature-rich, elegantly-designed, or cross-platform: pick two")

when using a stylus as a left handed guy on my phone i tend to choose a character in flashcards before i'm done writing it, i think it's the middle finger while holding the short pen.. i really liked the windows mobile left-handed layout of the flashcard-screen.

Not quite sure what you mean - are you accidentally tapping on one of the fill-in-the-blanks test character candidates at the bottom of the screen? It seems like if you were right-handed you'd be tapping on the "Done" button instead, which wouldn't be much better... how are you gripping your Android device?

apart from these things i really love the android beta, going to buy stroke order and ocr soon!

Thanks! We appreciate the feedback.

 

[stephanhodges]

Thanks for explanations. I did choose create dict entry. But, it doesn't do anything when I press the "+" key. I mean, it does add the card to the selected flashcard section, but doesn't do anything with a user dictionary. I did create a user dictionary before all of this, by the way.

So, I haven't found ANY way to create a custom (user) dictionary entry yet.

Will look into enable/disable dictionaries for doc reader. I used to have a large one for Harry Potter names, etc. But that was on Palm. I have old backups, but my Tapcis device is non-functional.

 

[Giraffe]

One tiny thing that could be improved is the UI for selecting the tone colours. It would help a lot if you could see the colour applied to a character or even an English word as you were changing the colour. I found I had to go back several times until I got the right contrast between the characters and the background. You can't really tell how it's going to look by just seeing a block of colour.

 

[stephanhodges]

Would it be possible to have the history pop up directly if you press and hold the input bar at the top? Right now, it just has whatever was typed/drawn, and an "X" on the far right of the box. I know I can get it if I go down to settings and then select history, but it seems more natural to also have a press and hold action.

Really like having the "add to dictionary" button available right there.

 

[mikelove]

One tiny thing that could be improved is the UI for selecting the tone colours. It would help a lot if you could see the colour applied to a character or even an English word as you were changing the colour. I found I had to go back several times until I got the right contrast between the characters and the background. You can't really tell how it's going to look by just seeing a block of colour.

Good idea - we'll look at doing that in a future release. (the whole Settings situation is kind of in flux at the moment because we're waiting to see how Google deals with compatibility issues between the old Android 1.x/2.x and the new Android 3.x/4.x preferences screens - right now you basically need to design a whole separate set of settings for each, but we're hoping they'll give us a way to combine them)

Would it be possible to have the history pop up directly if you press and hold the input bar at the top? Right now, it just has whatever was typed/drawn, and an "X" on the far right of the box. I know I can get it if I go down to settings and then select history, but it seems more natural to also have a press and hold action.

Probably better to just add a history button to the toolbar on tablets, actually - the press-and-hold gesture on Android is generally reserved for selecting a different input method.

 

[Giraffe]

First off, I've had the latest beta for a day and I'm just thrilled since it fixed all the issues I'd reported and there seem to be lots of other improvements.

I was so excited I bought the OCR add on today. Although I haven't really had a chance to use it much, I do find parts of the UI a little puzzling, specifically the three buttons in the top right corner (i.e. to the right of the plus and minus buttons). The middle one, I'm guessing might be for reverse text, the others (the flower and the two column thingy) really don't mean anything to me in this context and pressing them didn't do anything obvious. Perhaps the buttons need a label or some text to appear on the screen when they are pressed.

Other than that, I'm a very happy camper.

 

[mikelove]

I was so excited I bought the OCR add on today. Although I haven't really had a chance to use it much, I do find parts of the UI a little puzzling, specifically the three buttons in the top right corner (i.e. to the right of the plus and minus buttons). The middle one, I'm guessing might be for reverse text, the others (the flower and the two column thingy) really don't mean anything to me in this context and pressing them didn't do anything obvious. Perhaps the buttons need a label or some text to appear on the screen when they are pressed.

Labels might help, yeah. The middle button is indeed for reverse black-on-white/white-on-black text, the flower enables or disables macro focus (it's actually a standard icon on cameras, though a lot of people might not recognize it in this context), and the rightmost button switches between vertical and horizontal text. Honestly, though, aside from macro the other settings should rarely ever need to be changed - Pleco can generally auto-detect them so we just keep those buttons there to override it when it fails at that.