In the new app it is really hard to go back to the new character - is there some short time limit in which the back button is active? After what seems like a very short time, the back button seems inactive and pressing on it results in “drawing” of the current character (which is thus wrong!).
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Agree. But I think it’s just because the area of the button is too small. When it’s inactive the icon disappears. You can go only one item (character or word) back.
The back button’s area is small so it isn’t accidentally triggered, however I was able to reproduce this once after a couple dozen quick tap attempts. I’ve opened an issue! In the meantime, if you carefully tap directly on the button it should trigger successfully.
Hey, to add to this, we save reviews to the server much more frequently than in previous apps or legacy. Since the most common path is going forward through reviews (not backwards) and we want to make sure your study attempts are saved, we made a decision to limit how far back you could go in favor of more saves in smaller chunks. If the review has already been saved, you can’t go back and change it, so you may be seeing too. But we’ll look into the hitbox thing with the button as well, that could also be an issue.
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I realised that the back button isn’t always in the same place, vertically, in the app, which makes “finding” the back button harder. For example when looking at the definition of a character the back button is higher up the screen than for writing a tone.
In addition to being hard to go backward, it’s super easy to skip forward, or after the character is drawn. Even when I’m being pretty conscious of where my finger hits the screen, over half the time when I’m trying to mark an item “too easy” it hits the area just the tiniest bit above the number and skips ahead to the next term. Then, when I try to go back and correct the mistake, I generally miss that too.
I think the plan is to have the buttons relocated and permanently displayed (in the exact same location)! It’s a bit too unintuitive when they are hidden, and especially when the placement change or it’s too easy to accidentally tap.
I know this is an old thread and things have probably changed but there’s got to be better way of going back without accidentally advancing.
The back button is generally not visible. If I click where I think it is and get it wrong I either advance to the next card or show the hidden info and grade the card I’m on - depending where I’m at.
Just had an issue where I advanced a card I’d done then decided to go look up the kanji. Accidentally showed and then graded the new card and advanced to the one after that. Then more confusion as I try to go back and make sure I haven’t left cards incorrectly graded
I haven’t been sktittering for a while so if I accidentally pass a card as correct it’ll disappear for 9 years.
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The plan is still to have the navigation buttons relocated and permanently displayed, though with other issues surfacing this hasn’t been able to be implemented yet. I’ll see if the priority can be upped, though!
I have to say I also have a serious objection to being called a Leech when I’m struggling to get the toing and froing work so I can practice writing kanji. Even ignoring that the issues are caused by the interface I don’t think there’s justification for calling people leeches in this particular program under any circumstances - the gradings are only there for their benefit anyway.
Ah, words are marked as a “leech” when they’ve been marked wrong enough times in a row. This is a term used in SRS, where a leech is something that for some reason isn’t being remembered well and is sucking up time (like a leech). Sometimes just knowing that a word is a leech is enough to correct the problem, but usually if you see something has been marked as a leech, you could try adding more words that use the character(s), or figure out why the success rate hasn’t been high. The system is not calling you a leech, but rather the word! 
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That clears that up. However they’re only being marked wrong so often because of the navigation issues. I like to practice writing complex kanji several times if I think I need to. If I swipe up to erase too slowly it registers it as a tap, marks it wrong and advances. Then I need to go back to it using an invisible back button.
Add to this that I need to write chars fairly slowly on Android and the practice that I once enjoyed on the original iOS client has become a frustrating chore.
Just had an issue with the leach tag not being cleared. Stayed around for several cards until I went back to the dashboard to get rid of it
Thanks for the heads up. We haven’t run into or heard of this yet, would you be able to keep an eye out if it happens again (and possibly any details to what led up to when the leech tag is showing)?
It’s not just that it’s hard to skip backwards. It’s far too easy to skip forward - sometimes more than one card at a time - by accident, even when trying to hit the back button.
Regarding the button positions, wouldn’t it make more sense to put the forward and back buttons in the top corner of the writing pad? There’s less of a chance of a stroke starting there compared to the middle. This also relates to the area that allows forward skipping. Something on the general left side of the screen should never cause a forward skip. I can see some sense in making the area bigger when a card has been correctly answered and manually graded, but when there’s been no input from the user, skipping forward should be a very deliberate request.
Another problem that comes up frequently, at least in the 3.0.3 build, is the following condition. Try to go back. Go forward instead. Go back from here. This may or may not work, I don’t know, because now the card and audio are out of sync, and I don’t know what what I’m looking at. The only safe thing to do now is mark the card as wrong.
It’s especially vexing when this happens on a new card. New card gets marked as correct the first time and it’s gone for a long time.
Lastly, to SkritterMichael’s comment: why do you want to prevent accidentally going backwards? There’s no harm in going backwards by accident - you can just go back forward. On the other hand, going forward by accident is sometimes irreversible and has consequences for when a card shows up again. It seems this should be the other way around.
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Completely agree that the back button is a problem. It’s hidden, small, and doesn’t have a fixed location. Please do prioritise this.
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I agree about the back button’s position. It’s something we discussed but never took action on. It’ll be improved in the next mobile beta release.
We’ll look into making the forward prompt navigation more “forgiving” for accidental pushes.
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