End of Flash and what it means for Legacy

I came across this video today.

It got me wondering about Legacy Skritter. I don’t use it for studying but I still use it for the study graphs, My Words and making my mnemonics. Also though I typically don’t do so, it is the only way for users to add sentences as far as I am aware. I was wondering how much of those things will stop working on legacy once the new year starts. Also I was wondering that if those things stopped working if you would consider using something like Ruffle to keep Legacy working until those things could be brought to the current website.

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You can create mnemonics but you can’t add sentences on mobile, it is a different story for graphs and progress, I don’t see an alternative for those. There is also the issue of efficiency, it is faster to change definitions and mnemonics on skritter legacy.

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Hi, I can give a little info about the status of some of the features you all have mentioned.

  • We’re currently working on a major overhaul of stats on mobile (which will find its way back to the website afterwards).
  • The ability to create and edit example sentences is a planned feature for a future release on mobile.
  • The point about ease of definition editing on the 2.0 website is a good one, I’ll bring it up with the rest of the team.
  • The ability to add sentences-as-vocabs still won’t have support on other clients for the immediate future. It’s in scope of a refactor of how user vocabs work, but is not something that will be released before December.
  • We do not have any plans to support studying on legacy after Flash support is removed from browsers. The legacy website is deprecated and does not receive updates. Though pages like My Words, etc. should continue to load and function even after Flash is dead.
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I use Legacy mobile to add new words to Skritter’s database, and that is a need with multiple instances a week, at least.

When will we be able to use the Beta to add words that are not yet in Skritter’s database?

The regular website allows new words to be added. I do this every couple of weeks.

So, accessing Legacy web isn’t needed for that. This doesn’t address the lack of this feature in the new mobile.

BTW, the newest mobile app really isn’t “beta” any more. The new app is the production app.

Beta still exists though new features are sometimes released to both at the same time. It would be best if beta always got new features first to test for bugs. If more people use beta and give more feedback the chances of new features being tested out on beta first would rise. So please use the beta and please give feedback so bugs don’t end up in the production app. By the way do you know how to get the beta?

P.S.
Oh and while you can and words using the current website and app you can’t add words that aren’t already in Skritter’s database. However you can add words that aren’t in Skritter’s database if you use Legacy.

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My point was only to clarify that the “current, modern, mobile” app is now production. It’s only been that way for…a year-and-a-half of so (?). Prior to that, it ONLY existed as the beta, and had to be accessed ONLY if you were a tester…and had been that way for a LONG, long time.

As far as adding “new” words, I’m puzzled what you mean. I added a “new” proper name that I manually had to put in the Pinyin, Definition, etc. just last week. It wasn’t a word that Skritter recognized, and I added it (along with three other terms that day too). That was all with the regular web interface.

Here’s an example I just tried, and it pulled up the “add new item” just fine.

First pic shows it not finding the entity in the database along with the “Add Entry” button, which when pressed, gives the second image.

Do you mean something different when you speak of adding words?

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I see what you’re saying with the beta. It looks like from what you have said and shown that adding words (that Skritter doesn’t know) works in Chinese but I just checked and it doesn’t work on the Japanese site.

Skritter won’t show the Add Word button if it doesn’t find the word in it’s database.

However I was surprised to see that I can add sentences on the current website. I thought because I am unable to add sentences through the app and it’s more up to date than the website I wouldn’t be able to add sentences through the current website.

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I’ve never seen that list interface you showed. I poked around and think you are using the “quick add” button, perhaps? I’ve never used that before to add words.

All I have ever done is this: I go into a list, and then into a list section (or create a new section and then go into the new section). The section then has an “edit” button at the top, which when pressed takes you to the bottom of the list section to add words. The interface is different enough, that I’m wondering if the quick-add is limited in its capability.

Try this method above and see if it works for Japanese lists too.

Edit: in the web version, one can paste multiple (space separated) words and it will parse each word individually to add it. This is great for times, such as after a class/tutoring session when one wants to add a few dozen items to a list. Unfortunately, that feature isn’t part of the mobile app yet…the latter only allows one word at a time (unless there is some magic being neither a space nor comma separated list that I haven’t figured out)

Thank you, that works. I guess it is only when you use quick add that it won’t add a word if it isn’t already in Skritter’s database. I hope they do something about this. They could inform the user when it doesn’t work how to add stuff not in the database or make it so it just doesn’t happen in the first place.

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I’m still testing and sending in corrections etc. using TestFlight updates to the Beta app.

I find having to go to the website to enter new words that Skritter doesn’t yet have in its website is just too many steps for me.

I just keep both beta and legacy apps on my phone.

I head first to the legacy app to add to my word lists daily. In the process, I sometime discover that Skritter doesn’t have the word I need, so I switch over to my Pleco app, copy and paste the definition(s), add in the pronunciation if Skritter does not already supply it, make sure the correct traditional version is entered, save and done. Then I just continue with my word list.

When I’m done entering new words into my daily word list, I switch over to the Beta app.

It’s all pretty quick. Being able to add non-database entries straight from the new mobile app would be better of course.

I can see being able to add multiple words at once is an advantage. Is using the web app for adding words better in other ways?

I never used the legacy app to add words (or if I did, it was 5+ years ago and I’ve forgotten). I only remember adding new words via either the old or new web interfaces. I’m afraid I can’t comment on how it compares to the legacy mobile app.

Edit: I may just be being picky and focusing too much on semantics (since I also develop software), but if the app in TestFlight is older or the same as what’s in the regular AppStore, IMO, it’s not really “testing a beta” any longer. One is just getting the production app from a pre-production process. I wholeheartedly agree beta-testing is important, but once the app is in the AppStore, the beta-phase is over for that version of the app.

Is tone color still on the list? That’s a feature that only ever existed in legacy web. It was previously said to be “on the list.” I would use if if it were on the mobile app or the current web version.

Tone colors are currently scheduled in for our 3.10.0 mobile release.

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Thanks, though I’m not quite sure what that means. If the current mobile version is 3.5.1, how many more version to go to get to 3.10.0?

Working on 3.6.0 as we speak!

Thanks. I guess that means I may not have an option to practice tones with colors for a while starting at the beginning of next year.

I’ll be monitoring the feedback at the start of the year, and if lots of people are missing tone colors I’ll adjust feature/improvement placement and bump it to an earlier release.

This is all flexible, and I’ve tried to prioritize things based on total feedback we get from all our users and also the frequency of the feedback. Happy to adjust if we need to, but you might have to hold tight for a little while.

I will say that when we build it out for new app, it’ll be a lot more customizable and we’ll have a few different popular tone color combos (Pleco colors for example).

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We’ve opened an issue, thanks for pointing this out!

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