@SkritterJake another thing I would like to see is: within decks, I have a lot of textbooks which have many many sections. It would be nice to have the option to swipe left or right within a section to get to the previous or upcoming section. Right now, I have always to click the back button in the top left corner. Imagine you are in section 20, added some words from there and then you want to immediately jump to section 21. For this you have to click on the back button at top left and then scroll all the way down to section 21. This method becomes even more annoying if you prefer to add only several words from different sections at once. A swiping gesture to change sections would definitely bring more benefit to the user experience. Love to hear your feedback!
Any plan to give the new app an option to switch to legacy or legacy-like skin and sound?
We do have plans to add additional themes to the app, however no immediate plans to make it look like the legacy app
Skeuomorphic design was essentially killed off by Jonny Ive back in 2013 with the release of iOS7. While I still sometimes pine for tactile apps that mimic real-life, it can make it very difficult to design modern apps across multiple device types and systems.
Googleâs material design language, released in 2014, allowed for consistent aesthetics and UI, fast iteration and reduced the barrier for entry for many developers. Some criticize it for being dull and generic. Otherâs love the minimalist, clean, logical and modern design.
In the early stages of this app redesign, we wanted to make sure things looked and worked well across many devices, and iterate as quickly as possible. Thatâs why weâve opted for the white and green simple design. However, we also have plans for several color themes including dark mode. We are also trying to add small visual and audio delights throughout the app which âspark joyâ and make for a fun study experience.
Perhaps once weâve reached a point of development where we have all the features and stability in place, we can have a go creating a âlegacyâ skin that gets close to the old wood and paper feel of the early 2010âs app. In the meantime, we will continue to add quality of life features on a regular basis.
Skritter can give itself a pat on the back for being old enough to warrant a retro look option.
@SkritterJake Another small suggestion: I often use earphones and listen to music while I use skitter. When the music volume is set at a high rate within iOS, Skritter automatically adjusts to that and uses the same volume. However, this becomes very annoying when hearing music, as the Sound output is so loud that it becomes annoying. Hence, it would be great to adjust the Skritter volume within the app which works independently from the iOS volume settings.
I think that should be a small and quick update which you can implement in the next built.
Looking forward to your feedback!
Absolutely! Itâs unfortunately not a quick update however, though itâs something we will add into the app down the road and it matches legacy behavior.
When doing a search by hitting the magnifying glass, the text-entry cursor should automatically move to the entry box, but does not. For example, if I go to âMy Wordsâ and then press the magnifier, The text entry box comes up, BUT the cursor isnât there, and the keyboard doesnât pop up. I have to tap on the text entry area to âselectâ it. I would expect tapping the magnifier to set me up to be ready to type my search entry immediately.
Edit: browsing on the decks screen works just fine, it appears to be just the my words screen with the magnifier does not work appropriately
Suggestion: if I am browsing a list, it would be nice to have ânext sectionâ/âprevious sectionâ buttons, instead of needing to back out and come back in to the list section. Not all lists are named nicely, and for a long list with many sections, itâs easy to get lost. Swipe left/right on the list page would be fine too (instead of adding GUI elements)
Iâve opened an issue for this-- thanks!
Here is a new feature request: allow a a way to prioritize the audio and pronunciation for a character.
For example I am currently learning the character ĺźš as meaning âto Play a stringed instrumentâ. However that is not the main pronunciation or spelling that Skritter uses when it reads the character.
It would be really nice if I could change which pronunciation or spelling Skritter is using as the primary one.
This gets a bit tricky since when you study ĺźš youâre studying it as a single character it has two meanings with two different pronunciations. To master the character you need to know both. It might be best to study the character as part of a relevant word like ĺźšĺäť if you want to practice that specific usage.
The realistic difficulty here, IMO, is the conceptual âconstraintâ that one can master a character at any one time without context in an educational setting. Many characters have multiple meanings. Although I may choose to look at a Skritter âFlashcardâ, this really is providing one character, not one meaning.
However, if one is learning through any textbook, graded reader, or educational resource, what one is really studying is one âmeaningâ. The meaning is aligned with whatever context the text is teaching.
So, if I were studying some HSK2 material, I may study a specific character, used in my textbooks, with a specific meaning. Yes, the card may have multiple meanings, but the only one that really will be reinforced is the meaning being used in my textâs dialogs and exercises. If I donât see the character âin the wildâ being used with the other meanings, for me, they donât stick in my brain. The other meanings are forgotten even though they are on the Skritter card. Then when I re-encounter a new meaning later in HSK3, I have no way (that Iâm aware of) to âre-seeâ this card through my regular studies. Contextually the new meaning is important. I want to be able to flag the card as âplease reset my progress because there is something new hereâ.
For example, how many people really remember that čż also means âto return somethingâ until one gets to a later unit on borrowing books from the library, along with the new pronunciation.
I believe this is a problem area that could be improved.
I see there really is a mismatch between what an educational language learner needs (learn characters within the context of some type of language-learningâ materials) and what Skritter currently provides (one character = all meanings).
I donât have a lot of alternative suggestions, but I have indeed found myself wishing I could âresetâ one card/character because I now need to understand a sub-meaning on a character that I had long ago thought I had understood, but now realize the graduations of the sub-meanings were more subtle than my original understanding.
The issue with distinctly different pronunciations and meanings is just a more apparent version of this problem.
Ideally, Iâd be able to learn a âmeaningâ from a Skritter card. But since I cannot âbreak apartâ a âcharacter cardâ into separate meanings, the solution involves creating more and more complex combinations of Skritter cards that take much longer to get Test through. For example, measure words are examples of this. I often add things such as âa pianoâ (ä¸ćśé˘ç´). Now my âone meaningâ test is 4 characters to write/read. Does it make my Chinese better this way? Yes, but requires much more discipline to keep up with and eventually I start Skipping the subtlety because itâs too hard to maintain. I want Skritter to help me faster! (but frankly, if itâs not in the Skritter database already, I tend to not enter it myself, because itâs too big of a pain to enter.)
My initial feedback regarding the permanent appearance of example sentences goes into a similar direction. What I struggle the most is the wide spread existence of synonyms. Especially, starting from HSK 4 and HSK 5, there are so many words which have similar meanings. In this situation, I personally find example sentences helpful as they give me a rough idea in what context I can use a specific word. By that I also get a sense if word A can be used interchangeably for word B.
Just look at this example (it may not be a good one, but you get the idea)
çťčŽ°
ćĽĺ
注ĺ
ćĺˇ
All these words mean âto registerâ in a broader sense, however they cannot be used interchangeably (as far as I know), as they have different meanings in a narrower sense.
Hence, example sentences would somehow show their real use case and provide a better understanding when to use the respective word. Of course, I can also check all the words individually by myself. However, this becomes very time consuming and is rather a burden during a Skritter review session.
Hence, I think Skritter should think about this situation and figure out a way that the app not only shows how to write characters, but also in what situation to use word A rather than word B. For sure, increasing the quality of example sentences plays a key role in here, which is why I hope that @SkritterJake will focus on HSK 5 and 6. As of know, HSK1-4 exemplify how good example sentences can look like.
Furthermore, I would like to raise the attention for another topic which is addressing pictures in Skritter. I have already discovered some words in Skritter which also provide a picture. I would even wish for way more pictures (make it optional) for individual words. Having a visual element in Skritter would further increase the Study experience and helping remembering certain words.
I think I can speak for the current team here in saying we agree with the idea of having characters bound to specific meanings rather than the way they are actually written. We agree that just because you know a character in one context doesnât mean you know it in another.
The bigger problem is that back when Skritter was initially created the data was not structured in that way and itâs unfortunately not something trivial to undo or fix without potentially breaking a great number of things. If we could go back in time weâd have certainly designed things differently, but for the foreseeable future weâre probably stuck with the way things currently work in this regard.
Recently, I experience some performance issues with Skritter on my iPhone 11 (latest software). After reviewing a lot of words or adding many words from decks, my device gets very warm und Skritter becomes very lagging. In the same vein, it drains a lot battery. Maybe you can have a look on this âextremeâ behavior. For testing purposes, you can simple jump over many words in the review section by pressing the skip button on the bottom right
Weâre looking into this, thanks for the heads up!
Seems to be fixed after fresh installing the beta.
Regarding difficulties with multiple synonyms, I found once I got to that level I have simply been going into Pleco each time in Skritter that I re-encounter an old word - and for all new words - and updating all given and my own personal definitions with much more extensive descriptions.
The most useful dictionary for this purpose is Plecoâs KEY dictionary: it provides a usually exhaustive list of just synonyms in English, without fussing with example sentences etc. I just copy and paste the entire KEY text into my Skritter definitions, changing only commas to semi-colons.
I then go back to Pleco and really study the word: look at all my other dictionary descriptions (I have invested in multiple dictionaries), any example sentences, and so on, so that I get a much more nuanced understanding of the different contexts in which this once straightforward word can be used.
Yes, it does take more time. But I think thatâs a given once you get to a level where you are getting synonyms mixed up.
Unfortunately, I canât think of a way Skritter could get words with updated definitions to appear more often. Except, you could star them? Then study them separately.
Itâs not usually the character Iâm having difficulty writing but the newly-learned meanings and overlapping meanings with other words that I need to be better aware of.
Iâm not really sure thereâs a âmechanicalâ solution to that, except for starring the words.
I think more reading, review of material that uses the word in a new context, and especially use of the word in conversation and correspondence, are old-fashioned but the only real way to cope with the onslaught of synonyms that happens at higher levels of learning.
I hope something in here helps someone with similar difficulties!
Thanks for your reply! What do you mean by âKey dictionaryâ?
@SkritterJake When can we roughly expect the next beta?