So I just wasted a bunch of time trying to write the backward-hooking downstroke in 除 because after doing it over and over about 20 times the system still refused to recognize it. Is it possible that you guys could add a "skip this stroke" button for little bugs like that, so I'm not skipping the rest of the character because of one stroke that I got right but the computer doesn't recognize?

I feel your frustration. Everyone has those times, especially the first few months Skrittering.

My advice, keep after it in the forums. People will give you useful tips like making your angles sharper in the hooks (maybe your problem?).

Also, I think Nick and the guys are always adding those most annoying characters to a list to be cleaned up recognition wise.

After all these months of practices, today, I too can’t get the system to recognize that stoke. I am writing 待.

Oy I've had that problem a lot as well. I copy over what it's talking about almost exactly and it still won't write it. Since I know I got it correct I just mark it correct anyways when it finally turns it red.

I also have a problem with hooks. :/

Today I'm working on the handwriting recognizers. So that George and Patrick can help me test them, I was uploading to the site. Turns out I broke that one pretty hard!

Anyway, I've made it better again. I'm still working on it but when I'm done, many of the strokes won't have the frustrating recognition problems that they once did.

I like the idea of a button that counts the current stroke as recognized, but what would be the best way to implement it?

A button on screen would complicate Skritter a bit more, and the idea is generally to keep Skritter functioning optimally without overloading the interface/options menu.

On the other hand, a keyboard shortcut would only be known to enthusiast-style users who dig through the forums, FAQ's, and tutorials to find out all the tips and tricks (Kind've like people who order a 3x3 Flying Dutchman with fries "Animal Style" at In-n-Out Burger). Besides, the extra effort of hitting a keyboard shortcut almost defeats the point. Hitting 'z' to go back a stroke is similar, it's often better than erasing, but I typically erase anyway, because it's easier to do without getting out of my Wacom groove (same reason I don't do the reading practice...).

I'm not sure that making it known only to enthusiasts is that bad an idea. The only reason I would do it is to get a lot more data about which recognizers are misbehaving and exactly how: your bad squigs could be sent to us for analysis, like we used to do back in the day when first building the datasets used to tune the recognition.
http://blog2.skritter.com/2008_07_01_archive.html

Then I could totally fix all the recognition and no one would ever have any problems or need to use the I-got-it function again!

@Nick - I like the idea of collecting data on troublesome strokes. Something that would also be very helpful is a collection of tips on how the recognizer wants us to put the strokes in. In various forum posts you've already done this for certain strokes: "try to exaggerate the corner and give it a sharp hook to the left" etc. but it would be nice to see that in one place. Maybe it could start with just the most troublesome strokes and expand organically from there.

@gacorley If all else fails, hit "show" and see if you were going to get it right or not, and toggle it back to correct if so. Some of the troublesome strokes will sort themselves out as you get used to Skritter. I used to have terrible, terrible trouble with the double-bendy strokes like in 孕 and 场 but now they're completely fine.

James

What I'm finding sometimes is that I accidentally tap a small blob, and its gets recognized as the next stroke!

So some sort of minimum length needed perhaps?

Nah, it just means you should be more careful :p. It wouldn't work anyway, as there are lots of detailed characters with small dots in them.

I think a minimum stroke would work. Skritter knows what stroke it's looking for so if it's a small dot size stroke then it could just ignore that minimum rule.

I character that gives me the most trouble now is most certainly 弱!

What if you're in raw squigs mode, and you think the stroke is a dot when it's not? It's going to be frustrating not being allowed to write it. Even if it is wrong I'm going to be damn well trying.

If you can't abide by small strokes, there's a bamboo option that can be enabled. Forgotten what it's called, but a side effect of it is that small strokes don't register. Most people disable it as it's irksome when stuff doesn't register, but it's always an option.

I don't use raw squigs mode too much, usually just to check up on myself from time to time. The wacom setting sounds like it would resolve the issue, but not for mouse users. I don't use my bamboo much anymore because switching between the keyboard for pinyin and picking up the tablet pen doesn't fly well with me.

Ugh, that setting was "press and hold" in the Pen and Touch settings item of the Control Panel. Trust me, mcfarljw, it's not worth turning on... Then again, if you're primarily using your mouse (how? without my Bamboo, I couldn't possibly Skritter...), it's not really an issue...

Those tiny marks that end up being recognized as full strokes are a bit annoying, but they're not too common, and pressing 'z' will step back a stroke so you can write it properly if you need to.

As a side effect of working on the Android point tracking issues, I've recently made it so that smaller squigs than before will show up and try to be recognized. (Previously, you needed four points, but now you only need two.)

If this bothers people, I can change it so that only the Android version gets this fix, and other users still need four points to submit a squig.

mcfarljw, which stroke in 弱 is the problem, and can you describe what the squigs you're trying to draw for it are like (the ones that don't get accepted)?

@nick I dont know whether this is related but recently I've sometimes had mere accidental dots be recognized as strokes.