I can't think of a neat way for this to be implemented and it is not very SRSy but I want to ask it in case anyone has any good ideas.

During my lunch break I would like to squish in some skritter time but I dont have a wacom at work.

Because of this I would LOVE to be able to just practice certain types of "cards", ie maybe I could get in 10 minutes of just studying or revising definitions, or 10 minutes of definitons+reading+tones.

can't you tick off what you want to study in the options page? just de-select writing.

I suspect that doing that will just prevent writing being added for new words, not turn it off. I will test it out and see (:

Unfortunately you're right that by turning it off, adding new words, and then turning it back on later, you won't have those parts. However, there are two compromises you could potentially do:

1) Copy and paste the words you want into the scratchpad and turn off progress tracking. This sounds like a pretty poor substitute for what you are trying to do since you would somehow have to magically know what skritter was about to add to get the same SRS-y (nice term) effect.

2) Turn off word adding on your lists, then select the type you would like to see and practice. This is also suboptimal because it doesn't allow you add new material, just do a review session.

Hmmm, rather complex problem that. If there's some other way Nick or Scott will correct me, so perhaps I just haven't thought up a way to do it! :)

Yep its not an easy thing to solve but I thought I would ask just in case (:

I already have word adding turned off (I cram new lists when i want to learn some new words), so I think 2 might actually work.

Thanks for the feedback!

This is something that has been suggested before. On the context of the new practice page, where you can select one specific list to study, what if there was a further option to select the parts to study for this particular session?

James

I was thinking the same thing, but I decided not to say anything because it could clutter up the interface, and it would simply automate something that we can already do manually in a few seconds. Not to say I wouldn't like it, but in the quest to produce a relevant, powerful feature set while avoiding a bloated feel, it might be necessary to triage an idea like this.

Well, I have no problem with the Skritter gods saying "no". However if it's a common enough use case and can be done in a fairly unobtrusive way maybe they will decide it's worthwhile.

My concern with changing my study options for a single session is that it might somehow screw up my SRS data. That is, if I'm studying all parts, then go in and disable everything except readings, spend a while reviewing all my readings, and then re-enable all parts, will the statistics for the non-reading items be affected somehow?

James

Anyone know the best way of adding the parts of characters and words which have not previously been added because that functionality was off?

If they are in a list then I guess updating the list may work, or failing that going through and selecting them, but if they are not part of a list how can I do it?

Actually, Nick and I have already talked about this a week or two ago and here's what we're planning to do:

On the practice page, you'll be able to select a subset of parts to study, for whatever you choose to then study (everything, a list, a section, etc). And while you're studying this subset, words will not be added; it will be review only. This is to handle the problem you describe: accidentally adding the subset of parts and not adding everything you want to add from a list. We'll see if we can do it in such a way that the interface doesn't get cluttered!

There's another use case we want to handle when it comes to parts to study: adding and studying a subset of parts for a given list. So if you only want to study the writings of a given list, we'll make it so that when you choose what sections you want to study, you can also choose to explicitly say what parts to add from that list.

What do you guys think of that? Will the combo of these two things provide enough control over what parts you're studying, while not being overly complex?

@scott That sounds awesome. Just brainstorming, but maybe it could be a drop-down list next to "cram" with "all parts" the default. Or it could be one of those combo-style buttons like the "Reply" button in Gmail where if you click the button normally it gives you all parts, but if you click a little arrow on the right it gives you the drop-down list.

There is definitely a valid use case for studying a new set of words with only some parts. For example, let's say I study both simplified and traditional, and then decide I want to run through Heisig's "Remembering the Simplified Hanzi". Since it's oriented towards simplified, I don't want to study traditional for that particular list.

Yay, very excited!