I use the reader function quite a lot and find it works very well...just one thing, can we have an option for showing tone marks instead of tone numbers?

Thanx!

The reading in the popup that shows when you hover over the output text has the tone marks. I figured that keeping numbers in the reading input field is better because it's easier to edit, and then you do have both.

What's the use case for using tone marks in the reading input field, too?

Thanks Nick, understood...something of a long-winded explanation coming up :)

Truth be told, I actually don't use Skritter for a writing tool at all these days. Given limited study time, I allocate time to speaking and reading, my thinking on writing (rightly or wrongly) is I can always text or type what has to be written, heck, I don't even write by hand in English any more!

Having said that, I use Skritter as a kind of repository, given the ability to create lists, sections, lookup definitions, export for flashcards, etc for everything I know. Unfortunately, Skritter can't store sentences yet (as far as I can see) so I keep those in a data base (Bento) along with the pinyin and the English translation.

I use the Reader function to parse out sentences and to add words to my list(s) for storage and subsequent export but then I also need to copy/paste the sentence pinyin into my DB and I don't like using tone numbers, just personal preference perhaps.

Hope that helps to explain it...Reader may be beta, but it's awesome and I use it a lot so keep up the great work! :)

Thanks,
Jas

Ah, that makes sense. I don't think I will make that kind of option for the Reader, though.

One thing you could do is to add a step to run them through our tone marks converter tool:

http://www.skritter.com/resources/pinyin-converter

Thanks Nick, I'm glad you understand :)

I would beg you to re-consider not adding the option to the reader though. The first reason you already know, but secondly, it would make Skritter more consistent in usage. e.g. for the export, we get prompted with the choice of tone marks or numbers for the pinyin, I think this choice should be consistent across the board in Skritter when generating Pinyin for any purpose.

I envision two check boxes on the page , one for marks the other for numbers and we select the one we want. In the background, can't you just call the same routine for changing numbers to tones that's in the converter? Yeah, I know nothing worse than an amateur developer ;)

Meanwhile, I'll use the converter but it's an extra step in an (already) tedious process.

Thanks for your consideration!
J.