Should the Heisig definitions option exclusively display his definitions, or should it also display full definitions?

I spoke to Nick about this a while ago, and he mentioned possibly running a poll at some point. However, having finished Heisig Hanzi 1, I am now desperate to have full definitions displayed alongside Heisigs, so I thought I would find out if other Heisig users share my feelings.

Having the full definitions allows me to familiarise myself with a wider range of usages. Also, consider when you have words made up of multiple characters; sometimes the Heisig definitions simply make no sense in the context of a particular word. However, I don't want to turn off Heisig definitions because I am still reliant on them for mnemonics. Furthermore, I can't really see any serious disadvantage to having Heisig definitions alongside full definitions.

Does anyone else think it would be better to have Heisig definitions in bold alongside full definitions (or something similar)?

I agree with adding the full definitions. I tried using Heisig definitions and after a few uses turned it off because I need the full definition. It's easier to use the full definition and look up the Heisig definition in the book than have the Heisig definition and look up the full definition somewhere.

You could edit the definitions to be custom definitions with the Heisig keyword at the front. I think there's even a way to make it bold. A bit time consuming, but if they're that important to you...

I think the Heisig definitions are for Heisig students who rely on focusing on that specific keyword. Adding other words would distract from the Heisig learning method. If people want both the Heisig keyword and the standard definition, I suggest allowing them to toggle these independently.

More thoughts on this from Heisig learners are very much welcome. It's probably going to be one way or the other depending on what most people prefer.

I really don't think that having full definitions definitions would be a distraction. It might even help to understand the nuance of the Heisig keyword, which is sometimes ambiguous.

I can see where having the normal definition displaced next to a the bold heisig word would be useful. That being said, including other information deviates from heisig's method described at the beginning of the book.

I'd prefer having both, too...

Why not have these words start off with the Heisig definition with a small button to show the full definition.

Even further, this toggle between the Heisig and full definition could be remembered for those wanting to transition smoothly from the Heisig method to further study.

I don't use the Heisig definition feature now so I'd rather see the Skritter guys work on other features if this would take too much time.

Thomas, That would be a good option, but with all the click-to-edit stuff going on in there, it would be very difficult to implement compared to just bolding the Heisig keyword and appending the rest.

I don't see why the option to show the full definition for people using Heisig couldn't be put into settings page (Home > Account > Language Settings). They already have to go to that page to turn on Heisig.

Say 70% of people using Heisig keywords want the extra definitions, too. Say of the other 30%, two-thirds would prefer just the keywords, and one-third really can't stand having the extra definitions at all.

But then say that only 8.47% of users have Heisig keywords enabled in the first place. That means that we'd be adding a second preference that 97.5% of users won't need (and will have to read), just for something only 0.8% of users need. For each option that we add, more than 0.8% of users are going to be confused on that page and miss the options they really need. Add on that it's extra code to write and more configurations to maintain, and it doesn't make sense.

I'm just guessing based on very limited samples what people would prefer for keywords or keywords + definitions, but for almost any ratio, it would only make sense to do it one way or the other without another preference.

I'm trying it the other way now. It will take up to a day for them all to propagate, but soon the Heisig keywords should show the full definition afterward, with Heisig keyword in bold. Let me know how that works.

(They won't propagate to the decomps for a while, but eventually they'll be in there, too.)

I find it quite distracting. It goes against one of the core principles of just associating one keyword with each hanzi as well when using the Heisig method as well.

That said, it's quite well timed for me though, since I'm about to move on to learn wider definitions now. But for beginners of Heisig it's probably better to just have one keyword to focus on.

A thought after trying it out some more. Wouldn't it be better to display only the Heisig keyword in the practice area, and add the extended definition in the info-panel? Cleaner, but all the info available on screen.

Surely it would be better to put the full definition, and since custom definitions are enabled, if you just want the keyword you could then remove the bits you don't want?

Just saying...

Great! I'm loving it.
I see your point about distraction PlutonB, it would be great to have the best of both worlds (i.e. able to turn full def.s on and off), but I still think this a big improvement. Ultimately those who are now just focusing on Heisig def.s are going to finish, and benefit from full ones. Anyway it's not too hard to ignore them.
Also having full def.s helps to make clear precisely what Heisig's keywords meant - I've found that I had some of them rather off the mark...