Hello there!

What do you guys think of the undo button? I never use it...

I use it frequently. Sometimes I find it helpful to erase some of the strokes to practice the most difficult part of the character (usually the phonetic) without redrawing the radical.

It's really helpful for when you half-draw a stroke you know is wrong. If you hit Z before you release the mouse button, it cancels the bad stroke.

One problem is that you can't press Z very easily if your IME is active. I suggest changing the behavior for strokes that cross the outer boundary of the drawing square. Rather than submitting them, reject them. That way you can cancel a stroke without using the keyboard. A stroke that leaves the boundary box should not be valid anyway. At least until Skritter (草書 edition)...

undo button...there is an undo button....will have to try it out (god knows i will have enough chances:)

i never used it but i should try it. i usually erase everything.

I've got some ideas for improving the handling of strokes that leave the Flash window, hopefully making it so that the stroke can intelligently continue if you were going to hook it back but just overshot.

Currently, the undo button is less useful than it was, since strokes recognize and snap-to automatically. I think it will see a resurgence in usefulness when we move to component-based recognition, where you'll have to finish a radical before it snaps. Then you'll want to be able to correct a mistake yourself, after you've written it but before Skritter claws onto it.

I wonder whether I totally understood everything correctly but does that mean that in the future I won't be able to just draw one or two random strokes if I have no idea what the character should look like and then Skritter will help me out by telling me how the character starts.

I find that quite aspect quite helpful as often that first bit then triggers what the whole character should look like. Of course it is better if one can remember the whole thing, but an "all-or-nothing" might actually slow down the overall learning process.

I have to admit that I am maybe also a bit biased as I don't have the overall goal of being able to actually be able to write characters by hand. I will be quite content if I can read and input them via computer. So being able to recall all complex characters while staring at a blank sheet of paper will just not be one of my problems :)

Hmm; you're actually the first person to say that about liking the hints, Baifameizhong. Many people have complained that Skritter is giving too many hints, and I tend to agree.

I'm not sure how it's going to work, yet. I think you'll probably be able to get some sort of hints without going all the way to the phantom, but it will be easy to avoid having it given away.

A couple people have asked, though, for something that would just make typing/reading easier without needing writing skills. It's something we'll think about, but probably not do anything about (besides pinyin/definition practice) in the short term.

I like the hints too. Perhaps we could have the option of doing component recognition or the hints the way they are now?

It's still uncertain. We're definitely not going to switch it all the way over if some users prefer it the old way. Hopefully, the new way will be so much better that everyone will fain switch.