How hard would it be to make a reverse scratchpad, where it shows you the character and you have to pick the definition/pinyin? Seems like that would be kind of useful.

Also, what about a custom cursor that looks like a calligraphy brush? I know, cheese factor 5000 but still....

Another: Why does it show the number of characters up for review on the main page, but not in the practice page. It would be nice to see it there too.

And finally, will there ever be an option to remove one of the sound files? Like, have it ONLY say the full word OR the individual word, but not both. It's kind of annoying when everything gets crammed together.

Apologies if any of these have already been discussed. I try to read all the threads, but sometimes fall behind, and sometimes don't remember everything I've read.

Hi JB,
I am with you regarding the "number of characters up for review on the practice page".

It does show the number of characters up for review - hover mouse over the blue bar at the top. Actually they're items to review I think, so that would include tones.

The "show characters and pick pinyin/definition" feature has also been discussed at length and the developers are both interested and working on it! Just a matter of time.

Ximeng answered about the items to review, though I do agree that making this more obvious might be helpful since it is a big motivating factor to see that number/bar go down (maybe display it on top of the bar?)

I kind of agree on the audio. My computer has some trouble running the flash / stroke recognizing as it is... if I could not load the audio which often lags and plays all together, I wouldn't mind it (that being said I still choose not to mute it, hehe).

"How hard would it be to make a reverse scratchpad, where it shows you the character and you have to pick the definition/pinyin? Seems like that would be kind of useful."

Let me start by telling you how happy I already am with Skritter. I noticed over the last weeks, although learning 400 characters, I came across several characters I know I can write, but not know the meaning of (wheather it being pinyin and/or English). The "reverse scratchpad" would be a very welcome addtion to me.

It's been on our list for a long time to put the numbers in the bars, so I'll just do that right now.

JB, Hobbes828, try upgrading your Flash player version. The audio shouldn't run together if you're at 10.0.22+, but before that there were several audio-related bugs which can't be fixed on Skritter's end.

A better cursor is on the list, but George hasn't made it yet. I think he was making one, and then something must have happened, because we still have the old one that I made 13 months ago in 5 minutes in repository revision 7 (out of 1045 now) as a temporary solution, with the improperly saved transparency and all.

That was quick. Thanks for the items to review in the bars.
W

Like the count of items to review. It's been a very long time since that blue bar's gone down at all for me, but that's not been helped by me slipping off the Skritter wagon last week.

For the audio - occasionally it does play both word and character audio over each other for me, and I have flash 10.0.22.

I am reading a bilingual copy of "Three men in a boat" 三怪客泛舟记 at the moment. The narrator often complains about how difficult it is to get George to do anything in that too. 为什么乔治不能来干点活呢？eheh no offense to George, I'm sure he's very busy...

Agreed: the audio often plays on top of each other, or not at all for me as well.

According to Ubuntu I am using 10.0.22.87. But I think it only happens on this computer, a dell laptop from 2001, whose p4 mobile processor gets stressed by doing the flash at all. I used to get the weird audio on other computers as well, but I don't THINK i do anymore.

I'll be back in America in 2 days on my old desktop with a blazing desktop p4 from 2003 so it should be fine then, I hope.

Oh and thanks for the numbers on bar!

Cool, thanks!

One of the things on my list is to go all Rambo on slow code and profile all our ActionScript, JavaScript, Python, even our CSS, and get things going faster. I think that will be very good for people whose Flash isn't running full speed and causing many more problems.

I have a hunch that the Flash is pretty slow for many users, actually. I will soon run a poll to find out.

Usually, George is the one who's way ahead on designing stuff for us to implement, and then he complains about us not getting around to it. So if we don't have a new cursor, it's probably somehow my fault. He's visiting family, now, so for now he cannot defend.

Having the numbers in the bar is terrific, thanks! And I actually like the current cursor; the simplicity and organic shape are really nice. I wouldn't want to have something extending outside the edges of the stroke I was writing - that would feel kind of weird to me.

Thanks, jpo, for reinforcing our corporate tradition:

"Hey George, I just kind of made something up at random for this as a placeholder until you can design it."

"Okay, I'll get to work on that."

...

"Actually, it's good the way it is."

Sometimes, I suspect his CEO proclivities are overwriting his graphic designer ones!