Hi.
Just upgraded to the iPad version of skritter and the first thing I noticed was that the icons at the top of the study screen are really tiny. It's not meant to be like that is it?
I can barely tab the "play audio file" button.

Also I can't seem to find the dark theme in settings anymore, what happened to that?

On the plus side I haven't had any stroke recognisation problems with 𠃌 which is great.

It does seem a bit out of proportion but I guess that is due to just reusing the images for those icons. They said the ipad version would only have the one theme as it was too much work to change the dark theme for ipad.

Another thing I have noticed I am doing a lot more on this version than before is accidentally hitting next item instead of revealing the current item. I don't know whether the border has changed?

I am getting another issue. If you as I do have a lot of starred words, choose to set the "star emphasis" to 100 % and click study the app hangs. It do seems to do some sort of sync and after some 5 minutes or so it crashes.

However, if you set it to e.g 95 % it works perfectly and gives me exactly what i need. Love this feature! I really need those extra exposures to my starred words.

I think they made it iphone size. Since it was on 2x mode before that means the buttons were twice the size they wanted them to be at. Personally I'm fine with the size of the buttons now, but I don't use them very often. I find the drum a little annoying though.

Nick mentioned in this thread
http://www.skritter.com/forum/topic?id=235677239&comments=17
that there wasn't a dark theme for the iPad. It's strange how things you think would be simple like adding themes is difficult and things you think would be difficult sometimes end up being easy to do. I like changing themes every now and then, so I hope they can add some new ones in the future.

I would like to mention that the torn paper at the top looks a little strange to me. I think it might look a little more natural with a long soft tear instead of the tiny sharp tear.

Moved post to 'can't study a single list'

way too tiny now. everything. i hardly can see the buttons, nearly unable to hit them properly.

turning the ipad to landscape screes woth the proportions. everything is moved to the side and looks like partly off-screen.


BIGGEST ISSUE: the top part of the studypage isnt showing. it is just black. i have no idea which word the app is asking me to study. same thing when i have to guess the reading or meaning: kanji isnt showing. closing the app and restarting worked. next time it was back to the broken stage again.

so far the ipad app is unusable for me now. and i am missing my dark style. without it, studying is much worse. the recognition was always better for me with dark style (maybe because the strokes were thicker?) and it looked better.


can i have the iphone version back? :/.

please better ipad app. thanks for trying though :/

I just found out how to downgrade an app. If you havent synched your itunes account with the ipad after the skritter update, delete the app from your ipad, connect to your PC (and that way to itunes), drag&drop the app into your ipad to synch.

that way the old version is installed on your ipad again.

I really like the clearly written, large screen ipad version, but without the dark style and larger buttons I dont want to use the native ipad app version.

maybe in future updates. I didnt know these limitations before I updated. luckily I was able to downgrade.

Thanks dc1. I have downgraded too. I find the full screen too big to use with a stylus. It's much quicker writing on the small screen - or have I missed something?

I was really looking forward to studying single lists, but unfortunately the latest version is bugging on both my iPad and iPhone. Skritter will pick words from all of my lists and when I go back and into the advanced studying option again and pick a single list, the program freezes. I really hope this will be looked into and fixed soon.

I've never used the single lists, not sure why I would and I can't really be bothered to go in and star words, and not even sure that is worth doing as the characters I have trouble with come up much more often anyway.

Other than that change I much preferred the previous version blown up on my ipad as opposed to this ipad specific version, think ill have to downgrade as well.

So far I haven't been able to convince the new iPad app that I want to use landscape mode.
I'm also finding that things are a little too big... Some things are definitely better (granularity of images for example) but the too small buttons at the top, the overlapping text when I have a new word or a new tone, and the hugenormous character writing prompt is kind of distracting for now.

Going to try it out for a few days.

Looks like it has a way to go before it becomes as smooth as the former iPhone centric iPad version.

@Marian Rosenberg 岳玫瑰
I think Nick said there wasn't going to be a landscape mode.

I hope in the future the iPad version will use the the extra space in new ways (like TWEETBOT does http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/ipad/ vs. http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/) instead of just making a bigger iPhone app.

dc1, it shouldn't be switching to landscape mode at all, since we haven't build another layout to support that, so that's a bug. What screen does it initially let you switch to landscape mode in?

I'll work on the single list study and starred word 100% bugs and get a bugfix update into Apple for review soon.

it switched to landscape on my ipad2(16gb black) in all the screens. in the startscreen all the pictures and buttons got stretched, looked out of proportion. at the studycanvas the canvas moved into the left lower corner and i think it was partly off screen. the right side was just a grey empty space. the top area of the studycanvas, where the asked kanji is displayed was just a black bar without any text in both landscape and normal mode. while guessing the definition/reading the whole page was "empty", no kanji were displayed at all. the background art was displayed though.

Aha--it appears to be affecting the Japanese app only. I'll work out the bug in the project settings there and get that into the bugfix. Thanks!

ah yes i forgot to say i was talking about the japanese app. good to know the landscape rotation is a bug. it wasnt such a great experience anyway. hope i was able to help narrow down the problem(s).

keep up the good work. because of you and your team i learned so much since the japanese app was released. more than in the last 5 years combined. thanks for your effort. very much appreciated.

good night (i live in GER).

Congratulations on the new app! I have not given it a proper test drive yet, but it looks like it has lots of new features. I did not know you were going to integrate the Chinese Pod lessons and labels so extensively; that's fantastic.

One small bug I have found is that On the advanced study screen the bottom of the screen seems to be slightly cut off. I suspect the app thinks that my iPhone 4 is an iPhone 5.

malaili

after you have deleted the app from your ipad (holding the app icon, clicking on x) you use your white apple usb cable to establish a connection between your ipad (30 pin connecterpart of this white apple usb cable plugged into ipad) and your computer (usb part of the cable plugged into your computers usb port). i am using windows 7 and an older version of itunes. itunes is started automatically.

in the program on the left side you have a menu with several different "areas" for example "apps" and a bit lower "my ipad". click on apps. the apps you synched last time should be shown in i think 3 categories (universal, iphone, ipad?). find the skritter app, click on it and hold your click, then drag&drop it from this list onto the "my ipad" menu point. synching should start immediately. its comparable to drag&dropping a file out of a windoes file-folder into an (still closed) other folder.

hope that helps

Am I in the minority saying that I love the new iPad version?

The writing surface is a little strange compared to the stretched iPhone version, but after spending some time with it, I like it more. I miss the dark theme also, but it was more aesthetic for me so I don't mind the switch.

The only issues I have is the single list option hanging up or freezing completely and the app hanging up or freezing if I close the smart cover while studying. The second one is a bigger problem for me because I often study during my small breaks at work.

Overall, I think this is a great update. Thanks to the Skritter team!

I gotta say that after spending a bit of time with the iPad app, I really like it too. I don't know what you did to it, but the writing feels so much faster and smoother.

The small buttons still bug me a bit, but I'm enjoying writing so much more.

Great work Nick and team!

I updated to the new iPad version to give it a try. The mechanics of actually studying feel pretty good though, which is the most important thing really. It doesn't look quite as slick and polished as the iPhone version yet.

With all these comments I think I'll stick to the old app on ipad.

I wonder though what will happen regarding the sync bugs, if I use an updated Skritter on iphone and the good old one on ipad? Any experience yet?

zhangyanglu, it would work if your iPhone were always the last to know: you'd have to sync any reviews done on the website or the iPad with each other first, then let the iPhone sync. Perhaps not the most convenient workaround.

Do you mean just waiting until I get the green sync button in the home screen of the app (on iPad) before I start opening the app on iPhone?

Doesn't seem too inconvenient? :)

It's also that if you do reviews on the web version, you have to go and sync to the iPad before you can sync to the iPhone. If you don't use the web version, it's not so bad, yeah.

Is it possible to make the buttons bigger for the iPad layout? It's really hard to see the blue ring around the drop-down arrow that indicates you have a custom mnemonic.

We are planning to make the top bar buttons bigger. Is that tapdown arrow a pressing concern? I only ask because there are 32 different images for that one already, so it takes a while to add new sizes.

It's okay for me because I already know what it does (though I have to squint really hard to see if there's a blue ring around it or not). For a new user, I think it's small enough that it's hard to tell what it is.

I am of two minds on the iPad version:

1. I have a long list of things that I wish were different: I have trouble navigating between characters (either can't move or move too easily), many clickable things are too small, don't like the skeuomorphic stuff, i have trouble navigating in and out of the info windows, I really miss the dark theme, I find the writing area oddly placed at the bottom of the screen, I miss a lot of web functionality, I wish I had more context, ...

However...

2. I'm really enjoying studying again (after a bit of a lapse). I'm using a stylus, really having fun writing, and speeding along.

So you're doing something right! Kudos!

(I keep thinking I'll break out the Wacom tablet and go back to the "full" Skritter on the web, but I haven't gotten around to it, oddly enough...).

@Nick
Out of curiosity,

You said there are 32 different images for the button.
1. Old ipod
2. Retina ipod
3. Old ipad (same as ipad mini)
4. Retina ipad
Where do the other 28 images come from?

I eventually decided to move to the new iPad version because my life is complicated enough as it is as far as software is concerned. I find it less ugly than the original for iPhone because it has this image of white paper you write on, so that is better than the weird colour changes that used to be in the middle. The font for 'what is the pinyin' remains horrible. The white paper in some views has rips in it, which I bet was fun for whoever programmed it.
Apart from the general ugliness (I think Skritter is more for geeks than graphic designers), I find the app works well. Writing is not too big for me. I was pleasantly surprised. Haven't tried the advanced study or seen any other new features

The only minor problems I have are that I have to be careful when going back one screen to hit the right spot or I go too far forward and hae marked the last-but-one card wrong. And my brain can't get used to clicking at the top right for into but clicking in the middle to exit it. That's probably a senility problem though.

ddapore99, here's the filename list as it stands:

tapdown_button_down_notpregnant_active_dark.png
tapdown_button_down_notpregnant_active_dark@2x.png
tapdown_button_down_notpregnant_active_light.png
tapdown_button_down_notpregnant_active_light@2x.png
tapdown_button_down_notpregnant_pushed_dark.png
tapdown_button_down_notpregnant_pushed_dark@2x.png
tapdown_button_down_notpregnant_pushed_light.png
tapdown_button_down_notpregnant_pushed_light@2x.png
tapdown_button_down_pregnant_active_dark.png
tapdown_button_down_pregnant_active_dark@2x.png
tapdown_button_down_pregnant_active_light.png
tapdown_button_down_pregnant_active_light@2x.png
tapdown_button_down_pregnant_pushed_dark.png
tapdown_button_down_pregnant_pushed_dark@2x.png
tapdown_button_down_pregnant_pushed_light.png
tapdown_button_down_pregnant_pushed_light@2x.png
tapdown_button_up_notpregnant_active_dark.png
tapdown_button_up_notpregnant_active_dark@2x.png
tapdown_button_up_notpregnant_active_light.png
tapdown_button_up_notpregnant_active_light@2x.png
tapdown_button_up_notpregnant_pushed_dark.png
tapdown_button_up_notpregnant_pushed_dark@2x.png
tapdown_button_up_notpregnant_pushed_light.png
tapdown_button_up_notpregnant_pushed_light@2x.png
tapdown_button_up_pregnant_active_dark.png
tapdown_button_up_pregnant_active_dark@2x.png
tapdown_button_up_pregnant_active_light.png
tapdown_button_up_pregnant_active_light@2x.png
tapdown_button_up_pregnant_pushed_dark.png
tapdown_button_up_pregnant_pushed_dark@2x.png
tapdown_button_up_pregnant_pushed_light.png
tapdown_button_up_pregnant_pushed_light@2x.png

To make iPad versions, we'd just need:

tapdown_button_down_notpregnant_active_light@2x~ipad.png
tapdown_button_down_notpregnant_pushed_light@2x~ipad.png
tapdown_button_down_pregnant_active_light@2x~ipad.png
tapdown_button_down_pregnant_pushed_light@2x~ipad.png
tapdown_button_up_notpregnant_active_light@2x~ipad.png
tapdown_button_up_notpregnant_pushed_light@2x~ipad.png
tapdown_button_up_pregnant_active_light@2x~ipad.png
tapdown_button_up_pregnant_pushed_light@2x~ipad.png

And we'd size it such that we could re-use the light, retina iPhone images for the light, non-retina iPad version.

Wow
Out of curiosity again,

What does pregnant and not pregnant mean?
What is the difference between button up and active?
What is the difference between button down and pushed?
When you count the iPad you have more than 32 images so were you just being conservative when you said 32 before or was there another reason?
How long did it take to make all of the images for that button?

Thanks

Pregnant is when you have entered some content in the mnemonic area (written your own or chosen another person's); notpregnant is when it's going to show either the default mnemonic or nothing.

Up is when the button is pointing down, because the tapdown is in the up position (closed). Down is when the reverse.

Active is when you're not doing anything with the button and it's ready to be pressed. Pushed is when you're pushing it, it indents, and starts throwing a glow off to the sides.

We're currently re-using the iPhone images for the iPad tapdown, which is why they are small, and there's only 32 of them.

George makes the images; I'm not sure how long this button in particular took him. Several hours, at least, and we had to fiddle a lot with the side-glow to make it look not-stupid.

Thanks for the the feedback, that was interesting.

You can see in some of George's YouTube videos just how much work goes into graphics design (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCYo_0DmdsY)