Been using the reading feature for a while, while the name makes sense for its purpose it does seem more like "IME typing" practice than reading practice simply because it is typing.

1) It would be great if you could add the grading buttons to save having to try and hit the little circle area to change the grading.

2) I wonder if the grading could somehow be made available in such a way that you dont have to type the pinyin. When I am using my wacom I would rather just think the pinyin, tap to check, and then grade.

3) How come sometimes when I try to type the pinyin I get this thing that flashes "click to type". I assume there is a reason for this, but if I am typing it probably means I want to type?

After using it for a week or so I am not ready to turn it off but I am contemplating it as it slows everything down having to use the keyboard.

I agree with number 1, that would be very useful.

I think number 1 would also take care of number 2, wouldn't it?

I think number 3 is a Flash security thing if I'm not wrong.

James

I will think about ways to get the grading buttons in there without overcrowding. You will still have to hit the "show" button with your Wacom instead of being able to tap anywhere, because you often need to click inside the Flash window in order for it to get focus and receive keyboard events (hence the "click to type" message). It's not needed in Internet Explorer, for what that's worth.

Here's some more feedback:
1. It would be great if I can quickly switch between reading and other mods. In other words reading is the only thing that requires keyboard and I feel that I would prefer to do it separately from other trainings.

2. I still want to have typing tones optional. (I intend to turn it off.) I suspect it is not difficult to make.

So dear Skritter gods, please, make me happy. Pretty please! :)

Hmmm, Shisoik brings up an interesting idea, which is that from the practice page when we're selecting the lists we want to study, maybe we could also select the parts (definitions, readings, etc.) that we want to study for that session.

Quick switching on practice nav page is sort of planned. I mean, I was going to do it, but Scott brought up the good point that it would encourage people to turn parts on and off, which currently gets really whack when you're adding (because the parts that aren't on when you add a word don't get added). This confuses people. So we're thinking up better ways to handle this before we make it easier to switch parts.

For not typing tones: it is more difficult than you suspect. I still don't want to code it up. Sorry!

You can use the reading prompts as flashcards with the show and correct buttons without having to type tones (but then you can't type the pinyin, either)...

The quick-switching shouldn't switch off adding words. In fact, I still can't understand why you have this thing...

Anyway, quick-switching should control only showing, not adding. In other words you could separate studying modes settings (control to which trainings words are added) from the showing modes settings (control which trainings are executed in current session).

As for the not-typing-tones, I am really surprised it is difficult. The way I see it, you only need to add one flag (controlled by checkbox) and if the flag is set, then treat 5th tone as the right one for all. But of course I don't know the arch. of your app, so... just a thought. ;)

The tone numbers help delimit the syllables when parsing. I would have to write a different pinyin parsing algorithm to do it without tones, which would have to have the context of the correct syllables in order to disambiguate what you meant if you get things wrong. I am so happy to be done with the current one (which is pretty complicated) that I don't want to touch it.

It doesn't work well to make adding vs. active settings that have any permanence, because if you leave some parts off of adding for any length of time, they're all going to be due when you turn that part back on. Huge review queue of stuff you don't know. A temporary setting might work better but for the interface complication. With a good design, perhaps it will be clear.