Skritter has really helped me improve my tones (which used to be good, but are now pretty approximate, i.e. my speaking is fine, but it's difficult for me to guess the tone) and I really like the idea of showing the four color tones for the characters after writing them; however, it is so small on the side that it is not as helpful as it could be. One possibility would be to write in that color when the tone is not requested (to reinforce tone identification) or showing characters in different colors in vocabulary lists. I'm not sure whether there are others with additional suggestions on how to integrate color into practice, but I hope that you guys can continue to improve this feature. Thanks!

The first suggestion (writing characters in different colors when the tone isn't due) is very interesting and not difficult to try. I will try it on alpha testers soon. I will also make you an alpha tester so that you can check it out.

One of the things still missing from tone coloring is having alternate color choices, since the standard isn't entirely standard and the colors aren't the most intuitive. I guess by this point I'm hoping we can somehow get away without that.

Wow, that was fast! I agree with some of the others in the plaid thread that the red streaks when the tone is expected later are counter-productive (makes me favor 1st tone...) but I like the fact that now with the ones where I'm only writing tone it shows up in that color. (I also agree that colors aren't for everyone and that it should probably be something you can disable if it doesn't enhance your learning experience.) I can see how allowing alternate color choices would be helpful for some people. There are other programs that use different standard colors for tones, and those coming from a system like that might want to keep colors the same between learning tools.

Thanks again for the prompt response!