Idea(s) of improvement

Well, something is bothering me : the window’s size of the LingQuing tool is too small, or should resize itself, depending on the screen display.
Mine : 1680x1050, which is prettty common now (we usually find 1920x1080 nowadays).

I upload a screen capture, in order to illustrate what I mean : http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/9568/lingqscreencapture1.png

As you can see, the place is too small to display dictionaries correctly, and its very annoying to waste time scrolling in order to see a definition, each time I search one.
I hope, on next upgrade on LingQ, something about it will be done.

Thanks, in advance.

I agree with you. However, I think this was already suggested and we were told it wouldn’t be implemented in the short term. Hopefully some day…

I agree. The layout should be more flexible depending on the screen resolution.

On my pc screen I’ve a lot of space that is not used and especially the small size of the dictionary windows annoys me.

And on the netbook with its small size it is also not optimized. I think you cannot suit all devices with one layout.

The lesson page is the central page for learners and at least this page should be configurable.

I have found this problem for some dictionaries, but I think it is a tough problem because making the dictionary window bigger means making the text that we are reading smaller. Since the text is the most important part of the page, I don’t think it should take up less than half of the window.

I actually solve this problem by using dict.cc which always pops out into a new window. The new window with the translation appears very quickly, I look at it, and then kill the window instantly so this doesn’t slow me down at all. Maybe one possible solution would be to have the ability to configure dictionaries to pop up in new windows, which can then be used by people when they come across this problem.

@ColinPhilipJohnstone: On my screen is only 2/3 of the screen width used. 1/3 is covered blue only. So there is much space to show more of the dictionary. As I said before it has to be flexible depending on the screen size, not a fixed width.

I’ll chime in here.

I like the width of the lesson text area. If it were expandable I don’t think I would like that since your eyes have a longer horizontal traveling path – I find this very tiring on the eyes. However, I do think the dictionary side should be expandable. This is low hanging fruit. A bit of CSS magic or some Javascript and it’s done. But I definitely like Vera’s point. This is the page you use on LingQ and it should be a bit more customizable.

Here are a few of my ideas

  • Font size would be a nice addition… Zooming doesn’t quite work with small screens.
  • Below the lesson we have a like “go to the next lesson”. That’s nice, but maybe something on the right side could have a “table of contents” like section where you could easily jump to another lesson in the course
  • Finally – and I realize this is just fluff – but I think it would be really cool to have some kind of counter for each word. This counter would start at 1 when you first LingQ the word. As you use the system, if you click on the LingQ again in the lesson text (ie, to review the definition), increment the counter. Then provide some way of sorting the LingQs by this number and allow you to review your “trouble” LingQs. If you click on a Known Word, perhaps it keeps that count too and after 3 or 4 times reviewing it maybe it pops up something saying “You’ve reviewed this word quite a few times… maybe it shouldn’t be in Known Word status”. I’m incredibly reluctant to move any words to Known out of some fear that I really don’t know them or may review them in the future. But that’s probably just me.

I found the previous version much better (LingQing in a popup below the word, dictionary opens in a popup window). But that’s the past.

@ Vera - I just measured on my screen (which is a rather wide one), and the total width of the blue area is 3cm, and the total width of the screen is 50cm. That means that on this screen at least, approximately 6% of the width of the screen is blue. On my iPad mini, the total width of the blue region is 9mm, and the total width of the screen is 16cm, so once again, approximately 6% of the width of the screen is blue.

…or did you mean that a third of the screen is blue when the thing on the right is closed? I just did the measurements, and in that case, 1/3 of the screen is blue.

@ Colin: The wide of my screen is 50 cm too. On each side (left and right) there is about 9,5 cm blue, in the sum 19 cm is blue.

I use the resolution 1920x1080 which is recommended for this screen.

But is that with the thing on the right open or closed?

When it is opened. When I close the right side there are 16 cm on each side not used.

Wow, that is very different to what I see. Looking at the image given in mopoulpo’s original post, I see what you mean about the blue spaces being very large. Here is what I see

http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/7618/snapshot1ud.png

I wonder why there is such a big difference.

The blue area on my wide pc screen is about 3-4 cms wide on each side with the text zoomed to 125% of the original. If I zoom it to 150%, I have almost no blue areas, like in Colin’s screenshot. However, I’m uncomfortable with that text size.

your computer screen is set at 800x600 or something, that’s why.

Current display (you want to buy one) have a ratio of 16/10, or wider (16/9 for 1920x1080).

Ah, I seeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I was zoomed in. I just found that I can zoom out and get more blue area. I like the text size, so I guess I am lucky.

Maybe you should activate the “Search Dictionary” feature, in order to see the behavior of the corresponding windows.
With some resources (Macmillan, Cambridge, Babylon, …) results are great (the inside content is not wider than the windows/frame itself), but with other resources (Longman, sensagent, wordreference, …) the windows/frame is not adapted : in Longman dictionary, the windows width is… 990 pixel ; and it’s the shame, because for useful content itself, the width is about 490 pixels only… everything else is Ads or something.

You are right. That is why I suggested having these dictionaries pop out into new windows instead of trying to have them fit into the LingQ window.

My LingQ Desktop (Full Screen 1920x1200)

http://www.bilder-hochladen.net/files/koys-1-c4ca-png-rc.html

  • Too much space wasted.
  • Chinese characters too small - must press Cmd (+). I would like to enlarge the Chinese characters ONLY.
  • Dictionary frame too small, cannot view the full text (hidden right hand side) of dictionary entry. Should be adjustable in some way.

Thanks for all the feedback on this. We will see what we can do here when we get a chance.