I know I wouldn’t want to include level 4 lingqs. I know them and besides I have too many!
Thanks Steve. I think that the “reading mode” you just described is exactly what we’d like to have. The question of whether or not to include status 4 words is interesting. I don’t really use statuses for lingQs (simply using unknown/known is good enough for me; only rarely when I rewrite a hint because of a different meaning of a word I already knew, I may give it status 2 to remember not to wonder when I see it yellow in its more usual meaning), so I’ll abstain from voting here.
I think including status 4 words would be a mistake. For most people, I guess, they are set to status 4 for a reason.
Personally, I rarely look at status 4 words. I set them to status 4 becaues I don’t need to review them. If once in a while, I need to grab the mouse and manually select it, then fine. Kimojima had a good point here.
We are going to go ahead with the two modes I described previously in addition to adding keyboard shortcuts for status when on yellow words. This should go a long way towards resolving most of these issues that have been brought up. We would like to restrict ourselves to two modes so as not to confuse the vast majority of users. Too many options mean fewer people are likely to use them unfortunately. We hope to have this update ready by the end of the week or early next week.
As far as I am concerned, if there is a call for it, the programming staff can make LingQing work with a Ouija board, as long as they keep the current method of navigation as well.
Although sometimes I read first and then LingQ, usually I LingQ first and then read. This is especially useful for a language like German, because most new German words come with a good definition already established, or at least with a definition good enough for the time being. I can make necessary refinements later, when I actually know what refinements are needed and what the needed refinements are.
How do I proceed? Simply by using keyboard shortcuts, I can work through the new words of a lesson. Hitting the return key selects and enters the first definition suggested for a word, then the cursor moves to the next new blue word. Hit the return key again, presto. A quick glance at the definitions in the dashboard usually tells me whether the first definition looks good. If it does not look good, then the down arrow key takes the cursor to definition 2 or definition 3. I hit the return key on the correct definition, and I’m on my way again.
Do mistaken definitons crop up in my vocabulary? Yep. Sometimes I even see that there is NO definition for a word. Not a problem. I fix it.
Naturally, if the language I’m studying has few defintions or cockeyed definitions, like Latin, the return key has little value.
Then I can use the arrow key to go one by one, or I can turn off the scrolling and just use the cursor.
Disclaimer: I study by desktop or laptop, not smartphone or tablet.
Mark, I don’t completely understand why you want to implement the “all manual” mode. I think there are mostly two kinds of people here, one that want what Steve described as “linQing mode” (the current one), and the rest which would like to have what Steve called “reading mode” (which is basically the same as the the way it is now, just with all actions of the form “goToTheNextWordOfTheSameColor()” replaced by “goToTheNextHighlightedWord()”).
Implementing the manual mode seems to require more work and is not really what most people in this thread wanted. Honestly, a simple option in the settings menu saying something like “Keyboard actions ignore colours” would make most of us happy, and it can’t be a matter of more than a few minutes to implement it.
In fact, Jakub, we don’t know what most people want. I sometimes don’t know what I want. I think I would prefer the “reading mode” that I described, but then again it is not a big deal to use the arrow key to move from a converted blue word to the next coloured word. Furthermore, I often, when reading, would like to change the status of a newly created LingQ to status 2. This is so that I can tell where I am in a text. If I leave text, when I return I just pick up reading at the first dark yellow (status 1) word. There are, in fact many ways to use the site and many different preferences.
Mark’s view is that we should make only one change at this time and offer fewer options. Most people don’t like or even understand or look at different options, and, I am convinced, would not understand “Keyboard actions ignore colours” .
So I agree with Mark and suggest we start using the “standard mode” to see how it works.
Steve, I agree that using arrow keys after ‘k’/‘x’/‘enter’ is not a big deal, and I will be happy if the suggested mode gets implemented (although I still fail to see while this mode should switch off auto-scrolling). My point is that the “reading mode” as described by you and me is much more consistent with the current way (which actually does exactly the same if the next word has the same colour as the current word), I firmly believe most of us would consider it more convenient than the suggested manual mode, and it would be easier to implement than the manual mode.
Maybe there’s some point I am missing, but I don’t understand why the developers should invest more time in creating something less convenient which, at the same time, provides a less unified experience.
“Keyboard actions ignore colours” wasn’t really a suggestion for the actual caption; I am sure the developers would find a better way to describe it. In fact, I really like your “reading” and “lingQing mode”. These explain quite well what the two modes are meant for.
Let’s start with this small change and see how it goes.
I’m actually very excited to try it with the “standard mode” option, as I currently go out of my way to turn off auto-scroll.
I like doo’s comment. One of the reasons I don’t use lingq to read text is because this function doesn’t seem to be available.