Stackz User Forum

Tell us what feature you would like to see in future versions!
Note: you must login to vote and view the poll results.

Replies to this thread are welcome, I will split them into individual threads if applicable.

I was somewhat surprised to find "Test tool requiring typed answers" as one of the requested features. I am trying the Stackz! for the first time with the new beta, and my purchase would be guaranteed if this feature were available. It seems to me the "Test" function included in the software would more aptly be titled "Review", as there is no testing going on during the test procedure. I think a test procedure would not be very difficult to implement, and it could even help the program keep track of words the user is struggling with.

With Japanese text, "type" is done with the IME, so it's rather "selecting from a list" than really typing the answer. We encourage the students to write the answer using pen and paper and to compare the result manually. Stackz can be conveniently operated with the left hand, using the arrow keys, for that purpose.

The answer input of Japanese text makes more sense with tablet PCs, but the dialog must be designed for that.

I think that audio playbacks are a must for the program, and they would improve it greatly! Some months ago I had passed the basic HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi, Chinese proefficiency test), and though I remembered quite well all the basic characters, when the oral comprehension part came, I was unable to understand 90% of the words!! Oral comprehension cannot be practized only through reading of characters and his transcription, and oral test is one of the few things I miss in stackz!

The option to playback the own voice is a very nice feature that can be found in other flashcards programs, and essential for the student not depending on realeaser's updates of sound files. What could be done if one wants to be able to understant inmediately a pronounced complex sentence? Without this option, the student could only hope that the releaser launches a sound file with the sentence (so unlikely to happen), or wait the implementation of one of these read-to-speech add-ons so slow and artificial.

But the oter features listed are also very interesting! The improved management would be very nice if for example a "Find and replace" option or a corrector (this would be more difficult to implement) were implemented.

The test tool requiring to type the answers is somewhat implemented in the pocket-pc version (I've tried only the 2007 beta) with it's handwriting option and I found it awesome!

I'm very happy to see that the staff is aiming to improve the software in these areas, stackz! is actually one of the top flashcards programs (the top, for me, import wizard is totally KICKASS), and these features would definitely make the difference!!

Have you ever thought about creating a psp stackz? maybe is not powerful enough to support big files... not sure about that...

PSP is not an open system, I don't know how to write software for it (without using a homebrew eLoader, that is...)

gigapops's wish list for "new improved stackz":
1. Integrated audio file option as found in "b4uki" (before you know it), not the linked kind as in "V-train".
2. Slide show option as in "V-Train", with timer control.
3. In the edit dialog I'd like to have a select "all" button to aid in copying/moving contents.

comment:

At present "Stackz" is great. You can you make it "insanely great"?

 

I already posted this before, but it was in "bug reports" and may have been overlooked as a feature request.

I'd like the dictionary search to be slightly more flexible.  Right now it's great, but sometimes you can't find what you're looking for, especially when searching for multiple word entries in English.
(PS, I did rebuild my index as suggested, and that fixed some problems, but these problems persist...)

Example:

Say I want to look up "same day"
The target word is 同日 [どうじつ] the same day

However, when I type in the search box "same day," there are no words found.

I have to type in exactly "the same day."  Then I get two search results:
同日 [どうじつ] the same day
ダブる [ダブる] to coincide (fall on the same day); to have two of something; to repeat a school year after failing

Note that in neither of these cases is this entry found:
その日 [そのひ] that day; the very same day

In order to find that, I have to type in exactly "the very same day."

It seems to me that when I type in "same day" I should get all three results:
同日 [どうじつ] the same day
ダブる [ダブる] to coincide (fall on the same day); to have two of something; to repeat a school year after failing
その日 [そのひ] that day; the very same day

I'm sure there's plenty of other definitions containing the words "same day" that I'm missing out on because I didn't type in the definition exactly as it's listed.

In the same vein, I should be able to type in "day same" and get the same results.  In other words, each word in the search box should be treated individually, and the dictionary should search for entries containing all of the individual words.

In this way it will function like a search engine on the internet.

I hope this suggestion is easy to implement.  I use Stackz as my primary dictionary for my Japanese studies!!!   ;D

Sorry, i can't open a new topic as i have problems with this homepage... i cant open new topic ... last time i did something wrong... it says:
Sorry, the copyright must be in the template.
"Please notify this forum's administrator that this site is missing the copyright message for SMF so they can rectify the situation. Display of copyright is a legal requirement. For more information on this please visit the Simple Machines website."

Well. anyway, my request maybe is difficult or impossible to make... well, i?ll explain...

when you are search a kanji in the edit option, it moves between all the entries that contains that kanji, it doesn't matter the order.

Could it be possible to directly find and arrange them? so if you have 20 entries with that kanji in first or second position in a list of 1000 words, could it be possible an option that search and put those 20 entries in the beginning of the list so you can review, cut or whatever you want to do quickly?

Thanks

I can't open a new topic yet, so i will continue writing my requests here...

I have a problem with search option in edit mode, it's about the language attribute.I am using japanese and english, so when i create a new entry, i choose japanese language to look if the word i'm looking is into the list, if it isn't i add the entry and write the translation in spanish, then if i want to look for another word the language in the search box has changed into spanish, so i have to change it again to write in kanji...

Could it be possible to add an option to choose the language to be used in the search box too? so it remains always fixed? i mean in file options.

Also i would like to be able to change the colour of the selection line when searching, i find that navy blue really dark and i have to click in order to read the content of the line(it turns grey).

Thanks

I want to use a graphics pad and pen stylus to write the Characters. 

I can't think of any new features but definately some shortcuts would be nice.  usually, when I go through a new word list. I go through each lesson and create a parallel lesseon that contains the kanji in it. at the end of the entire word list, I will then do the same for all the word lists combined so I can get a single stack with all the kanji characters that I've learnt.

The way it is now, I have to open the edit list, select all the words, add to text pad, get kanji info, close the other dialogs, then add all the characters to the selected stack. It would be great if this was a single button to get kanji info on all the selected stacks without having to go through edit and text pad.

also, there is a bug that happens if I try and copy more than 100 kanji from the kanji info dialog to the selected stack. this makes it pretty tedious to copy smaller batches of characters at a time.


I do have some improvements for pocket stackz though.

configurable test buttons. the up down right and left buttons are a great idea but some phones have really lame control stick (like mine). I cannot for the life of me, hit right and except it to promote the card to the next stack. it would be awesome to configure buttons so you could assign the shoulder buttons to pass or fail and assign the control stick (any direction) to uncovering the next hint.

a real exit button - for some reason my phone (most likely some others) has problems with the font if I leave it open for a period of time. The fonts come out as empty boxes and the only way to fix it is to soft reset the phone. the only way I can fix this is to go to system, memory, and close the app manually which is a pain. A real exit button on the left shoulder menu would be awesome.

random cards in test mode. sometimes I like the fact that the hardest words come first, but most of the time I want to increase the challenge and test in a random way so hard and easy words are mixed together.


Things that aren't interesting to me

audio - this seems like it would slow down the learning of a big stack of words. if I am really stumped on the pronounciation I can google the word and get it. Also, it would seem almost impossible to verify the accuracy and quality of audio files for all the words in the available word lists.

test tool requiring types answers - this would slow down learning as well. If you do add this, please make it optional for test mode. Using the honor system is perfect.

I have difficulties to decide, because I don't understand what you want with some options:

- Improved file content management
- Remove well-known entries from the revision process
- Audio playback of native speaker

Last Option is clear what it means (I think), but I don't know how you will integrate this, because every stackz-list is normally a selfcreated list. How should it be possible to get a native speaker for my selfcreated vocabulary-list?

If you don't understand the suggestions, then you probably don't need them... :)
Feel free to add your suggestions in this thread.

The poll is a bit outdated, some issues have been improved in the meantime:
- file content management has been improved for version 7 (was kind of restricted before)
- revision process limitation has been improved for version 7 with the "inclusion sliders" on the color bar
- nobody said that native speakers would read your self-created lists... we have many lists in the archive that could be extended with a voice feature.

the Sliders are really good, without it I would not use the SW anymore, because the colors alone are not very helpful. So I can choose I want to learn only Black entries, and not near black or other colors. I hope they will be available for the pocket stackz, too.  ;D

- If I export something, I can't choose that the Name of the lesson, in which was a vocable, to appear before the vocable. It would make it lot of easier to modify stackz-files from the stackz homepage, if I could export them, put them in Excel and have in the first entry the lesson name.

Example:
In the moment it exports in this format:
二   に   zwei   Zahlen
三   さん   drei   Zahlen
四   し/よん   vier   Zahlen
五   ご   fuenf   Zahlen
六   ろく   sechs   Zahlen
七   しち/なな   sieben   Zahlen
出張   しゅっちょう   Geschaeftsreise   Meishi
社員   しゃいん   Firmenangestellter   Meishi
外出   がいしゅつ   Ausgehen   Meishi
散歩   さんぽ   Spaziergang   Meishi
ノート   のうと   Heft
ボオルペン   ぼるうぺん   Kugelschreiber
メガネ   めがね   Brille

But I want:
Lesson1   二   に   zwei   Zahlen
Lesson1   三   さん   drei   Zahlen
Lesson1   四   し/よん   vier   Zahlen
Lesson1   五   ご   fuenf   Zahlen
Lesson1   六   ろく   sechs   Zahlen
Lesson1   七   しち/なな   sieben   Zahlen
Lesson2   出張   しゅっちょう   Geschaeftsreise   Meishi
Lesson2   社員   しゃいん   Firmenangestellter   Meishi
Lesson2   外出   がいしゅつ   Ausgehen   Meishi
JLPT4   散歩   さんぽ   Spaziergang   Meishi
JLPT4   ノート   のうと   Heft
JLPT4   ボオルペン   ぼるうぺん   Kugelschreiber
JLPT4   メガネ   めがね   Brille

- If I created many lessons with Excel, I must import one lesson after another. Copy first lesson, import it, copy second lesson, import it, ..., copy lesson 100, import it and so on. It would be lot of easier if Stackz recognize the first entry (from the first column) as the lesson name and import all lessons correctly automatically in Stackz.

Example, if I copy the following:
Lesson2   社員   しゃいん   Firmenangestellter   Meishi
Lesson2   外出   がいしゅつ   Ausgehen   Meishi
JLPT4   散歩   さんぽ   Spaziergang   Meishi
JLPT4   ノート   のうと   Heft

It should put the first 2 entries in the lesson "Lesson2" and the last 2 entries in the lesson "JLPT4"

- For the test and learn mode, it would be fine if stackz could display not only one font, it should randomly display the vocables with different Japanese Fonts. Which and how much Fonts should be choosable in the options. The reason is, if I learn a vocable with only one of the fonts like MSMincho. I recognize the Kanji very often only in MSMincho. When Stackz test the vocables random fonts (for example with MSMincho, MSGothik, Sword Kanji, Kanji Stroke Order and Meiryo), my lazy brain must start to recognize not only one "picture" of the Kanji.

- If I mark some lessons and choose edit, it should be possible to move vocables to other lessons. Sometimes I made lessons with many similiar vocables and I can't move them into other lessons, without much work, because I must delete the entry and insert it into the other lesson. And it would delete the statistik for this vocable.

- there is one error in Stackz, if I choose that a lesson should be repeated after 7 days, I get the complete black color after 6 days, not 7. The time I choosed is always one day smaller. It is not really important, I set 8 days and get my 7 days.  :)

Here are my suggestions at the moment:

- Support for Greek and Hebrew languages
- Synchronize wordlists between PC and mobile
- For each lesson within a wordlist, allow a different number of attributes and different attribute titles
- Display the attribute name somewhere in the pane that displays the attribute

One more thing: for the PC version, an automatic pop-up reminder at regular intervals to learn new cards, similar to the Train Your Brain program at digitaldominion.com. It would be great if Stackz would pop-up five cards for me to learn every 1-2 hours.

Quote from: pwdennis2 on May 19, 2008, 03:05:34 PM
- Support for Greek and Hebrew languages
- Synchronize wordlists between PC and mobile

Are you talking about PalmStackz? (Just guessing because of some other posts of yours...)

Quote from: pwdennis2 on May 19, 2008, 03:05:34 PM
- For each lesson within a wordlist, allow a different number of attributes and different attribute titles

This would cause trouble with the skills... if you deal with a specific skill, the needed attributes must be there.
How do you want to anticipate the answer if you don't know what's supposed to appear? (Unless you know your content by heart anyway :-)

Quote from: pwdennis2 on May 19, 2008, 03:05:34 PM
- Display the attribute name somewhere in the pane that displays the attribute

Yes this wuould be a precondition for the above... but the entire concept with the "Skills" is not easily combined with this.