You know what I miss. I miss being able to upload all the new stuff we make as soon as it's made. And it looks like it will still be a week or two for Nick to go through all the lists reworking them for the new system. It's brutal work, but while he's slogging through that, I'm working on new stuff to make the wait worth it. And right now I'm building a system to allow everyone to make and share their own lists, being just about the most highly requested feature right now.It's a multi-step process though, and so there are several things that need to be done. This means more features, though. More ways to have complete control over what you learn. And so here is the order of things to do leading to the grand prize.
1. User queues and adding from existing lists (done)
2. Add words with textbox and word creation (in progress)
3. Vocab list creation
4. Vocab list sharing
Your queue is going to serve as a more straightforward way of studying a handful of words, not enough for a full list. Or say you just want to learn a few specific words from a list. You can browse that list, click the words you want, and add them to your queue. They will then be added to your study schedule from your queue the same way words and characters are added from lists. This was made first so that you wouldn't have to commit to making a list just to add a word or two to your schedule. Also, the largest chunk of code used by the queue will also be used for list creation.
What I'm working on right now is a widget that will essentially allow you to drop in a list of words into a text box and have them added to your queue and, eventually, your lists. It parses what you give it and lets you know for each word if we have it before adding it to your queue or list. But what if we don't have a word or two you're looking for? Then you can add it to our system in the same page! That way you don't have to wait for us to get around to adding words for you.
And finally, once you're able to make your own lists, you'll be able to share those lists with other users. We'll set up a page for you to browse everyone's lists and a custom Google search like the one in the forum. Note, though, that shared lists will not be changeable; once you share a list, you won't be able to take it back or make any tweaks. This way, when you use someone else's list, you'll know it won't change into something else or disappear.
Of course, all this won't show up at least until the new architecture is done! I hope to get the first three done, if not all four, by then though. Until then, start getting your lists ready!
Well, the United States now has a new president. Scott, Nick, and Chloe watched the full inaugural speech this morning, and I heard bits and pieces as I was looking for Chinese dictionaries in Oberlin's library. In honor of his ascendancy, I give you the Chinese characters for Obama: 欧巴马!
Chloe amusingly discovered that "Buffalo Wild" is a hugerageously useful prefix. George laments that we'll never get good enough at Chinese to enjoy playing with words like that. Lament concurred, although the people who listen to my Chinese will reap some amusement, at least.
