(Archived) Skritter Mobile Beta 3.0

We’re still doing some final testing late into the night on the new build. This is the third round of internal testing for us, so hopefully we found the stuff that should already be working, but got borked. Auto advance is much improved, and I’m enjoying the study experience with it thus far.

At this point, Android update will go out tomorrow morning and we’ll submit Apple builds for their approval. With any luck we can roll 3.0.8 out on both platforms before the end of the day tomorrow.

Sorry for the delay on this one. It was actually some big changes to the code, but hopefully these improvements will allow us to focus on other stuff on the agenda.

Teaching Mode (with new updates!)
Study screen example sentences and mnemonics
Lists
Stats
Landscape improvements
Design updates
And any bugs that come along the way

As always, stay tuned and thanks for all the help along the way!

-Jake

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Are the writing grades for a multi-character word fully independent of them written individually? For example if I have three words 好、好在、在,does writing one of the three correctly influence how often I am prompted to write the others? For example, if I have written 好 and 在 correctly a ton of times, how does that influence 好在, and vice versa? I guess I was naively assuming writing is tracked purely on a character basis, but that would probably cause problems.

Writing 好在 will influence the scheduling of 好, 在 and 好在. But studying 好 and 在 individually will not impact the scheduling of 好在.

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Checking the new version out now. What does the following refer to?

Some accounts have reported issues of seeing simplified characters when they should be seeing traditional, and the other way around at times. And some kana/kanji issues on the Japanese side of things. We think we got to the bottom of it for the accounts with issues.

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Finally got time to record a video of how Auto Advance is working in 3.0.8

And I found a bug in the process. Joy!

Video:

Quick notes:

  • Review times are now scaled based on grade. The times are:
  1. Forgot: 2.5 seconds
  2. So-So: 2 seconds
  3. Got it: 1.5 seconds
  4. Too easy: .5 seconds
  • Auto-advance will fire on tone and writing prompts automatically

  • The first tap on the screen for all card types will pause auto advance if already triggered. On tone and writing prompts you must tap on the canvas area for now. (Note: there is a bug on pinyin prompts that I totally missed… and the tap does not pause the grading, instead it skips it. We will fix asap).

  • The second tap (after pause) will skip to next prompt and submit the grade that is selected

  • Definition and Reading cards do not auto advance until a grade is submitted. Once the grade is selected auto advance will trigger and the normal behaviors will apply. After tap to reveal, a tap on the screen will simply the grade “got it” and move on.

  • Any grade tap will reset auto advance progress to give you the proper amount of review time. You can just keep going, and going, and going, and going…

Sorry again about the bug, but overall I really hope you all enjoy the auto advance updates!

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Just talked with Josh about this today and we’re going to make more of an effort to reply to the end of the topic with version updates along with updating original post. Thanks for pointing this out.

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Hey Skritter team, can’t say enough about the blessing of you guys hard work and consistent feedback. Thanks guys. Also, big question – Will you guys be bringing back the brush stroke or allowing it as a settings option? It may sound strange, but for me this was the biggest part of the new update. The brushstroke makes it feel like real writing and I was learning characters and retaining them at a level never before and not getting bored or overwhelmed.
Thanks guys,
Ryan

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It’ll be back. Older devices were having performance issues and this was the quick fix to try and solve that. The new app will certainly have some brush options in there for the real release!

Man, y’all’s response times and connection with community is awesome. Apologies for getting a little bit too hyped! I just saw that that was also posted in some other threads. Note made to self - first do thorough search of other threads before posting. :neutral_face:
Thanks brother ,
Ryan

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No worries. We’re working fast. And sometimes we’re a bit too small of a team to deal with all of the support.

That said, we are trying to reduce the number of beta updates we push out once big bugs are gone. That’ll allow us to plan update notes, blog posts, forum posts, etc. before the updates go out so everyone is on the same page.

It’s something our team will be working on for July. I also intend on having a beta-release roadmap to share. That’ll put some of the missing features into perspective and let you all know when they’re coming back if you miss them.

It should also allow Josh to spend a bit more time between updates working on the stuff that takes more than a day to patch up and test.

Appreciate the feedback and the kind words. We’ll keep working hard to make this thing awesome, and we’ll continue to do what we can to make our intentions and actions as clear as possible. It’ll help all of us!

-Jake

(Posting from phone during some testing and a walk. Sorry for the typos!)

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Just pushed out beta version 3.0.10 which primarily focused on prompt stability.

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Just wanted to give you all a heads up that there is a known audio bug in 3.0.10 that we’ll have to patch up for 3.0.11 along with some additional features and improvements. I hope to give you a better idea of what other things will be included in 3.0.11 and 3.0.12 and maybe even 3.0.13 a little later this week.

Here’s the bug:
The first time a writing card is displayed the audio sounds robotic and a little like the Skritter robo-overlord is coming to get you (if you have audio toggled on from filters & quick settings drawer). This happens each time a non-writing card moves to a writing card, but only on the first instance as far as we can tell.

Workarounds if you find it super annoying.

  • Toggle audio off so it doesn’t autoplay
  • Toggle writing cards only for a bit and just focus on those before switching to other cards. It’ll play the bug on the first card, but not after that.

Sorry about this one. It’s on me! I gave the final green light this morning and I totally missed the bug and the pattern that I uncovered later.

@SkritterJake How long does a push take to appear in TestFight on iOS? I’m still seeing 3.0.9 only, even after refreshing the list of available betas.

Ok, it just now showed up.

Apple is not consistent in their turnaround. Usually if we submit to them in the morning they have it out in the afternoon. But I think the 4th slowed things down a bit. Glad to hear it’s out!

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3.0.10 update based on feedback rolling in:

Manual item adding doesn’t seem to be working in 3.0.10. The plus button is responsive, but you can’t select how many to add. Shoot!

I tested this version in a rush to get the other fixes out and I was not nearly thorough enough in doing so. I was tired from late night grinding, and I was sloppy. Any and all regressions in 3.0.10 are on me. We’ve been working on a check-list of things for rolling out updates, but updates have been going out too fast to really deploy the testing and be critical of the things we 100% need to be testing on before pressing the green light. It is something we will continue to work on this month.

One of our larger goals is to streamline our testing and release process a bit more and provide a timeline or at least version goals.

It’s the 4th, which is kinda a big day here in the states. I’m gonna spend some time with the fam, but I’ll be back working later tonight to try and address these issues moving forward.

Thanks for your understanding, and sorry for the bugs! Full team is back at it tomorrow morning.

-Jake

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Hi,
Even you mentioned preferred feedback method is within the app, typing on a PC is far more convenient.

On Samsung Note 4 there are issues when using the stylus. At some point hovering draws endlessly, and closing the app is the only solution.

Auto-completion of a character gives a clue that is not always desired. In real world no one would tell me when I have finished drawing the character. There should be a mode that requires user to pres “finished” button or something to that effect, and then evaluate the drawing. The complete drawing, no clues given at any time.

Kind regards,
Dusan

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