Can someone help me make sense of this formatting?

Can someone help me make sense of this formatting?

Postby TheNCGoalie » Mon Nov 08, 2021 4:33 pm

Here's the link to my Google Sheets file.

What I'm trying to do is have some cards as flashcards (that works), some as multiple choice (that doesn't work) and some as "fill in the blank" (also does not work). I'm trying to work off of the exported data from the Feature Sample deck but clearly I am missing something. As an example, the line for Mann with MC as the category just acts like a regular card.

Also if all cards could be formatted from the info at the top to have Text 1 as yellow font and Text 2 as white font, it would be a huge help. Presently I just change the actual text colors in the spreadsheet back and forth.

EDIT: Hopefully this update goes through. After much messing around this evening, I am so damn close to getting what I want. I managed to make multiple choice and fill in the blank both work perfectly. There's just two more things I'm desperate for. One is to get both Flashcards and Fill in the blank work as both 1-2-3-4-5 and 2-1-3-4-5 but I'm not sure how to do that without breaking them into different categories. The second is to format each line so that something like Wussten Sie Schon? can be a single line in the spreadsheet and function as both a fill in the blank as well as a flashcard.

My holy grail, a way to format this all so that I can have a single line with Text 1 and Text 2 that would produce 4 cards, both fill in the blank and flashcards, both in 1-2-3-4-5 and 2-1-3-4-5.

Is it possible?
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Re: Can someone help me make sense of this formatting?

Postby Ernie » Mon Nov 08, 2021 9:03 pm

Hi,

To swap directions, just make new layouts. You have 3 layouts. You can add 3 more layouts (total of six) if you want both directions for each. The main trick is that you'll need to use "Statistic Set" = "2" for the 2->1 direction. Statistics will be kept separately between the two directions. If this doesn't solve your problem, let me know.

Changing statistics set to 2 is only important if you want to show both 1>2 and 2>1 directions at the same time. If you will always study one direction OR the other at a time, and don't mind sharing statistics, then you can keep using "1". But I think it makes sense to use "2" so that statistics are independent (as you may know one direction well, but not the other).

FITB - your are spelling the work, let's call it "spelling" here. The app has a spelling mode, but...

The app doesn't have a cloze (auto fill in the blank) feature for sentences. This is something I will look into within the next couple months, and something I'd eventually like to add, but not sure on timing yet. So for now, if you have a sentence where you only want a single word spelled, you'll need to card, one for standard/MC, and one for fill in the blank (where I assume you'd put ____ in the question). If you are spelling the whole the sentence, then no need for any of the above... yes, a single card can do it all.

But back to the statistics set issue, you if you make a single card, you have 3 layouts that can potentially turn a single card into a standard, MC, and spelling question. If all are using the same statistics set (e.g. 1), then you can't show at the same time. You can pick of these 3 tests at a time. And when you switch to another mode, the statistics will be shared with your prior answers.

If you go to "Deck Options", you'll tap "Advanced Layout" to turn that on, but which has already done in your spreadsheet header. You can edit settings there in the app in addition to directly updating spreadsheet. Changes to spreadsheet won't (I think) update deck option settings when you run a "download/update" process (vs add new deck).

If you are main considered with spelling and standard, then you can use 4 statistics set, and quiz all together at the same time:
standard 1>2, standard 2>1, spelling 1>2, spelling 2>1 (though I think you'd only want a single spelling direction, as no need to spell native language)

There are only 4 statistics sets available, so for the 4th one, you could add a MC for one of the directions.
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Re: Can someone help me make sense of this formatting?

Postby Guest » Tue Nov 09, 2021 5:16 pm

I think I'm getting kind of close. I've put multiple choice low on my priority list for the moment and I'd rather get standard and spelling all working together in both 1-2 and 2-1 at the same time. I want to have to spell in my native language just to be sure I'm fully recalling everything. In my original post, I misused "fill in the blank" when what I really intended to have is what Spelling was made for, the full sentence.

Here's my current setup, and you can still view the spreadsheet from the link in my first post, though I will probably be experimenting with it more tonight:

    category-1 Flashcard
    L1-layout-name 1-2 Card
    L1-active 1
    L1-layout-string T1,,,,,P1,S1|T2,,,,,P2,S2|T3,,,,,P3,S3|T4,,,,,P4,S4|T5,,,,,P5,S5
    L2-layout-name 2-1 Card
    L2-active 1
    L2-layout-string T2,,,,,P2,S2|T1,,,,,P1,S1|T3,,,,,P3,S3|T4,,,,,P4,S4|T5,,,,,P5,S5
    L2-stat-direction 2
    L3-layout-name 1-2 Spelling
    L3-active 1
    L3-layout-string T1,,,,,P1,S1|T2,,,,,P2,S2|T3,,,,,P3,S3|T4,,,,,P4,S4|T5,,,,,P5,S5
    L3-spell 1
    L3-spell-case-sensitive 1
    L3-spell-play-answer 1
    L4-layout-name 2-1 Spelling
    L4-active 1
    L4-layout-string T2,,,,,P2,S2|T1,,,,,P1,S1|T3,,,,,P3,S3|T4,,,,,P4,S4|T5,,,,,P5,S5
    L4-spell 1
    L4-spell-case-sensitive 1
    L4-spell-play-answer 1
    L4-stat-direction 2

So when I pick all four options, I only get 1-2 Flashcards and 2-1 Flashcards, no spelling whatsoever. If I select three categories, no matter which three they are, I'll get the proper three. I'm guessing it has something to do with this:

But back to the statistics set issue, you if you make a single card, you have 3 layouts that can potentially turn a single card into a standard, MC, and spelling question. If all are using the same statistics set (e.g. 1), then you can't show at the same time. You can pick of these 3 tests at a time. And when you switch to another mode, the statistics will be shared with your prior answers.


When in reality, what I actually want is this:

If you are main considered with spelling and standard, then you can use 4 statistics set, and quiz all together at the same time:
standard 1>2, standard 2>1, spelling 1>2, spelling 2>1


So can you suggest what I need to change in order to get there? I'm not sure where to modify statistics sets.

Also, is there some big reference to all of the options you can have in the header of your spreadsheet and what they do? I did a little searching and couldn't find one.
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Re: Can someone help me make sense of this formatting?

Postby Ernie » Thu Nov 11, 2021 1:03 pm

I don't document the header text in the spreadsheet. Most people will made these setting changes in the app. The in-app help has some info on "Card Layout".

I recommend you use all four stat sets:

L2-stat-direction 2
L3-stat-direction 3
L4-stat-direction 4

You don't need to explicitly define direction 1, as it's implied.

If you want all cards to be both spelling and standard cards, you don't need to use Categories to filter cards. If you want want some cards to be only spelling OR standard, then you can use categories to help define that.
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Re: Can someone help me make sense of this formatting?

Postby TheNCGoalie » Thu Nov 11, 2021 4:18 pm

This is really fantastic. I managed to figure out the stats direction the other day and it’s working great.

In my messing around I discovered the wonder of combination decks. This will be fantastic for me to have separate decks for vocabulary, grammar, phrases, noun gender, etc. but I’m having an issue. If I make a deck and don’t check “settings by sub-deck” I only get the standard flashcards and all of the spelling exercises are ignored in the combination deck, even though they work fine in the sub decks. If I check settings by sub-deck, then the next screen asking me which decks to include doesn’t list any decks at all. Is this something that needs to be fixed or am I doing something wrong?

The only issue with using combination and sub decks is that now I need to split up my media folder to a per deck basis. Is there any way to just have one single media folder with all files and then point each sub deck to that folder in the header settings? If not, I think there might be a way to clone folders in Google Drive. Another feature that would be great for this is if you had a screen you could open for a deck that listed all of the media files that are in the spreadsheet, but not in the media folder. This would make it much easier to track down missing audio files I need to create.

Lastly, is there any way to support the app further? If I remember correctly, it was only $2.99, which is a ridiculously good deal for how powerful it is and how helpful you’ve been with this.

Thank you!
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Re: Can someone help me make sense of this formatting?

Postby Ernie » Thu Nov 11, 2021 5:39 pm

Personally, I would likely keep a single large deck, though I agree that maybe splitting up vocabulary and sentences/grammar might make sense.

Say you wanted to switch between studying say "vocab" and "phrases"
1) if you had a single large deck, you should either a) change "cards to study" around for 4 card layouts to apply these filters or b) create 2 "combination decks" to apply these filters (so it's then REALLY easy to switch back and forth between these two
2) Create multiple "base" decks, and then use combination deck to study together.

The app doesn't allow you to use "settings by subdeck" combo decks with sundecks that have advanced layout turned on. Too complicated for me to program, so I didn't support that. Your only option is to create the standard combination deck and then apply all the same advanced layout settings to the combo deck. I think you should be able to do this in a spreadsheet, copying all the header rows you have, and then adding an extra header specifying that it's a combination deck. Maybe give it a try if interested.

I plan to add an optional donation subscription for the app for $1 month. Probably in January. So after that is working, you can subscribe for desired time period to donate that way. Thanks! I'm glad you like the app so far.
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Re: Can someone help me make sense of this formatting?

Postby Guest » Thu Nov 11, 2021 7:24 pm

Any thoughts on the idea of a screen that lists missing media files?
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Re: Can someone help me make sense of this formatting?

Postby Ernie » Wed Nov 17, 2021 5:37 pm

Sorry for the really slow response. Yeah, I missed one or two of your questions.

1)
As for sharing media files. If you are using Dropbox or OneDrive, you should be able to add a header to the top of your text/spreadsheet file telling the app which subfolder to use to grab media files:
* | media-dir | Test Media

| = tab or new column (ignore extra spaces above)

2)
If you've got an existing deck that has all your media files, you can have other decks point to your media deck for media files. Swipe left on secondary deck and tap "Edit", Advanced, Media Deck, and select the main deck (with media files) here.

3)
As far as a way to see missing media files, I don't have any plans for that. I would just take note of problems as you study. One option is to flag cards (which is easy from study screen), then later in the card listing, you can use the Filter button to show just flagged cards. (You can use Mode button to clear flag of all cards at once.)
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Re: Can someone help me make sense of this formatting?

Postby TheNCGoalie » Sat Dec 04, 2021 5:49 pm

Since you won't be supported an option to view missing media files, what would be helpful is if when we update a deck, the small popup window that notifies us of unsuccessful media file downloads lists more than three results at a time. That's what I've been using as my check for missing sound files, so doing them three at a time is a bit tedious, especially since I use the app on an iPad pro that has plenty of real estate to show more.
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