[Parley-devel] sound played incorrectly; counting the answer as right; removing images

[Anša Lauschmannová]

Hello,

I am a happy user of Parley on Windows; I have currently updated from 0.9.3
to 0.9.4 (in Windows KDE 4.5.4). I would like to report one bug and make
several suggestions which would make my Parley experience even more
enjoyable (although that is hardly possible, I really like it!):


0) the bug: the last part of the sound file is not played

During the practice as well as in the editor mode, when I click the button
for playing a sound file associated with a translation, the last bit of the
file is cut off. It is usually about half a word long... This did not occur
with the previous version 0.9.3.

Also, I do not like the fact that in the flashcard practice mode, there is
no option to play the sound, an in the written practice mode, the sound is
not played automatically.



1) removing images:

quite correctly, the system is set up so that when an image is added to one
of the languages, it assumes that the same image should be added to it's
translation in the other languages; however, there seems to be a bug, so
that
1a) when I use some form of automatic completion, only the part of the image
address which I enter before using the automatic completion is copied to the
path relevant to the translations;
1b) I have not found a way of clearing the image path in all of the
translations: I clear it for language1, click on the language2 translation
of the same item, clear the image path for language2, click on the language1
translation - and the image path is filled in! It seems that again, the
system is assuming that it is a good idea to use the image if it is filled
in at least for one translation (with more languages and different images
set for different translations, it uses the image of the language that I
look at after clearing the field for language1)

To me, the most friendly solution would be the possibility to set up the
programme so that it always keeps the image the same for all translations of
the item, including a change in the form of the kvtml format: currently, the
<image> tag is separate for each translation, which seems to me rather
unnecessary, taking into account that usually it's either filled in only
once, or it is the same for all translations.




2) counting the answer as right

With version 0.9.3 (as it was in Windows KDE 4.4.4), it was easy to use the
written practice as flashcard practice: look at side 1, press "Show
solution", and the press either "Continue" or "Count as right". Moreover,
all this could be done with the arrows and Enter from the keyboard, which is
much quicker and more comfortable than using the mouse. I was using this a
great deal, actually filling in the answer only in the cases when I was not
sure about the spelling or when I was practicing long sentences.
In the version 0.9.4 (as it is in the Windows KDE 4.5.4), the original
"Count as right" is divided into two steps: clicking onto the right/wrong
image to change from count_as_wrong to count_as_right, and then pressing
Space or clicking on Continue. I did not find any way of "clicking" the
right/wrond image from the keyboard. Would it be possible to set up keyboard
shortcuts for "count as right" and "count as wrond", for example Space and
Enter or Alt+R and Alt+W or simply something along those lines?



Thank you for a great software.

Ansa


P.S. By the way, I really believe that Parley is universal for practising
many aspects of a foreign language, including
* grammar practice in question-answer forms such as "what is the suffix for
forming past tense in English regular verbs?" --- "-ed",
* grammar practice by translating full-sentence examples (this is
surprisingly efficient),
* dictation exercises and listening comprehension (use only sound in the
first language),
* monolingual practice (questions of the form "What's this?" or "What is
this person doing?" together with a picture in language1, "This is a car."
or "This person is running." in language2).

Maybe this list should be added to the description page of Parley, so that
users considering which programme they should choose realise how wide the
range of possibilities is.
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