Resources

Design Notes

Release Notes

• This is version 0.10. It's a "technology preview" because the package is under active development and not fully tested. The API and data model are reasonably stable but may change.
• I use a native UNICODE postgresql database. I put the line encoding system utf-8 into serverroot/tcl/zz-postload.tcl but I don't know if it made any difference.

Feature list

1. when creating a word, make ortho tests in two directions
2. make the list of tests prettier

• Bugs:
  1. Can be given word tests for words without definitions; these are impossible to pass
  2. Random testing will not test you on sentence groups
  3. Ordering of test-2 doesn't match test.
  4. word tests don't respect testing locale
  5. Lots of imported pinyin still has numbers
  6. lots of imported definitions have curly brackets
  7. random testing doesn't do anything interesting if you haven't added anything to your lists; instead it should just grab something, anything.
  8. your scores should instead be a list of all tests you either have results in or have put on your list; ie, merge tests and your tests.
  9. can't delete definitions; get error on edit
  10. Deleting words fails if definitions are present - should cascade
• Store words
  1. store words
  2. store definitions - support both links and new text as definitions
  3. store phonetic spellings
  4. store grammar relationships between words (is the plural of, etc)
  5. standard category trees (parts of speech, etc)
  6. Store licensing information for all content (public domain, GPL, user-only) - via category?
  7. Store information about frequency of appearance of words
  8. Some prioritization of words, so that some are shown less frequently when you get them right a lot
  9. stroke order (via picture?)
• Store Sentences
  1. Basic sentence storage
  2. categorize sentences
  3. store sentences in groups (maybe category is enough?)
  4. store information about which words are in the sentences
  5. store groups of sentences and put a useful label on the group
• Scoring
  1. Consistent rules for storing scores - ie, all scores are 0-100, so getting a word right is 100, getting 3 of 5 sentences is 60.
  2. When highlighting errors, do forwards and backwards string match to isolate the problem area.
• Testing
  1. handle skipped questions
  2. fix detection of empty answer keys in test-2.tcl
  3. handle a test with no q's
  4. Fix bad answers (my answer is correct, edit anwser) for all for just you
  5. Show last 5 results and allow filtering out of such words in test
  6. add other types of tests:
     1. full sentences
     2. reverse direction for words (from local def to foreign word)
     3. phonetic-based
     4. sound-based tests
  7. Better determination of what to test - frequency ranking of tests, or lesson-based testing (from categories?)
  8. "you've gotten this right 5 times in a row; only show it rarely in the future? y/n
  9. Use a t/f field in tests so that they can be taken off the list without losing test results - mooted
• Data
  1. input the full IPA and example words in English, other languages (54 IPA characters now included in install)
  2. Input Dania to the live data, including example words
  3. Input the first Chinese words - first 3000 or 6000
  4. input some words and definitions from a non-english language
  5. Input some chinese 2-character words
  6. Input my Danish lessons (copyright issues - need to restrict access)
• Import/Export capability
  1. CSV export of words, sentences, phonetic alphabets
  2. Import a CSV file
  3. CSV import of words, sentences, phonetic alphabets
  4. export to file - ie, handle mime type correctly
  5. find and implement standards. IMS? XML? Dict! Moby.
  6. Import/export of tests? SCORM?
  7. automatic lookup of external web services
  8. Live outgoing feed, RSS etc
  9. Framework for syncronizing new data
     1. automatic matching on words instead of creating new words
     2. confirmation/conflict resolution pages
• Auto-generate examples by looking into phonetic spelling okay, now do two examples
• Store sounds
  1. pronunciations of words
  2. pronunciations of sentences
  3. provide simple online editing tools (trim .2 sec from front or back, etc) so that people can improve their own uploaded samples to match the others
  4. audio tests: see a word, upload your pronunciation, grading by 1) grading yourself after hearing your upload sandwiched between native speaker examples 2) asking for someone to grade you.
  5. round-trip audio test: you are given a text. You record yourself and upload it. Someone else transcribes your recording and you can compare that to the original text.
• Printable test pages (flashcard mode; test mode)
• Utilities
  1. Show tooltip/link for every foreign word on the page
  2. "another useful thing: a bookmarklet: so that while I'm reading a chinese page and I run into an unknown word I select it and hit the bookmarklet and I get both the dictionary entry plus the word gets added to my list. that way I can be sure that whenever I look up a word it will also get added to my list"
  3. scan a specified text and determine how many of the words I already know
• Store and allow changing current working locale
• Add a wizard for directly adding word+def to word list
• Navigation & Interface
  1. Use subnavbar to show locale settings and subglobal nav
  2. write a flow map for the whole thing
  3. Do the UI improvements from my paper notes
  4. Put "Add another word" link on word-edit
  5. Consolidate Words, Sentences, Locales into hierarchy, with Locale list, then per-locale page, then sentences & words
  6. prettier formatting for the white pseudo-button
• Coding Hygiene & Platform
  1. set and retain the working locales
  2. move everything into procs
  3. Add UI for controlling sort order
  4. write a data dictionary/diagram
  5. Merge vocabulary and vocabulary-test
  6. redo subnav prep as vocab::conn
  7. implement the flow map in the new subnavbar
  8. Think hard about data model for tests and sentences: put sentence hint in test, not sentence? YES. should tests have user_ids? NO.
  9. Use subnavbar to show locale settings and subglobal nav
  10. Put docs into Docbook
  11. use pretty urls
  12. Write test cases for all of API
  13. Paginate all the lists
  14. Eliminate all of the group count views in favor of paginated lists that show group count in filter blocks
  15. move all data into content repository
  16. Performance Tuning
      1. cache the phonetic chart

Refactoring list

• Make all hyperlinks (export_urls) calculate base url with package_awareness
• Enable sort/filter of multiple includes on the same page
• Make vocabulary-trainer use the same subnav structure as vocab
• Move locale information into real table (extension of ad_locales, with phonetic alphabet name)
• Implement permissions
  1. Set up at least two roles, student and editor
  2. Enforce roles in all procs and in UI
  3. capture a definition during word creation
  4. Revise front page into link/portlet thingie
  5. provide word data via API call
  6. Don't show button in view mode of word-edit