Okay I’ve asked for this before but I hope maybe I can rekindle the idea and maybe get some support…
I’d like a mode that moves among the blue and the yellow words – not just the blue, not just the yellow. With this I would basically never have to use the mouse.
Here’s how it goes right now.
Move to a blue word, use arrows and select a hint, press enter. The system moves to the next blue word – which isn’t helpful because usually then I have to take my mouse and click on the next yellow word… and move through the yellow words as I read.
I’d like to see arrow keys move from blue and yellow keys in order and if I make a new lingq jump to the next blue or yellow word in the text. Otherwise I’m just needlessly clicking around… it’s very frustrating.
Now the answer I got to this 6 months ago was basically “going through each yellow word would be annoying and slow” – well… if I knew the words they wouldn’t still be yellow… so I have to review them
Shift+Enter Shift-Enter Hotkey - Language Forum @ LingQ
Seems to work OKAY… It doesn’t move to the next unknown word – which is good – but then I still need to consciously determine if I need to press Shift+Arrow or just Arrow to move to the next yellow or blue word. Just arrow.
Why would you ever want to move around through just the blue words??
Oh man, that takes me back a bit. When I wrote that post, I was just getting started with LingQ and with German. It annoyed me a lot that the arrows take you through only the yellow words or only the blue ones because that meant that I could not sit back and read a document using the arrows. Now I am not so sure if I would want it this way or not. I will explain why.
I use the online reading interface in two ways. Firstly, I use it for reading things such as newpaper articles. When I do this, I load up the article, read through it on the website while making LingQs and looking at already existent LingQs, then hit the big blue button at the bottom when I am done, and leave the text, never to look at it again. Secondly, I prepare stuff to read later on the iPad. Usually these will be book chapters which I have imported. I prepare them by opening them on the website and flicking through all the blue words, saving only the ones I do not know. I then open it on the iPad at some point later and read it.
Spatteson’s, and Colin-of-last-January’s, suggestion would be good for me when doing the first of these activities, but really annoying when doing the second. I suspect other people will feel the same. Maybe a toggle between the two functions would be good, but I realise that this only adds to the complexity of the reading interface more.
I also think that the arrow functionality should be changed. The main purpose of the reading pane is to read, not to create LingQs. Obviously, if a word is highlighted yellow then I don’t know it yet and it shouldn’t be skipped. Shift-arrow going to the opposite type is just awkward. I never can remember if I should hold down shift or not as the focus goes to a yellow or blue word.
IMO, left/right arrow should go to the previous/next highlighted word; a blue or yellow word with a level less than 4. Shift left/right arrow should go to the previous/next blue word, and maybe ctrl-shift left/right arrow to the previous/next LingQ. The same logic should be followed when creating a LingQ as right arrow and not scroll way down to the next unknown word and make me lose my place (yes I know you can disable the autoscroll).
@Collin Do you find flagging useful? I don’t really get it. An entry gets flagged 3 times and it still shows up but with a flag. It’s a lot of work to flag these entries for seemingly no benefit.
There are a lot of entries for German that appear (to me) to be in Polish. I think that if my native language is not Polish and I’m not at an advanced level in Polish on LingQ, then I shouldn’t be shown those entries. Maybe I’m missing something.
Okay, about the flagging. schongut, I’m learning German too… and I see those damn Polish or Russian or whatever hints all the time. Seriously LingQ write a script that looks like this:
For all Hints in German → If Hint contains a character outside my native language’s character set → Remove.
I said this like 6 months ago. Low hanging fruit. Low hanging fruit. Low hanging fruit. Every time I sit down with LingQ I just keep thinking “why the hell don’t they grab the low hanging fruit”
Okay, my rant is over. I’m just frustrated because I just read a few thousand words… and each LingQ I make it fast forwards to the next blue one… then I have to find the next yellow lingq I wanted to read and click on it. It’s infuriating
@spatterson - I’m not sure quite what you expected We only have so many development hours available in a day, and we can’t make all your dreams come true overnight
Hmm, I think I’ll go to sleep now and see if they do come true overnight.
No it’s cool, I know the perfect solution. Go to a new lesson, hold down the enter key and turn all blue words into yellows using the default hint… fix them later.
@spatterson - “No it’s cool, I know the perfect solution. Go to a new lesson, hold down the enter key and turn all blue words into yellows using the default hint… fix them later.”
That’s actually a great idea! Auto-LingQ. Then you only have to change the words you know, want to ignore (or just leave them), or that are obviously wrong.
I only had a few paragraphs left in the text I was reading so I tried it. It worked quite well and I was able to focus more on the reading as I tend to get distracted defining words.
One odd thing though… I wasn’t paying attention and held the return key down too long. My coin-o-meter went nuts, got really big, and expanded 2 or 3 times all the way to the hobbit.
Yeah. Unfortunately I like to keep track of my place I was reading in long text with blue words. The first blue word in the text is my bookmark. Also, if you LingQ like this you must commit to reading the rest of the lesson
That coin bug sounds crazy – fortunately I don’t have a coin or a hobbit on my screen anymore
Also, if you use the flashcards feature this might cause problems. I don’t so it’s not an issue.
To your points, LingQ remembers where you are in a lesson. Also, you don’t have to do the whole document at once. You could do a few paragraphs at a time. I see you use Firefox on a Mac. I do too and I almost never reboot the thing nor do I shutdown Firefox. LingQ stays in a pinned tab which is open to the text I’m working through. Checking the forum can easily done in another tab, but honestly I only come here when I want to procrastinate.
I know you were mostly venting (with good reason) and probably working on Greasemonkey scripts is fun, but I’m actually going to try this method for a while so thanks
We only have so many development hours available in a day, and we can’t make all your dreams come true overnight 
