Jumping to the next blue word is really annoying

I’ve been using LingQ for a long time, and it’s been a while since you made the change that arrow keys jump to the next/previous word of the same colour, and if I want to go from a blue word to a yellow word (or vice versa), I have to press the shift key in addition to the arrow key.

Even though I got used to it, I still find this behaviour highly inconvenient, since I always go through the texts word by word, either creating a lingq for an unknown word or reading the hint of a lingq for a yellow word (since this is what lingqs are for; if I know the meaning of a lingq, I simply mark it as known). This way I have to consciously pay attention to the colour of the next word in order not to jump half a paragraph ahead. It would be highly appreciated if there was an option to disable this shift-dichotomy altogether.

However, what is even more annoying is that when I select a hint from a list of translations for a blue word and press enter to save it, the “cursor” jumps to the next blue word. I often read texts where blue words are relatively scarce. Any time I add a hint, the “cursor” jumps literally two paragraphs ahead, and having to navigate back to where I was in order to read the hints for yellow words in between is time consuming and annoying.

I understand that some users may first want to go through all blue words and then read the text as a whole, but I (and probably thousands of other users as well) like to read the whole text first. Adding an option to always jump (for any keyboard action) to the next highlighted word (irrespective of its colour) would improve my experience of using LingQ tremendously.

Thank you in advance for an answer. Any feedback is appreciated.

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I agree.

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@JakubMarian - Thanks for the feedback. We are looking at ways to allow some customization of these features. In the meantime, if you don’t like the automatic scrolling, you can turn off auto-scroll which is an option in the gear dropdown on the lesson page.

Yeah, I complained about this in another thread. Why anyone would want this option is beyond me. It’s unfortunate that we have to fix this for each lesson.

@mark - The problem is not really in scrolling. The problem is that I have to manually navigate back after pressing enter. A lesson may sometimes look like this:

Now, say I press enter. What happens? The cursor jumps to “Karenina”, and I have to manually navigate back to “llegó” in order to read the 19 hints for words in between. Turning auto-scrolling off only makes matters worse; not only does it still jump there, but I can’t even see well where it jumped to.

To be honest with you, I don’t quite follow why this issue doesn’t have a higher priority. This is one of the most annoying things (along with the need to press shift to change the colour) on LingQ for a keyboard-heavy user, and had I been a new user, it could definitely influence my decision on whether to upgrade or not. And I say that as someone who has already brought you more than 300 referrals. You should keep users who bring you more users happy, so they have a reason to continue doing so ;).

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We hear you .

This has been discussed at least twice before.

In the first link, I made the suggestion as a new user. The way it is set up now is great for users flicking through the blue words creating LingQs, but completely messes things up for users who want to read and make LingQs at the same time using the arrows. That was how I wanted to do it back when I started the thread in Jan 2013, but after that, I changed to using the mouse (because of this issue).

Right. I also use the mouse for this reason.

We are aware of this issue and, in fact, ran a test a few months ago with a segment of new users to see how they would react to having the selected blue word stay selected when you create a hint so that you could see the yellow pane for that word. (ie. like currently clicking shift+enter for a hint). After gathering and analyzing the results, the test largely showed similar performance to the current implementation, however, in the end users seemed to create slightly more LingQs using the current implementation than using the test version. We were hoping to see an improvement for the new version which we did not see. However, we did have some feedback from some users who preferred it this way once we switched it back and we have had requests like the threads mentioned above. Therefore, we have decided to implement a standard mode option.

This option will replace the auto-scroll off option and will include auto-scroll off, no automatic skipping forward for the selected word and the arrow keys will move you from highlighted word to highlighted word regardless of colour.

We all have different ways of using LingQ. I am one of those who have always liked to Quick LingQ the blue words and then read with only yellow words, but I agree the ideal is to accommodate the different ways in which people use the site.

I don’t really think I am lazy, as kimojima seems to suggest. After LingQing, I read the texts, either on the computer, or now, more often on my iPad. I read not only because of my interest in the content, and not only because it is enjoyable, but also as a review of my saved words. I don’t do much independent review of words.

I use the mouse too because at first I’m a READER not a LINGQER.

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Kimojima,

I think it is enough to explain how you use the site without suggesting that other ways of using the site encourage laziness.

@mark - But the “correct” behaviour (and I think everyone here who doesn’t like the current one will agree) is not to stay at the current word after clicking on a translation or pressing enter (which is the behaviour you were testing) but to jump to the next highlighted word. In the screenshot I posted above (http://jakubmarian.com/lingq.png), after pressing enter, the cursor should jump to “llegó”.

Interpreting testing data in terms of the number of created lingQs is very dangerous. Of course, if you force users to read blue words without context, they are less likely to understand them and press enter before they realize they don’t need the hint. What your testing did not measure, however, is how satisfied the users were.

It’s very simple to measure satisfaction: Add a clearly visible option to go through all lingQs linearly (i.e. removing the shift behaviour and jumping to the next highlighted word after selecting a hint, not staying at the current one or jumping to the next blue one), and see, after a couple of months, how many active users have activated this option. I think you might be surprised.

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I am reading a text in Russian right now, a long one. I have relatively few blue words. In looking at the screen now, I can see 28 lines, and there are 12 blue words, although this includes place names some of which repeat so in reality there are 8 unique words. As I “X” these place name non-words, the repeated occurrences of these blue words will turn white.

My cursor jumps from blue word to blue word, as I hit the right arrow key, or Enter, or “X”… The blue words are spaced about 3-9 lines apart. I am able to read the text between blue words without difficulty or discomfort until I catch up to the next blue word, and then jump again. The blue words would have to be extremely rare for me to jump off the screen.

Amongst the yellow words, there are words that I want to review and I use the cursor for this. This is in fact a minority of yellow words. Yellow words outnumber blue words. There are also a lot of status 4 words, (underlined).

So, to me there is no problem. But I hear that for others this is a problem, whether because of the size of their screen, number or spacing of blue words, method of learning or personal preference. So I gather Mark and the gang are working on another option for these users.

I hear that Jakub would prefer to have the cursor jump to the next word, yellow or blue, if we press Enter or “X” or “K”, i.e. deal with a blue word. But if we then land on a yellow word, we will still have to press the arrow key to move to the next word, yellow or blue. So we need the arrow key to move away from a yellow word, but automatically jump away from a blue word to the next blue word or LingQ.

This seems to me not ideal. It would be more consistent to be in jumping mode, or in key stroke (right arrow) mode. Some users who prefer the key stroke mode may be confused at the cursor jumping, or else may want to linger at the word they have just saved. Pressing the arrow key not only for yellow words but also for blue words does not seem to me to be a big additional burden. Are we not better off to have one system for jumpers and one for key strokers.

I wonder, for the key strokers, whether we should not move to the next LingQ, including status 4 (underlined words). I find that I sometimes want to review them.

Await comments.

Steve, I don’t think you quite understand what Jakub wants to do. Jakub wants to read a text that contains both blue and yellow words. As he reads, he want to look up every yellow word in the text while at the same time looking up the blue words he doesn’t know and making LingQs out of them. He wants to do this with the keyboard.

“I hear that Jakub would prefer to have the cursor jump to the next word, yellow or blue, if we press Enter or “X” or “K”, i.e. deal with a blue word. But if we then land on a yellow word, we will still have to press the arrow key to move to the next word, yellow or blue.”

Yep, and in that time between landing on the yellow word and moving away from the yellow word, he will look at the hint for the yellow word, which is exactly what he wants to do. He doesn’t want the yellow word to be skipped automatically, because he wants to see the hint for the yellow word.

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Colin, the way I read Jakub’s comments he wants to automatically jump away from the blue word to the next coloured word, yellow or blue. See his comment below.

@mark - But the “correct” behaviour (and I think everyone here who doesn’t like the current one will agree) is not to stay at the current word after clicking on a translation or pressing enter (which is the behaviour you were testing) but to jump to the next highlighted word. In the screenshot I posted above (http://jakubmarian.com/lingq.png), after pressing enter, the cursor should jump to “llegó”.”

This was in response to Mark’s post about the changes that are planned, in other words a jumping mode (what we now have) and a key stroke or standard mode. In my view, there is no “correct” behaviour, and can’t we say what others will agree to without asking them. In my view, Mark’s proposed standard mode makes sense for the reasons I gave. Here is what he said in case you missed it.

"Therefore, we have decided to implement a standard mode option.

This option will replace the auto-scroll off option and will include auto-scroll off, no automatic skipping forward for the selected word and the arrow keys will move you from highlighted word to highlighted word regardless of colour."

I think Marks’ suggestion makes more sense for the reasons I gave. It seems you do as well.

I have no trouble understanding the issue. Although I do not find the present set up inconvenient, even if we are reading and LingQing at the same time, I understand that some do, for a variety of reasons. That is why Mark proposed a solution, the “standard mode option.” Jakub seemed not too happy with that.

Steve, it’s not really that important whether the cursor jumps after selecting a hint or not, but I think it is more logical and consistent with the current behaviour. Now, when you select a hint, the cursor jumps as well, but it skips all yellow words in doing so. The only change I wanted, really, is an option to “ignore colours for keyboard actions”. This option is just so simple to implement. It wouldn’t take more than 10 minutes of programming to do that.

My point is that I don’t see any reason to stay on a word I’ve just selected a hint for, marked as known, or ignored. This would only add the need to press the right arrow key every time after performing said action.

Although I am happy to hear there will be a “standard-mode option” (I somehow missed that when I read Mark’s message), I don’t really see a reason why auto-scrolling should be disabled in it (why not just leave an option to disable it separately? Whether you like auto-scrolling or not is not really related to other issues we are discussing here.)

We could have the following.

  1. “manual mode” and with no auto-scrolling, and no jumping.
  2. “reading mode” with cursor jumping from Blue words to the next coloured word, but requiring arrows to move from yellow words to the next coloured word, and with auto-scrolling
  3. “LingQing mode” with cursor jumping from Blue word to Blue word, and with auto-scrolling.

The danger always is that more functionality just causes more confusion.

dooo said back in sept 2012:

“The only other thing I may gripe about is that I wish there were a keyboard shortcut that just went through all words, whether blue, yellow or underlined. I prefer to just plow through stuff once.”

mark’s response:

@dooo - Interesting idea. We’ll see about adding other shortcuts once the dust settles.”

http://www.lingq.com/forum/3/16233/?page=4#post-114442

Thanks kcb. Should the move to the next blue word or LingQ, whether automatic or by key stroke, include the status 4 words. I wonder? I would favour this, at least for the manual mode, if we had 3 modes.