I have a very good experience to read some e-books in Adobe Digital Edition. I was thinking maybe we can make a little things to make reading at LingQ more comfortable. Maybe click a button to dim the page except the context, similar to Hulu( and when we clicked the “Update statistics” button), then we can press F11 to read in full screen. Wonderful!
Any suggestion?
It would be nice to improve the reading experience and is something we could look at in the future. I though Hulu was a video sharing site but it seems to be restricted to US residents. We will be making changes to the read page shortly although not the type of changes you are asking about. We will think about it for future updates.
Recently I read a lot of article at LingQ workdesk, but I cannot say that reading at LingQ workdesk is comfortable. I want to read more bigger font, becuase of my aged eyesight. I always make the font size bigger, using CTRL + mouse scroll. However everytime I make it bigger, the LingQ area is getting bigger and highter. The LingQ area reach over half of the screen. This big LingQ area always annoy me. I always press F11 to read in full screen.
I often use a mobipoket reader when I read the online article. Reading at mobipoket reader is more confortable when I read the article than reading at LingQ workdesk. I can make the font size bigger easily and there is no block area.
If we can pull down the LIngQ area with mouse, it would be nice. And if there is invisible button of LingQ area, it make me more confortable.
Hi Nobuo,
We have a change coming in the next week or so that will improve the lesson (reading) screen significantly. Be patient just a little longer. 
Ha! Hahaha! Finally some LingQers are using e-books!
I’ve been wanting an e-book reader for some time because I think it would work really well with LingQing. Only problem is, on the e-book reader I fancy you can’t highlight or make notes. Still I get free e-books and create LingQ lessons from them.
E-book readers leave a lot to be desired right now…
It seems Apple needs to step up and make one… Everyone else sucks at originality, Apple always sets the bar…
In the long run we know we have to make our functions, at least some of them, available on e-boo readers and other hand held devices,…but there is a lot do!
I think Workdesk lacks hotkeys for common operations. For example, when reading I control the sound with my left hand lying on space key and scrolling with right hand by mousewheel. Creating LingQs in such position with a hotkeys would be much more efficient, may be Ctrl+Leftclick or something, Then, having typed a tip in the box I often unconsciously press Enter but nothing happens… It is even more impartant if after pressing Save button the focus would get back to FlashPlayer automatically. These simple measures will make our work more faster and pleasant. I also vote for increase of the text window vertically.
Do we have any hotkeys, otherwise known as keyboard shortcuts? I would especially like to have a keyboard shortcut which I could use to mark a word as “known”. When I am reading, I often know a number of the words in the piece, and keyboard shortcuts would help me to accomplish the marking faster and with less pain. I have a problem with my wrist just now, which I hope is temporary, but may be permanent…as more and more people enter the older demographics, this issue will probably be confronting more of us.
By the way, I am back from being away for awhile…I traveled to Montreal twice this summer. The small amount of training I had done here at Lingq in preparation for the trip really got my ear tuned up and I was able to understand people better than ever before. And I am a French major! Lingq is a very worthwhile site and a great use of my time.
@Mark: I can’t wait! For me, there is no doubt, that the biggest obstacle to using lingQ is the e-reader. I would gladly pay beaucoups bucks for an e-reader-lingQ app that would allow me to interface with e-books that are formatted with really sharp, clear fonts and that could help me save my eyes and my back. I find myself leaning in to the screen because it is hard to see and uncomfortable to read. I usually read the e-book or pdf with my own pop up dictionary and then just use lingQ for the lingQ-ing feature. I love to read and read a lot but reading at the lingQ desk for me is a chore. Why can’t we choose a font? I think Arial (or whatever it is) is not pleasant to look at. (maybe we can already change the font but if so, I don’t know how and couldn’t find a way.) Why are paragraphs always separated by a huge space? Can’t we add an indent for the first lines of paragraphs? Contrast and lighting tweaking? Only a bright white background? Not that I’m complaining! I really like the service. If we could just buy the magical lingQ program to interface with a nice light e-book reader we could pass the time in airplanes or customer lobbies…, And maybe have it available for sale in bright colored boxes at airport kiosks all over the world with lingQ tutor/salespeople to help us learn how to do it! (Heh-heh! Just kidding guys! I know you’re way better than that…) Looking forward to any improvements you can give us!
@jbudding - Wow! You’re kind of leaping ahead there. We have no plans to do anything with e-readers, if that’s even possible. Someday, though I’m sure! Customizing the appearance of the lesson page is also an interesting idea. The upcoming changes will not be cosmetic however. They will be improved functionality. Stay tuned.
I’ve been doing most of my reading on my ebook ever since I bought it. I convert the “print” version of lessons to PDF format using virtual printer. I don’t have a problem with the fonts LingQ uses, and my ebook reader offers five different type files with PDF formats as well as PDF reflow.
It’s trickier to vocabulary lists on my ebook reader because they are set out in tables which the reader can’t reflow. It would help me if there were a text-only option for printing vocabulary lists.
My ebook reader is a Hanlin V3, I don’t know how easy it is to read LingQ lessons on, say, a Kindle.
@Mark - Alas, the real world, always imposing reality on us! Oh well, at least one can dream, and meanwhile, LingQ does keep getting better and better, so thanks for that. And I hope you all will be with us for a long time, so that little by little, we may end up living in that dream some day!
@Knowitsome- There are no keyboard shortcuts on the Lesson page other than “Enter” which saves your data on the LingQ widget. I’m not sure we can have keyboard shortcuts for the actions on the LingQ popup. We are always looking for ways to streamline, however.
@mark: when you do revisit the lesson page, could you possibly look at why it takes so much longer to create a lingQ for a phrase than an individual word? If I want to create a new lingQ for a phrase I have to go and put the kettle on while my netbook thinks about it. Running the script chews up all my system resources for a good 30seconds, which puts me off learning idioms and set phrases.
@SBTP
I have the same issue. I adapted by just LingQing the most important looking word in the phrase, then changing my flashcard settings to reviewing from the phrase on one side to the word and hint on the other…
I actually found this flashcard setting to be better for my LingQ review in general because it forces me to read unknown words and phrases in context while I guess the meaning. Also since words are more likely than phrases to reappear in other texts , it makes the cross-referencing of LingQs more interesting.
@ dooo Great reminder. Thank you.
dooo, brilliant!! And you do not have to wait for your daily LingQs, you can go to the vocab page, call up the flash card view and change your settings. Brilliant. This deserves a separate thread. Do like doooo!!
Is there a way to listen to an audio pronunciation of a single word using the flash cards. I think it would make it easier to learn the new words.
Not at the moment but text to speech is on our shortlist of improvements for the flashcards.