I'm not a big fan of the new stroke animations. I understand the advantage for beginners, since it reinforces stroke order, but for people past that stage it's a little time consuming.

Example. Usually when I forget part of a character, I'll tap the *show* button for a reminder and then start writing immediately. Just now I forgot the right component to the 徽 of 安徽. So I clicked *show*. Of course in the animation that followed, the part I wanted to see was dead last. So I waited for the animation to finish and then I started writing.

Could there be an option to toggle animations on or off? Is this feasible?

Thanks for the feedback. I want more feedback to see which should be the dominant state, and what kind of option is needed. I'm thinking a slider on the practice page, but if it's not a question of speed, then we just need an on/off toggle. This could be an option on the preferences page, or if it's really one-sided, you could just hold while clicking Show or pressing S to have it the other way.

So please speak thy tastes, all ye who Skritter.

I second murrayjames' comments. Stroke order is not a concern for me, and the animation actively disrupts the mental picture of the character I have. Most of my stroke order errors are in fact because Skritter didn't recognize my previous stroke, and I had moved on...

It would be good to be able to turn it off completely. A slider is of course fine if one extreme makes the speed infinite.

(Nick -- got your email too, thanks.)

I agree.

Also, was there every discussion of a "hint" option? Like to show only one stroke at a time, as opposed to the whole character?

If so, it was a long time ago; we don't have any plans to make a hint feature. You could fake it by writing three incorrect strokes, or by turning the animated phantom on and off, but those both mark you wrong. Would a hint feature be very helpful?

I've been faking the hint feature with three incorrect stokes all along. I think a hint button would save my WACOM tablet a lot of wear and tear. After only a month there is a distinct smooth box where Skritter has left it's mark. Thankfuly, I hear that chicks dig battle scars.

Yes, please, I constantly do three incorrect strokes to get a single-stroke hint. It's bad for my carpal tunnel.

James

I agree with the first two posts on the stroke order. The time doesn't bother me yet, but might after practicing hundreds of characters x_x

I think a 'hint' button is kind of redundant... either you know the character, or you don't. If you don't remember, maybe just hit the phantom button, then if it turns out you knew it anyway, just mark it correct? Adding another button to that bottom row will likely overcrowd it. There's already been times when I've gotten buttons confused or hesitated for a moment before pressing the one I was looking for.

By the way, we're in the process of turning the ignore button into a back button and the undo button into a settings button. Undo hasn't been very useful since recognition happens faster, and ignore will be a special case of a new self-grading system that will largely depend on keyboard shortcuts if you want to use it.

Would a keyboard shortcut do for hint functionality?

Yes, I think a hint key would be nice. Like m in spider solitaire.

I think too that it would be good to have a phantom on/off button, I find the phantom disturbing as stroke order isn't really a problem for me. But for beginners it's a very nice feature to have. As for hints, I agree with Chloe, either you know the character or not, if you don't know it at once, it's better to practice it more.

I disagree that you either know it or you don't. Sometimes, I really only need a single stroke and then the rest of the character pops into my mind and I would not consider myself a beginner. After that single hint, I will mark the character incorrect, but it helps with the learning.

Definitely prefer the old (lack of) animations, so I'd appreciate a toggle at the very least. When I forget a character I usually just need a quick 0.5 second look at it to remember before I write it out. The animations throw off that groove for some reason.

It's not a question of animation speed-- I would strongly prefer a toggle.

I'm with 董伴-Dǒng Bàn on the hint issue. I also often only still need that one stroke-hint to tip me off. If I feel I still really need the practice (and the character is worth practicing) I will just mark it as wrong. That level of learning is not as deep as with full recall...but I'm mainly interested in being able to read and recognize characters(which also allows me to write on the computer).

It looks like I'll be putting speed controls (including "infinitely fast", which would be the equivalent of the old way).

I'm not sure whether I'll put a keyboard shortcut to get it the other way, though. I could have it so that you press "S" to have it display immediately, and "Ctrl+S" to display at the chosen speed (or the other way around, your choice). There seems to only be 13% interest in having both versions accessible at once, though, judging from the poll.

Will figure the hint thing out at the same time.

The reason I would use "hint"　ｉｓ　ｆｏｒ　ｎｅｗ　ｃｈａｒａｃｔｅｒｓ　ｏｒ　ｗｈｅｎ　Ｉ　ｏｎｌｙ　ｗａｎｔ　ｔｈｅ　ｎｅｘｔ　ｓｔｒｏｋｅ　－　Ｉ　ｓｔｉｌｌ　ｃｏｎｄｓｉｄｅｒ　ｉｔ　ａｓ　ｇｅｔｔｉｎｇ　ｉｔ　ｗｒｏｎｇ　（ｓｏ　Ｉ　ｗｉｌｌ　ｈａｖｅ　ｉｔ　ｃｏｍｅ　ｕｐ　ａｇａｉｎ　ｓｏｏｎ）．　The　animation，　ａｓ　ｅｖｅｒｙｂｏｄｙ　ｈａｓ　ｍｅｎｔｉｏｎｅｄ，　ｄｏｅｓ　ｓｌｏｗ　ｔｈｉｎｇｓ　ｄｏｗｎ　ａ　ｌｏｔ　－　ｍａｙｂｅ　ｈｉｔｔｉｎｇ　ｔｈｅ　＇ｓｈｏｗ＇　ｂｕｔｔｏｎ　ｔｗｉｃｅ　ｉｎ　ａ　ｒｏｗ　ｓｈｏｕｌｄ　ａｎｉｍａｔｅ　（ｗｉｔｈ　ｔｈｅ　ｂｕｔｔｏｎ　ｃｈａｎｇｉｎｇ　ａｐｐｅａｒａｎｃｅ　ｔｏ　ｓｏ　ｉｎｄｉｃａｔｅ）．

I had an idea for the phantom shortcut which I think is better. Now, if you press down the "S" key or Show button, the phantom will start to animate; whenever you let up on the key, it finishes immediately.

So the old behavior is identical: press "S", see the phantom. But you can also hold it down to have it animate.

Additionally, you can now hold down "S" while writing if you really don't want the phantom to fade out. (Several people have asked for this, but it's dangerous because it makes it surprisingly impossible to learn anything if you're tracing it).

The control of animation speed will still be coming sometime later. Haven't had a good idea for a hint except to make another keyboard shortcut.