New Features for a New ChinesePod

John
 May 27, 2008, 09:01 AM posted in General Discussion

Hi everybody! We hope you like ChinesePod's new look, but we want to be sure that you don't miss the new features. Let me tell you about some of them.

Grammar Guide: You've waited, you've inquired, you've made jokes, but hopefully you haven't despaired. Because it's back! What we have now is just the beginning. This is going to be the place to go when a podcast doesn't cover grammar in-depth enough for you, or if you just want to dig deeper into Chinese grammar.

Community Search: You've been asking for this feature for a long time, and here it is (finally)! It's right there in the sidebar on the Community page. For now, it only covers user post content (title and body), not lesson comments, and not comments to user posts. We will continue working on those, but we wanted to get this basic functionality out first. When you do a search, it also searches for matches in ChinesePod usernames at the same time.

Glossary: Any word that is featured in a lesson will show up in the glossary. It's like the previous ChinesePod Dictionary, but more up to date with new words from new lessons, and better integrated with the site.

iPhone site: Is there any other way to browse the mobile web? It has audio and everything!

Lesson Manager/Vocab Manager: Managing your vocabulary and your bookmarked lessons just got a whole lot easier. Labeling vocabulary and lessons, bulk editing, and removal is now a breeze.

Lesson Sets: A few collections of related lessons, conveniently grouped for you to add all at once.

Listening Test: Try out the newest version of this simple comprehension test to see where you fall in terms of ChinesePod podcast difficulty levels. (It only goes up to Upper Intermediate, so if you're Advanced, you should know it!)

If you have any questions, problems, or comments, please let us know here.

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henning
 May 27, 2008, 08:04 AM

Hi Master John!

Congratulations!

Have you changed the MAU-algorithm as well?

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light487
 May 27, 2008, 09:14 AM

I like most of what I am seeing but one thing does immediately irk me.. the size of the pictures in the Community conversation listing means that only a small number of conversations fit on each page. I liked it before how I could see about 20 or so conversation at once. Is there an option to reduce the image size or remove them completely like it was before?

 

With the slowness of the server retrieving pages, it's a little frustrating to have to go to the next page of conversations each time..

 

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henning
 May 27, 2008, 08:10 AM

The new mobile site ("iPhone site") does not work for me. Characters are not displayed properly. Windows Mobile 5 - after lots of struggles with Chinese support.

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John
 May 27, 2008, 08:14 AM

Henning,

Do you think the MAU algorithm is different? :)  (It actually went a little funny in the last month...)

Thanks for the update on the character display on the mobile site. We will look into it.

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henning
 May 27, 2008, 08:18 AM

Well, with those funny entries I could easily convince everybody (boss, wife, etc.) that it was just a strange coincidence that I am always on that list. Because of course in reality I spend all my time either working hard or caring for the family. No time at all for posting messages here...

;)

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hankfdh
 May 27, 2008, 08:21 AM

@henning,

All the sites - including the mobile sites - use UTF-8 encoding consistently. It will be interesting to see how ArabicPod works out!

H.

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wildyaks
 May 27, 2008, 08:30 AM

Here it is - the updated Cpod. It looks cool. Will have to look around a bit more, when I have more time.

Congratulations!

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wildyaks
 May 27, 2008, 08:31 AM

Wow, and one can now edit comments... That has been requested by many.

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richyfrost
 May 27, 2008, 08:33 AM

Looks great, really like the update.  Seems to have had a speed bump too which is nice!  Is the mobile phone number in the profile made public?  Or is it kept private just for use by Chinesepod teachers?

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michele
 May 27, 2008, 08:37 AM

It seems very good looking, but what happened to Traditional PDF? I can't see anymore in my RSS, and what makes me worry, I cannot see even the possibility to choose them in my RSS....

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sanptest111
 May 27, 2008, 08:08 AM

Good site. 很好很强大.

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michele
 May 27, 2008, 08:39 AM

hmm... I have 15 minutes to edit my comment, that's good!

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tstox
 May 27, 2008, 08:39 AM

Two comments/ questions:

  • In the Flashcards application, is there no English option anymore?  I usually pick the English option so I can learn how to remember the Chinese?
  • Also on Flashcards, I now need to go back to the vocabulary list to pick a new label.  Before, I had all the labels listed on the same page.  That required one step less and was more practical.  Can you add a "label" drop down box in the Flashcard application?

 

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amber
 May 27, 2008, 08:42 AM

hi michele,

The traditional PDF will be back soon.

Originally there were two ways of receiving the traditional PDF.  One was a plug-in, it will be back but not until we have finished the changes to the core site.  The second way is by RSS feed.  This will be back soon as well, just at the moment you will have to bear with the Simplified til we get it up.

Thanks for your patience! :)

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amber
 May 27, 2008, 08:46 AM

hi tstox,

The no English is a bug, will be fixed up asap.  It will be back!

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amber
 May 27, 2008, 08:46 AM

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henning
 May 27, 2008, 08:47 AM

hank,

thanks for the answer. I know the Mobile IE is to blame.

But: With the old V3 mobile site the characters displayed fine. Maybe some kind of meta-tag could help?

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chanelle77
 May 27, 2008, 09:07 AM

Hi Guys, 

Love the new look and feel; nice work! It feels like having a new bag ;-)  Thank you for helping me survive China!

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fjeffrey
 May 27, 2008, 09:10 AM

I like the new user interface, but I noticed when I was using the flash cards that the meaning does not show anymore when you push the show button. Is there a way to have it show?

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hankfdh
 May 27, 2008, 08:37 AM

@richyfrost,

Yes, the mobile phone number is ONLY used for communication purposes between teachers and students. This is private info. We are also looking at some opt-in services to memorize vocabulary through SMS, but that is down the road.