Lesson ID Redirect

John, this seems like it should be really useful, but how do I know the ID of the lesson I'm looking for, before I get there? I've just been doing an Elementary lesson which I only know was "B0305" because that was on the PDF file name when I opened it. But it would be very handy if I could therefore enter "cpid B0306" to jump to the "next" elementary lesson (I like to go through them sequentially on the IPod or I lose track of the ones I've done). But 0306 isn't in "my" logical sequence - it's an advanced lesson from the same date (couldn't that just be "E0305"? Then "B0306" would be guessable..). What I'm really getting at I suppose, is that I'd like to be able to use this redirect-ability instead of trawling through the Lessons list, but to do so I need to know the ID of the lesson I want, and that's not easy to find (or guess). How about including it in the title of the lesson, so it's visible in the IPod list interface?

leviathan, The Chinese usually refer to "BitTorrent" as "BT." Sometimes BT means 变态 in net-speak, though, which might be annoying.

ok, that's a workaround to searching lessons by number (would still make sense). but how to go about searching conversations other than googling? I'm not even talking about full-text searching within the posts but at least searching the subjects. Lesson conversations are easily found but how about the others?

jazz, You know the ID from the PDF and from the MP3 and PDF filenames. We don't have an ID for each level because we don't encourage studying the lessons in order. The lessons were not created to be studied in the chronological order they were published (with only a few exceptions). If you're just trying to study all the Elementary lessons, then what you need is a system for tracking the lessons you've already studied, right? We already have this in its basic form, but we're working on improving it.

goulniky, What is your "turn-the-lesson-name-into-a-url php utility"? Link us to it! Conversation search is a whole different matter altogether and we agree it is necessary.

If you're using iTunes, the track number is also the file number - so for a recent file, "Asking for English Books" is A0601, and in iTunes the track number is also 601. (iTunes doesn't take 4-digit track numbers, so I'm not sure what's going to happen in 13 months...) That being said: adding the lesson number SOMEWHERE on the lesson page would improve things a lot; I'd also like to see a big spreadsheet style page with all of the lesson names, their levels, and the file number. If the items were linked and the whole list sortable it'd be very sweet indeed, but at least a list would help people a lot. Right now there must be so many lessons going unused because people don't happen to stumble across it in a search, and trawling through the lesson lists, page by page, is too tedious. Organization tip: in iTunes I rename files and add metadata to help keep them organized. For example, all Newbie files are Disk 1 of 6; all Ellie are 2 of 6; and so on. I also rename the albums: for all the main podcast files, I re-name the album "ChinesePod - Podcast". All the dialogue-only files are "ChinesePod - Dialogue", etc. Between the track number, the disk number, and the album names, it makes keeping track of things a lot easier. Sort of unrelated but still in the convenience vein: please please please add a link, on each lesson page, to the html file, simplified or traditional. I often want a quick look at the html file, but I have to download the PDF, open the PDF, click on the "text version" link, then add a little "trad" text the url. (Of course, digging through my computer to find the already-downloaded PDF file also works, but takes even longer.) (Is the traditional html feature even advertised anywhere?! I think I only learned about it through a conversation posting somewhere.)

YAY thanks John!!!!! am doing a review of the newbie & ele levels via the dg.mp3's.

No prob! Is anyone using the Firefox keyword trick? I use it all the time (with all kinds of keywords), and it saves me a ton of time. The way I usually use it is actually slightly different. If you use Firefox, you can right-click on the text input field of pretty much any kind of search box and add it as a keyword search that way. I keep all my keyword searches in one bookmark folder. I use keyword searches for: CPod IDs, dictionary lookups (multiple), thesaurus lookups, torrent searches, website proxies, image search (both Google and Baidu).

Hmm, not working for me. We are supposed to use this location or not? Location: http://chinesepod.com/lesson-redirect-v3?lesson=%s Keyword: cpid

Man2Toe, Yes, that's correct. Maybe you're using the keyword wrong. You have to type it into the location bar at the top of your Firefox browser window (where the URL usually goes). Make sure there's no "http://" or whatever in front of it.

cool, but as John said it only goes to the main page so that won't make my little turn-the-lesson-name-into-a-url php utility redundant quite yet (also allows search by number :-)

You shouldn't have to load it in the sidebar. I don't. Doesn't making the keywords all caps slow you down a little when you use them?

I forgot to add %s and worked without the %s in the sidebar? Weird huh http://search.us.reuters.com/rsearch/rcomSearch.do?blob=%s

That is weird. The %s is critical; it's where the lesson ID number (or whatever comes after the space when you type it in the location bar) goes.

THANK YOU FOR THIS REDIRECT!!! It was on my wishlist (as you may have figured out)

Still wonder why lessons pages use such a long, human unfriendly URLs (even though they use words, doesn't seem easily memorable or typeable). Especially the advanced lessons, where I get a nice long string of encoded unicode characters at the top of my browser. Wouldn't it had been easier to just make all the URL be .../learnchinese/A0501/ or .../learnchinese/0501/ ? The page Title already does a good job of telling us what the lesson topic is, and doubt anyone gets it from the URL. Not asking you to change it (this instant anyway, ha ha), but was there a design reason in there, John? Interested in knowing. Maybe being a web programmer I find short-n-sweet URLs more useful, and you'll more often than not find me often typing URLs... even for ChinesePod pages... I'm not a Bookmarks/Favorites user.

I forgot the ? in the location url, but now I am just sent to the home page, not the actual lesson.

Is there a word for torrent in Chinese ? All i can find refers to weather! 要中文Torrent搜索引擎

Rich, The titles in the URL are more human friendly (despite your programmer inclinations), plus they're more SEO friendly. Evidence still points to the URL content making a significant difference.

It didn't work at first because i forgot to check 'Load this bookmark in the side bar' I've hidden my sidebar also! Added CPID, CPD, TRZ, WPB Firefox trick will save more time that i can measure