I click the "show" button quite frequently. I click it when I don't know how to draw a character, and sometimes I'll click on it if the character is really easy. One thing I don't like is, when I click the "show" button, it will show the character, but it wont show components within the character.
I wish it would show that info too, when I click the "show" button.
Any chance of this happening ?

If you wanted to see the show just for the pinyin, for example to confirm you're about to write the character Skritter wants, you wouldn't want a break down of the character itself to appear before you write it.

For me the problem with the pinyin show button is that it doesn't mark the word wrong. Its awkward having to remember to manually set the word back to wrong after having gone through writing the characters correctly.

I'm lost. My guess is Bohan is talking about the character show button (between 'erase' and 'correct') and Byzanti and wispfrog are talking about the pinyin show buttons when you have hide pinyin turned on.

@Bohan, I think the 'show' button is more useful if you hold it down for a split second, allowing it to show you the first one or two strokes as a hint. Maybe it would be better known as the 'hint/hold to show' or 'show/hint' button. In this case, you wouldn't want to know the components it hasn't hinted at yet. By the way, the 'animation speed' controls the speed of this 'show/hint' button. I use it but usually mark the character wrong if I do.

@wispfrog, I don't completely agree about showing hidden pinyin as a straight wrong answer. I know some people use hidden pinyin writing prompts as a double for pinyin prompts, but that's not the case with all of us. On the other hand, if there was an option for such a thing, I'd certainly use it.

Or is he talking about when the show button is pressed, he also wants the components displayed on the left?

Wispfrog: auto wrong wouldn't work at all for me. I check the pinyin after guessing which word is being asked for, and before writing it. Saves time instead of trying to write out the wrong thing.

@Byzanti - thats true - I do that sometimes myself. But I feel that the more common case is when I can't remember it. Maybe it just needs a keyboard shortcut.

Hi everyone ,

What I meant is the button between the "erase" button and the "correct" button.
So for example, if I'm prompted to write "window" and I can't reember, so I click " show" and see 窗 , it would be nice if the components of the character would also be shown. In this case : 穴 ，丿 ，口 ，夕 .
I know that the coponents show up after the characters are manually drawn, but I think it would be better if they're shown when the "show" button is clicked

I'm using Skritter same way as wispfrog does, and agree that the way it works now is inconvenient. After I click on Show and see the pinyin, I usually can write the characters correctly, and I need to set the word manually to wrong. It happens perhaps 75% or so of all the cases when I don't remember the word, so it's a bit disturbing.

I think that Bohan's suggestion, that character decompositions show up when show is finished, is good. I have put that on the list.

Marking the word wrong automatically when clicking the hidden pinyin bubbles is too inflexible, though; many use it in the way Byzanti describes, where they don't intend to mark it wrong.

wispfrog, do you mean a keyboard shortcut for showing the pinyin, or for marking the word wrong?

@Nick When you wrote "when show is finished", did you mean when the "show" button is clicked ?

Like Byzanti, I also used the hidden pinyin bubbles that way, and I agree that it's fine the way it is now.

Yes, or when you hold it down and the animation finishes.

@Nick. Cool!! Thanks for putting that on the list !!

Nick - yes, ideally keyboard shortcuts for both.... or actually, maybe even two shortcuts for show, one to show pinyin only, and one to show pinyin and mark wrong in one action. But then it would have to remember the wrongness through the process of writing the characters.

Yeah, a shortcut for showing the pinyin and marking the word wrong at the same time would be very useful.