Morse Elmer does have a user(s)

I received an email today from a Morse Elmer user!! (yes they do exist...)
He was reporting a bug... a field isn't displaying properly in the Progress/Edit view...
The second field "XX chars" is suppose to show how many characters were in your training set...
It currently shows 1 all the time... the user was using the Default Training Set.

this is a hold over from version 1.1, when there was only 1 training set.
Now I have multiple training sets... and each set has a num chars used field... because you might be training with 13 characters in the default set, but only 2 characters in the prosigns set, etc...

so what to do now... I have only one field in the database for this, but two value to store.
I can actually get the the two values into a single field, but what to do with all the values everyone already has stored in the Morse Elmer DB...?!

I get to release a new version that now has to include a CoreData Migration something or other...
upgrade everyone's db to the new format.  bleh...

Well it's something to work on.

This user also made a couple of other suggestions, some of which I'll include in the next release as well.

hmmm off to do some Core Data Migration reading.... >.<

Version 1.2 is now live!!

Just checked and the latest version of Morse Elmer is live in the App Store! :)

Next Version submitted to the App Store

Version 1.2 has been submitted to the App Store.
This version includes:

• Custom Training Sets 
• Fixed and Random word lengths 
• Delay before audio starts when training 
• 90% training goal marked on graph 
• in app options for feedback and support

Hopefully with this new version I'll get some direct feedback.

I'm looking for suggestions about how best to utilize the screen on an iPad for the 2.0 version.

Social Media

Beginning to integrate Social Media into the next version of Morse Elmer.
Mostly as a method to increase direct feedback on the app... Right now there's no way to respond to user comments in iTunes.  So I'm going to provide additional channels for them to reach me.

100 Downloads!!

Submitted the 1.0 version in late January... 100 downloads by April!  Not bad...

starting version 1.2

Well I've gotten some good comments on version 1.1 and have come up with a tentative list of features for the next version:

• Add a line on the Progress Graph at 90%
• Add a visual 3-2-1 countdown before the training starts
• add a setting to choose between fixed/random length words in training
• add a feedback  section to settings and add website/blog lengths to help
• custom training set so you can focus on trouble characters.
• bugs fixes

some things I'm considering for 2.0

• iPad version, if I can figure how to utilize the space
• in app text entry while training

I really want to get people to provide me direct feedback so I can improve Morse Elmer.  The comments in iTunes don't really cut it.   Starting with version 1.2 I'll hopefully improve that with the various additions for feedback

One reason I'm interested in feedback is I'm all for making a universal version to include the iPad, but I need suggestions on how to take advantage of the  screen real estate.

More to come 

Why doesn't Morse Elmer show a keyboard when training

I decided when I was writing this app that I wanted Morse Elmer to focus on teaching people Morse Code by ear...  I tried to minimize anything that would distract from that.  You might have noticed that I didn't include a Morse Code lookup table anywhere in the app.  I wanted to minimize the visual association of dots and dashes to letters.  I want you to focus on the relationship of the sound of the Morse Code to the letter.  

Another comment has been the lack of a way to enter training results directly on the iOS device.  I personally judged that the iOS text entry interface would be another distraction from learning the Morse Code... I don't want to people distracted from the training trying to find the correct key for the last character they heard... or trying to correct the last character because they accidentally missed the character then falling behind.  I've had a couple friends who've learned Morse Code in the military and they used a type writer... a full keyboard would be an option, but then only for those touch typists out there...

There you go, just the reasoning behind some of my design decisions for Morse Elmer.

I'd love to hear what you think.

Version 1.1 is live in the App Store!

the title says it all

What's new in Version 1.1

Version 1.0 shipped with at least one known issue, imperfect audio rendering. I also had ideas about variable frequency and only a single Training set, but I decided to run with what I had and see what the reaction was.

So far I think the reaction has been favorable, but several reviewers reinforced my concern about some of the known issues.

So with version 1.1 I've improved the audio rendering, hopefully to a level that will satisfy everyone using the app. Additionally I've added the ability to change the frequency of the audio that is generated. Lastly I've diversified the training sets... in addition to the primary training set that shipped with 1.0 I've added training sets that just contain letters, numbers, prosigns and punctuation.

I've had thoughts and requests about adding a capability to train using sample QSO's, but that will have to wait until the next version.

Introductory Post

Well I've had a couple of dozen people download Morse Elmer and I just submitted version 1.1 to the App Store. I decided to include a blog on the outside chance I had anyone with questions or suggestions.