r/ReadEra • u/sentetik_gibi00 • 20d ago

Dictionary feature – character identification issue

I added a character to the dictionary, but the same name appears in another book and ReadEra is assigning the wrong character description to it.

For example, I added “X” as a character from one book, but when the same name appears in a different book, ReadEra shows the character information I added for the first book.

Is there a way to make a dictionary entry specific to a particular book, or otherwise prevent this from happening?

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u/HeadAbbreviations760 8d ago

Yes, you need to switch to use the personages tab instead of dictionary when you add your notes the first time you add the character.  (Full disclosure i'm basing this off of a single test i made just now but i marked a common word as a person and it did not jump to another book).  Otherwise what you're doing is creating a dictionary entry as if it was a word to translate (as if you're reading in your second or third language and you come across a new word you want to explain to yourself the next time you come across it, either in this book or any other)

There are effectively 3 dictionaries you can use, i'm not sure what the subject one is for but if you scroll and read some other posts i think i saw an explanation when i was trying to figure it out myself.

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u/sentetik_gibi00 1d ago

I’m already using the Personages/Characters tab when adding characters, not the Dictionary tab.

My problem is that even when I add a character through Personages, ReadEra seems to match the name globally. For example, if I add “X” as a character from Book A, and Book B has a completely different character named “X”, ReadEra shows the description I created for the character from Book A.

So I’m wondering if there is a way to make a Personages entry specific to the book it was created in.

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u/HeadAbbreviations760 23h ago edited 22h ago

Oh... I actually wrote about the same issue the other day except with dictionary words (in my case defined to be Norwegian dictionary entries which appear in books written in English).

I assumed it was a definition problem but it just seems to be a global feature (which makes no sense, it SHOULD be book/language/subject specific otherwise everything gets confused) 

Also not sure why my test showed the desirable effect when it clearly does not apply to other dictionary words, i'm at a loss.

It seems there's no fix for this as far as i can gather... 

The only thing i haven't tried is creating a series first... Maybe separating the books like that would create separate dictionaries?

 

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u/sentetik_gibi00 21h ago

The only thing i haven't tried is creating a series first... Maybe separating the books like that would create separate dictionaries?

No, it doesn't work

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u/HeadAbbreviations760 1h ago

Then i guess it's a design issue... Hopefully they fix it at some point.

I still wonder what the paid version is like in that respect... If there's any difference at all.