I don't really understand this and I guess that makes me an idiot because the newsletter says it is now "dead simple".

Okay, so suppose I want to bring my review queue items due down to zero, and I want to split it up by doing writing first and then the rest. I go to the review queue, click "study" and then go to the settings in the top right of that page and change it from "keep adding new words" to "review these parts only", and then click on "writing" and unclick the other parts. Is that right ? If that is right, then suppose I haven't added any new characters/words to my Skritter account, then where would the new words be coming from anyway?

I guess I don't understand what the function/purpose of this new feature is, and how it's better than the way it was a couple of weeks ago (alpha mode off) in which all we had to do was choose the parts we want to study and click "save", and then re-adjust any time we wanted to only study another part.

@Bohan it's better because it suspends adding. Before, if you turned off writings, that wouldn't suspend all of your lists and your queue; as you studied, you'd still get new words added, and since you'd turned writings off, the new words would be added without writings. Then when you turned writings back on you'd have all those words added without writings and you'd have to go find them and re-add the writings.

oh okay, I think I understand that part now. Thanks for the explanation!

So from now on when we want to adjust which parts we study, we have to change the settings from "keep adding new words" to "review these parts only" and then choose the parts. Can we just leave the settings on "review these parts only" and only change the parts around, or do we have to switch it back to "keep adding new words" from time to time ?

You can do either. However, if you want to add new items instead of just reviewing, you'll need to change it to "keep adding new words".

what about when I cram new lists ? I usually separate it into parts. Does this mean that if cram a list and do one part at a time, that the words/characters in that list aren't going to get added to the queue ?

If they words in the list aren't added already, you'll need to turn the parts on and off in the account study settings instead to be able to focus on those parts while adding the new words, and go through the list multiple times.

I did not get the news letter ;-(

It might have gotten caught in a spam filter somewhere, walid. You can check it out here:

http://www.skritter.com/newsletters/11-02