Install Shinkanji ($5.99)Support
- Wednesday September 17, 2008
- new beta Shinkanji v3.4.0.7
(June 27th, 2010) - new beta v3.4.0.2
(June 13th, 2010) - shinkanji-lite version 3.3.0.5 in the appstore
(June 3rd, 2010) - version 3.3.0.6 is in the appstore
(June 3rd, 2010) - First feedbacks on the iPad version of the application
(May 31st, 2010)
47 Responses for "Support"
Any chance for an Android port?
There is a chance, however there is just me working on this program and it would need to be completely rewritten from 0 (the 2 platforms are so different that although the algorithms can be reused, nothing else could), so it will not happen soone. I am also considering a webos port.
In both case the main question is will such a port pay for me buying the device and required contract.
The paid version of this program crashes every time i open it. it crashes after about a minute.
The free version works fine.
I’m very disappointed as it’s exactly what i’ve been looking for.
BENOIT:
PROBLEM FIXED
After the recent updates the Shinkanji lite is crashing and I removed and reinstalled multiple times but still it is not working at all. Is there some problem with my iphone device or there is a problem with the software. Rest of the applications are working fine. Could some one help me out on this.
Thanks a for the nice software.
Regards
S V Prasad
BENOIT:
PROBLEM FIXED
Hello,
thanks for this report this should now be fixed.
Once again my apologies for this bug
Bonjour Benoit,
Je tenais tout d’abord à vous remercier pour cette application que j’ai pu tester sur un iPhone, je compte l’acheter bientôt pour mon iPhone mais j’aurai une remarque à faire sur un détail qui je pense peut apporter beaucoup pour ceux qui souhaitent l’utiliser de manière plus poussé.
En fait je parle plutôt bien Anglais, et je pourrais m’en servir en Anglais mais le fait qu’il est une localisation en Français est bien plus pratique pour travailler avec, en particulier la traduction des mots-composés. J’ai donc mis en langue “Fr” afin d’avoir tout en Français. Mais le soucis c’est que la traduction des mots-composés ne représente que des fois qu’1/5 de la totalité des compounds Anglais disponible. Je sais que cela pourrait être fastidieux pour tout traduire d’un coup mais serait-il possible en attendant d’avoir la traduction des mots composé Anglais en Français au début, puis tout les autres qui sont en attente de traduction, à la suite tel quel en Anglais, de manière à avoir pouvoir profiter des quelques traductions en Français (apparemment les mots composés de bases) puis ensuite le reste en intégrale des compound Anglais. Car actuellement en cochant “Fr” et “Ang” dans les langues, le sens est bien traduit dans les 2 langues mais pas les mots composés. Je suis donc obligé de jongler entre Fr et Ang afin d’en profiter au maximum, ayant soit 1/5 des mots composé en Français ou tout les mots en Anglais. Un mix des 2 serait donc génial
J’espère avoir été assez clair dans mon explication. N’hésitez pas à revenir vers moi si vous n’avez pas tout compris.
Bien cordialement,
Bonjour Julien,
merci pour se commentaire et pour ton intention d’acheter l’application. Comme tu sembles avoir explore les settings tu as peut etre remarque que tu peux aussi acheter a partir de la version gratuite les fonctions de la version payante (si tu les veux toutes, il est quand meme moins chere d’acheter direct la version payante, mais si seul 2 d’interesse ca reviendrait moins chere).
Pour ce qui est de ta demande, si je comprend bien tu voudrais avoir tous les mots composes avec les sens dans l’ordre choisi dans les options (par example fr si il y a sinon en dans le cas ou les langues choisies sont fr, en).
Ca me semble relativement simple a ajouter.
Bonjour Benoit,
Merci pour ta réponse rapide. Je ne savais pas que l’on pouvait acheter juste seulement des fonctions sur une version gratuite, mais au vue de ton appli qui offre une multitude de fonctions je préférerais l’acheter entièrement car toutes les fonctions trouveront bien leur place dans mon étude du Japonais.
Oui, concernant ma petite requête c’est cela. Car si l’on met en Fr ou Fr En, on perd une grande des mots composés disponible en Anglais, ce qui est bien dommage car la liste est vraiment sympas. Si c’est pas trop difficile à ajouter ca serait vraiment bien. Après dans l’idéal c’est sur que la traduction de tous les mots composés Anglais en Français serait génial.
Sinon une autre petite remarque d’autre purement subjective. Je trouve que la couleur de chaque Kanji en gris est un peu sombre. En effet, quand on passe en revue les kanji un par un on a envie d’avoir visuel bien clair et une couleur plus tranchant avec le fond blanc, comme le noir par exemple serait plus facile pour un bon visuel. Après ca ne reste qu’une opinion qui peut différer d’une personne à l’autre (un setting pour en changer la couleur ferait peut etre l’affaire alors?)
Merci d’avance
Bonjour Julien,
ajouter les mots compose n’ayant pas de traduction en Francais est tres simple et sera fait sur la version de developpement d’ici la fin de la semaine. Ajouter plus de traduction Francaise ne depend pas vraiment de moi. J’utilise le dictionaire edict pour avoir les traductions et le but de mon projet n’est pas de produire un nouveau dictionaire. Par contre j’upgrade la version d’edict a chaque mise a jour du produit et la situation devrait donc s’ameliorer.
Pour ce qui est de la couleur grise du kanji, je suppose que tu parle du kanji dans le diagram d’ordre des traits. le bleu que tu obtiens apres avoir appuyer sur play est il assez clair? Ajouter un settings de couleur pour ces elements est relativement simple, mais actuellement en fait je preferrerai avoir des themes de couleurs tout pret mon principal problem est mon manque de sens de l’esthetique.
Amicalement
Benoit
Nothing but crashes and non-functionality.
The lookup by radical doesn’t work (I can select radicals, but no matching kanji come up). Handwriting kanji likewise does not work.
I get crashes and for some reason a “Charging is not supported by this accessory” whenever I try to boot my iPod.
NOTHING works — I’m sorry, but I truly regret having purchased this application.
bakamitai,
I am sorry to hear about this, especially since you are the first one to complain about such a thing.
The first comment I have is that it is absolutely impossible for my application to have any impacts on booting your iPod. So I tend to think that this is a separate issue.
Regarding handwriting recognition, nobody has reported issues with it at any point.
Regarding radicals, there has been a bug where if you select a radical then quickly deselect it a crash will occur, it is supposed to be fixed but is it what you are doing?
Thank-you for responding so quickly.
In fact, my experience with ShinKanji does agree with aj’s: the demo apps worked, but the paid version does not.
As for radicals, in the demo version, I had some functionality: I would select a radical, and a list would appear below of kanji that included that radical. Selecting more radicals would narrow those choices; so far so good.
None of this works in the paid version. I can select a radical, but that’s as far as it goes. Nothing else comes up. I can keep on selecting radicals: nothing, nothing, and nothing. The spinning cursor in the bottom right operates — but evidently the dictionary cannot find anything. The first crash I experienced happened when the program was in this state.
I did not select a radical and then deselect it; no point to that, really, since nothing was coming up when I did a selection anyway.
As for handwriting, it is more or less the same experience. The free version operated well enough. Draw a character and get a character. In the paid version, nothing comes up except the trace of the drawing. Even simple characters — for example numbers — fail to bring up any alternatives from the program.
I paid for the application because I respect the ambition behind it, and because I have some idea of the labour that went into its creation. But as I said I regret having made the purchase now, when the lite versions ended up giving me more functionality than the version I paid for.
Hello Bakamitai,
Again I am sorry for the bad experience.
I hope I can clarify some things. The problem that AJ mentions is completely different from what you experienced and was fixed a while back. It was also independant of free or for pay version. One database was sent with buggy data in about 20 kanji a few of them were very common and belonged to some of the base list. Going to this kanji would crash and then subsequently the app would keep crashing.
I sent you a separate email with details on what we could do to improve the situation
Hi,
I bought two of the updates to the lite version (wasn’t fully aware of the full version) and sometimes, if the app crashes, the updates disappear and I have to redownload them.
Also, is there a way for me to directly upgrade to the normal Shinkanji from what I already have? Or do I have to rebuy it?
Hello,
thank you for having bought the upgrades. Regarding having to redownload the upgrade (which you can do without paying by tapping the restore button), I am sorry you experienced some crashes, if you have to redownload them it must mean you selected to remove your settings on startup. If you answer no to the prompt then you won’t need to redownload. In addition there is a new version of the lite application which is in the approval process which is fixing those crash that I know off. Finally based on this comment I am going to change the behavior of the setting reset when starting from a crash to ensure that it does not necessitate that you redownload the upgrades.
Regarding the second question, the answer is yes and no… If you buy all the upgrades you have exactly the same functionality as the normal Shinkanji app, so in a way that is how you can upgrade to the full functionality. However if you really want the full shinkanji app (remember the only difference will be the icon, startup screen and the exact date update are available in the store) you have to rebuy it as there is no way for me to do any different (apple does not enable us to set a reduced price for some customers based on previous apps or previous in app purchase).
Hope this answer your questions
Best regards
Benoit
I’ve just updated to iPhone v3.2.0.16 and it now crashes on startup…
The new update crashes on ipod late 2009. It was working fine till today.
Alex, Barney,
as I replied by mail I am sorry that this is happening as I haven’t seen it in any testing and neither did my tester.
If you try to restart the application does it give you an option to reset the settings before starting, did it help?
If it fails to work, can you try deleting the application from your device and reinstalling it from itunes?
Best regards
Benoit
Thanks for the very helpful and very prompt support – the new version works fine.
Bonjour Benoit,
J’ai acheté, après avoir essayé au moins un quinzaine d’applis différentes, votre Shinkanji.
Pour vous situer mon besoin : j’habite au Japon. Cela fait plus de 15 ans que je parle Japonais, j’ai passé le niveau 2, il y a longtemps, et maintenant qu’on n’utilise plus que les ordis pour faire des mails, comme la plupart des nipponophones, on perd les kanjis, on n’est plus capables de les écrire ! On est très nombreux dans ce cas.
Je dois avouer que je suis assez déçu par votre appli pour ce besoin. Honnêtement c’est la moins mauvaise, mais on est très loin du compte.
N’auriez vous pas idée d’une appli qui insiste beaucoup plus sur le travail de la main, car – croyez en ma longue expérience – les kanji se mémorisent par la main et ses mouvement, et non pas par les yeux !
Votre appli serait d’après moi la plus proche de ce besoin. Les autres en sont très loin. Si cette idée de développement vous intéresse, contactez-moi, je vous donnerai plus de détails.
Bonjour Benoit,
Apres avoir dessine un kanji (Draw) et l’avoir trouve, est-il possible de faire un copier-coller de celui-ci? Ca pourrait etre tres utile par exemple pour ensuite rechercher le kanji dans un dictionnaire comme Daijirin qui est maintenant disponible sur l’iphone.
Merci pour votre reponse
I bought Shinkanji for my iphone yesterday and I would like to know how to copy/paste a kanji I found using the “Draw” function.
Thank you
Hello,
sorry but it is not possible yet, it will be available with the next version though. The next version will probably be in a few week to a month, most of the changes will be the iPad compatibility but copy paste support is also part of the plan.
Bonjour Rudy,
c’est prevu pour la prochaine version. La principale nouvelle fonctionalite sera la compatibilite iPad, mais le copier coller sera aussi de la partie
hi, I just bought and installed the “Handwriting Kanji Search” extension. The first time I tried it though, the app crashed and when I restarted, I got the message “The app crashed removing all settings”.
The new extension has gone from the menu, and so has the 230 yen from my iTunes account. Is there any way I can get either back?
Thanks for responding so quickly; it’s all working fine now.
As answered separately by mail. Sorry for the crash, if you go to the store settings page, you can tap the restore button to reactivate all the options previously bought.
I am considering buying this App for my iPad (though I still have to wait for it to get released in Europe)
My Question:
With the informations released for iPhone OS 4.0 right now (especially http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/08/iphone-os-4-0-dev-agreement-blocks-using-flash-or-unity-as-ides/), does that impact ShinKanji in any way (i.e. Limit functionallity, to not even possible to port)?
Would be bad to purchase something, which I can’t use with the system update (though iAd may stop me from upgrading to OS 4.0 anyway :<)
Hello,
no it doesn’t, Shinkanji is written directly using the Apple tools and there is no special issue with regards to iphone OS 4.0.
Best regards
Benoit
Hi Benoit,
Thank you for your application. I’ve had the free versions for awhile but have just upgraded. It has proved very useful! However, since I have an iTouch and an iPhone, is it possible to import the bookmarks I made from one device to the other?
Hello,
I don’t know of a good way to do that for now. In the future (with iphone OS 4.0) I will introduce file sharing support. The bookmark lists will then become available for import and export. Today all solutions for this kind of issue would be fairly complicated involving an external cloud service or a desktop side program. I was investigating such solution but the new capabilities in iPad (OS 3.2) and iPhone (OS 4.0) will remove the need for such high cost solution.
Best regards
Benoit
Thanks! I’ll look forward to it. Thanks for the prompt reply.
hi, i had shinkanji lite and loved it, then i upgraded to full version and it was even better. great program, but my i phone crashed for some unknown reason and now after the restore, i only have shinkanji lite again. is there anything i can go to get the full version again with out having to dish out the cash again? please help me out.
Hello,
when you say you upgraded, do you mean you bought all the individual in App options or did you buy the full app (both are equivalent but the restore means are different).
In the first case you want to use the restore button in the in-app store.
In the second case the application which you bought should still be in your itunes App section. When you plug your device you should select it in itunes (it will show up as iPhone or iPod, then you select the Apps tab, shinkanji should be in the list of applications to the left and you can select it to reinstall it). If you have not synced with itunes I believe you will be able to redownload the app without being billed by apple again, please see apples notice on this topic here http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2519
Best regards
Benoit
Hello Benoit,
I am one of the people thinking of switching to Ipod Touch and your program is one of the main reasons why I may do so. However I’d like to first ask you specifically about your handwriting input. I am a Windows Mobile user – on a PDA – (Japanese OS) and I can say that their Japanese support it the best I’ve seen thus far. Now I tested Ipod Touch today for the first time (used the Chinese input system + the kana keyboard) and I found it both rather cumbersome. Especially the Chinese input system simply leaves out too many Japanese kanji and doesn’t really offer too many alternatives either . Now I have seen youtube clips with your Zinnia handwriting recognition and was curious: how precise is your system? Does it include all the Japanese kanji? And could I used it as a substitute for the Chinese input system? (i.e. especially with upcoming OS 4.0) I could switch between your program where i can input kanji and a full-scale dictionary such as Wisdom when looking for meanings of words?
Also is your handwritten recognition software the only available out there for ipod touch? Would you know of there are other programs that one could download and thus replace the horrible default system that comes with Iphones?
I am very likely to buy an Ipod Touch (leaving to Japan for 1 year long research trip) and I will buy your program as well. Still I hoped you could help me with my inquiries.
thank you very much,
ivo
Hello Ivo,
let me try to answer your questions. Regarding the difference between the chinese input method and the Zinnia handwriting recognition which I offer. Zinnia is fairly accurate and definitely more than the included chinese input method + it has undo and redo capability, it shows more candidates and the area for drawing is bigger. However I have to say that it is not as good as the ones on pure japanese PDA.
The system itself could include all the kanji but for performance and size reason I have limited it to the JIS level 1 kanji (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JIS_X_0208#Level_partitioning) this means I have in the app 2965 kanji recognizable by handwriting recognition. I could add a more complete dictionary as a downloadable option if it is requested.
This system cannot really be used as a substitute for the default method as it is only available from within my application. You could as you mention it use it to enter a kanji then copy the kanji, switch to another application and paste it there but it would be a bit cumbersome.
As far as I know this is the only Japanese handwriting recognition system for the iPod Touch or iPhone but while I used to follow every new application I am not anymore as there are too many so there could be other.
Finally, congratulation for your project to go work in Japan, I started writing programs such as ShinKanji when I was in a similar situation (working in Japan for my company for 4 years) and I did it for my own benefit, I was using the program (padict for palm) everyday many times. Now I am not in Japan anymore so I have less need for it but apart from the time developing and maintaining Shinkanji, I still use it for myself several times a week.
Best regards
Benoit
Benoit,
thank you very much for your quick answer. I was worried that you’d say what you written. It’s quite incredible that Apple doesn’t yet support better handwritten input – or one which would be solely designed for Japanese users. I will try to talk to them today to discuss this matter with them.
As far as the other software with handwritten input: I still think that you are really the only one who offers it – at least in the English spoken world. I have not yet seen a program that would have its own kanji handwritten recognition pad. Maybe some native Japanese dictionaries? Well I have not yet checked them out but my sense is that Japanese people need this even less than we do so there’s not as much of a motivation.
I know that for Apple computers handwriting input “MyScript” is very good and can easily replace the shabby Chinese input. But I wish there was something like that for Ipod as well.
Thus far WM OS really beats Ipod OS.
That said, thanks for doing all the work and good luck with your project. I will be following the development of your software.
Just to add one piece of information:
I’ve now talked to 3 people at Apple and no one could tell me whether they will do something about better Japanese support in the future. The only person who seemed to have some clue – software development department – said they can’t comment on future developments. So hoping for changes in Os 4.0 might be futile.
Hello, I just downloaded the app to a German iPod and the German translation is really bad, which is confusing. Is it possible to switch the entire application to English only? So far I only see an option for the meanings, not the entire GUI.
Thanks for reading!
I tried the draw/recognition feature of the full version with ?, the Kanji for [-times, round, game,…], which consists of two squares of 3 strokes each. Somehow it never shows up in the list. I’m positive that I’m drawing it correctly. The Kanji for mouth (the larger square) does show up.
Can you help me? This app will be of great to me, as soon as I get the recognition to work.
Hello Rob,
unfortunately it is not possible on the other hand, the next version should be much better as someone is helping me with the translation. If you participate to the beta program I could also build you a version with no German.
Regards
Benoit
It works for me it found it the first time around and was actually in the list after the fourth stroke, note that the stroke order is important, you can verify the correct stroke order by using the play button once you have found the kanji. Here is the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gocdKjz393U
Best regards
Benoit
Thank you very much again for your replies!
Is there any chance the Heisig number will be added to the lists for each Kanji?
http://ziggr.com/heisig/
Heisig’s method from Remember The Kanji has become very popular and I have seen various Kanji learning applications listing the corresponding numbers.
Also, being able to search for the number would be very helpful.
Quote:
Most computerized dictionaries, including kanjidic and rikaichan, contain Heisig frame numbers, so once you find a kanji in those dictionaries, you can find the associated frame in your copy of Remembering the Kanji without this index file.
hello ,i have just upgraded my shinkanji app( through i tunes ) before upgrading it was working nicely but after upgrading i cant upload the apps on my ipod touch..is it because the upgrade version is higher than my ipod touch version?
I’ll need to know the version of the os of your iPod touch.
not really a bug but a minor cosmetic error. the icon on the home screen reads “ShinKanJi” with a capital J which should be lower case. also, when in the program settings page, the title bar reads “Shinkanji” where the k should be capitalized. everywhere else you show the name of the app as ShinKanji, capital S and K. like i said, no big deal, but cleaning up these little inconsistencies will make the program look even more professional. thanks for a great app!
Will do. The splash screen may take some time
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