Install Shinkanji ($5.99)What’s coming
- Monday September 22, 2008
Hello,
I lost during the hack attacks all the suggestions and bugs in bugzilla. Therefore I am now collecting again suggestions for improvements. Please record them using enhancement (and bugs) tracking tool
Right now 3.1 is almost ready here are the things which will make it into that release (they are already in the beta):
- numerous bug fixes
- improved look. The initially planned new look won’t make it but incremental improvements have been made.
- settings to select which information to show in the kanji screen and in which order
- setting to make the kanji diagram scroll with the information
- in the radicals search screen those radicals incompatible with the currently chosen ones are highlighted in red to show that choosing them would not be a good idea
- in the radical search screen, as soon as one selects a radical, the search result is updated in the background (no waiting until the OK button is tapped)
- update to shinkanji-lite so the functionalities present will be at the same level as those of shinkanji
- information about which list the current kanji belongs to.
- improved performances
- kanji note taking
- german localization
Things still planned but which probably won’t make it in the app until 3.2
- new look. There will be a new optional look which should make those who don’t like the current one.
- in app purchase. The shinkanji-free app will be replace with a 0.99$ app which will be upgradeable piece by piece through in app purchase to reach the functionality level of shinkanji.
- German kanji dictionary. I have licensed a for pay kanji dictionary to support German. This will be available as an in app purchase including for the full application as there is a license price I have to pay for each copy of this dictionary
- better copy paste support. There will be a way to copy the current kanji or compound, either by having one non link kanji or compound per page or by having an explicit copy button
Shinkanji improved radical search in v3.1
be advised that this video is recorded using the simulator. Response times on the device are not as good.
19 Responses for "What’s coming"
I’m not sure where this “leave a reply” goes, I hope I’m not polluting the website.
Anyway, I was really looking forward to a kanji learning application. There are many options, but none actually reach the goal. Kanji flip only goes from the kanji to the translation, and does not quiz the stroke order. Your application has a stroke order system, but does not use it for quizzes. To sum it up, I would really be interested into an application that could:
- Quiz kanji, according to a learning curve e.g. SuperMemo2;
- Quiz to/from all the meaningful components, in particular kanji=>reading, kanji=>meaning, meaning=>kanji;
- Allow kanji input using the stroke system, and provide feedback on erroneous order or poorly adjusted lines (like King Kanji did);
- If possible, allowing custom lists or multiplatform clients would be awesome, but that might be pushing it a bit.
So basically, my question is whether or not you’ll be implementing a quiz/learning curve system. Ironically, even though your application is the nearest to my “dream app”, it is of no use to me as it is now…
Being a coder myself I might be willing to invest limited amounts of time were it to help towards that end.
Thanks for taking the time to read my suggestion.
I completely agree with chyro! Even up to helping with the coding. In fact, if chyro hadn’t posted such a suggestion, I would have.
I would also REALLY like that you can turn off romaji. That really annoys me with other programs.
Also, maybe associate a picture with the kanji, rather than the English word.
But these are only hopeful suggestions! Hope to hear from you soon!
Me too! I would vote for turning of romaji and having stroke order quiz!
Hello,
about turning off the romaji, it is possible today and when a quizz will be available it will be possible
Thank you, I see it now that the Romaji can be replaced with Kana, that’s really good.
I have some other remarks, they maybe of help. One thing is that the interface is a bit sluggish (I see that this is meant to be developed now) and has too many small elements. When using the application for a bit longer or not too good conditions (sunlight, crowded train), this is going to make eyes tired. So I would love an option to turn of those red boxes in the kanji diagrams (or replacing them with red starting points of strokes), and yet another thing is that fonts with Serifs (Times New Roman for example) are wearisome to the eyes when not on paper and in proper light conditions. I suggest you use everywhere only fonts without Serifs (arial etc). Having much small elements in UI is really bad in longer perspective. Designers say that KISS principle (Keep It Simple and Stupid — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle) is most important one. Also the background image is not really user friendly thing (although it can be turned off).
Also can handwriting input be configured in “pro” version? I mean the density of reading finger movement and swithcing on/off the grid, and changing background color? The stroke width? I feel a lot of apps have much better drawing ergonomics than ShinKanji…
But I am planning to buy the application in near future. Good luck!
I knew that I liked this program, but yesterday I spent 10 minutes watching some of the videos provided here; and now that I understand it better, I LOVE this program! I agree with others that testing – especially testing for a specific list – would be a nice addition. I also request lists for compounds. But this is already a wonderful study tool. Thanks.
Hello Träm,
it took me a long time to reply to your comment, I am sorry but I hadn’t noticed it.
Regarding the many small elements in the interface, this is too sweeping a comment for me to reply too. Just know that I am trying to simplify the interface but I also need to be able to offer the expected functionality in an easy to access way.
To answer to the more specific points, having a setting to disable the red squares at the start of the stroke is certainly feasible. I think it is important to know where is the start of the stroke so I would probably want to offer options to customize the way those are drawn. I am not sure what you mean by red points, do you mean a red circle which would have the same radius as the cap of the stroke? Or a circle the same size as the rect with the stroke overlaid on top? I’ll send you mockups by mail.
Regarding the font with serifs there are not many but there are some in the section titles, I am redesigning the look anyway and maybe adding themes so I will take this into account. The way the interface is laid out a theme can easily be done using css the issue is more about the designing of nice themes.
Regarding configuring handwriting input, I can certainly offer many parameters such as like you suggested the density of reading of strokes but also many other tuning parameters, I am afraid of overloading the settings though but I’ll experiment with it and wee what my testers think.
One can already turn on/off the grid. Regarding changing the background color and the line width why not but that is really far down the priority list as I am not making a drawing application but a kanji lookup fonction in a kanji dictionary. For instance I don’t remember that apple has many options to configure their chinese IME (which is not a good reason since I had to develop a handwriting recognition functionality to compensate how bad their ergonomics is with no undo redo and too small a drawing area and too small a number of potential results)
Hello Stan,
thanks for the support, the lists of compound will certainly come soon as this is but an extension of the existing features, the testing will come in time but as it is to be a whole new application it will be much later.
Hello Benoit
I’m close to join the iPhone community (one main reason is ShinKanji!) and have the following question:
Do you have any plans to later implement a learning tool for people learning Kanji according to the Heisig-Method (J. W. Heisig -Remembering the Kanji).
I’m currently using a WM5 PPC which enables Kanji reviewing (which is explained here):
http://www.kanji-lernen.de/html/kanjigym_light__english_.html
(I have the KanjiGym Light program for Palm OS with Styletap emulator).
The (KanjiGym Light)-learning software will present by random the “Heisig” key word for the Kanji; after the handwritten input of the Kanji it can be checked if the Kanji was remembered correctly.
The addition of such a tool would be of essential value for all people learning Kanji according Heisig-Method and using the iPhone for reviewing the learned Kanji group (depending on progress).
Thanks a lot for your answer, Hilmar
Hello Hilmar,
I am glad to hear that you think highly of ShinKanji. Do you mind telling me how you heard about it?
Regarding your question, I do have plans to eventually create such an app, however I don’t have any target date set for it.
Hello Benoit,
thanks a lot for quick reply!
Before possibly buying an iPhone, I was searching the web (Google and iPhone apps store) if there’s serious Japanese language/Kanji support that will replace my WM5 PPC (iPAQ rx5935 with installed Mobem CE-Star Suite, Ookii.org “Japanese Input” and “Pocket Dictionary 1.2″, PAdict, and Styletap enabling “KanjiGym Light” to run under WM.
I found ShinKanji mentioned on following websites:
http://www.mrbass.org/iphone/japanese/
http://chesterong.com/2009/07/12/iphoneipod-touch-apps-japanese-dictionaries/
…forgot to mention; adding German language for the Kanji meaning (translation) would be a big plus.
Sorry, please delete my last comment concerning German Kanji meaning.
I learned on your webpage that German is already implemented (although it is not yet mentioned on the webpage http://www.mrbass.org/iphone/japanese/kanji/ (updated March 28, 2009(!)))
Hello,
in fact German is implemented for the compound words but not for the kanji. The reason is that the free kanjidic2 dictionary which I use to retrieve the kanji meaning does not contain german.
However I have licensed a for pay german kanji dictionary. It will be available as an in app purchase so as not to impact on all users the price of the license. The development work is mostly done (except for the in app purchase part) but this feature is not yet available.
Hello Himar,
it is interesting that you are a Padict user as I was one of the main developers of that program and it was a source of inspiration for ShinKanji.
Compare to padict the handwriting recognition uses a different algorithm but I think it works better. The main draw back is that I cannot color the strokes based on how close they were to the chosen result which I could do in padict and which I want to do when I implement a quizz functionality.
I was wondering if an update is planned where you can add sound files to all the vocabulary in the app like on WWWJDIC
it is not planned yet but would be a nice feature. The reason it is not planned yet is that I don’t have access to the material, I need to have a license agreement with japanesepod101
Hi, Benoit,
We corresponded a bit during the PADict days before I peeled off into Windows Mobile land because of the great Japanese support on that platform. I’m wondering if you’re considering adding more dictionaries–to look up entire words, not just single kanji. I’ve just ordered an iPod Touch, largely to see how well your kanji handwriting input works. I’ve developed (under a licensing agreement) a version of Eijiro with yomigana added (the yomigana make it much easier for foreigners to use and make it possible to look up words by hiragana or kanji). I haven’t pushed it for iPhone, though it’ll run under a couple of iPhone apps, because of the iPhone’s lousy Japanese support. But the Japanese input methods in your program could really make it worthwhile to put Eijiro on the iPhone.
One comment on the suggestion for adding sound files from japanesepod101: you may want to listen to a few before putting any effort into that–on a lot of them it really sounds like a foreigner, not a Japanese, speaking, and on many that could be a Japanese, the pronunciations sound far too casual–check out the usual “hashi” vs. “hashi” and see if you agree (maybe it’s just my bad Japanese rather than something wrong with the pronunciations, but when I compare them with the pronunciations in PlaySay [expensive, but you can get free samples] the difference is dramatic).
Hello Peter
I remember our exchange. I have just moved to a new appartment and so not have Internet access yet outside of my iPhone so this will be short.
There is already support for searching whole words in shinkanji but it could be improved. I suggest we talk more when I have a connection again
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