Hi,
I wanted to do a quick post about some news
The first news is that I have finally reached the 100 000-250 000 download level on the android market !
It is quite humbling knowing that so many people downloaded and use my app … I have to work harder to fix the bug there still is in the app … speaking of bug, some people noticed that some vocabulary were mistakenly added to JLPT level.
For instance 九品蓮台 ”nine-tiered lotus leaf platform in Amitabha’s Pure Land” was labeled as “JLPT 5″
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Sorry I have not noticed this issue earlier, but I did not find time to work my vocabulary recently ^^;
Next, I am still working with Obenkyo V3, but the adaptation of the interface layout creates some issues I didn’t expect.
Yet, I can show you the direction I want to go with the interface:
Here is the main screen on tablet mode with a nice picture from Japan (for those interrested it is Engakuji in Kamakura), I will see if I can enable you to set it as a wallpaper for your tab and I will see if I can send people interested to information from wikipedia or japan-guide for instance (in this case it would be: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3103.html ).
I have many pictures to update them regularly from my trip to Japan 2 years ago but if you have some pictures from Japan that you want to share please send me a mail 
Let’s continue with the new kana list layout:
Clicking on any kana will send you to the detail view and as you can see we have now in a single view both the kana list and the list of test available. There is also a new button on the top bar (the action bar), that let you go to the selection mode directly:
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The app asks for no authorization and the flowers change color when the device is being charged (can be changed in settings).
It is our first live wallpaper and is currently still in beta, but if you want to try it please send us your remarks and bugs or if it impact to much the desktop performance / autonomy.
EDIT: for now, I removed the QR code, as it seems there is issues with the application causing crash. please contact me if you have this problem so that I can help you resolve it.
We tried it on :
August 29th, 2011 - %I:%M %p
Ola.
Sur HTC Desire, c’était mon premier fond d’écran animé, sur une machine qu’est déjà bien remplie (vive les roms Orange (huhu)), or, quand j’ai cliqué sur AnoHi, il m’a affiché le fond de fleurs, deux boutons sélectionner/parametres, la barre du haut, mais est resté freezé.
Deuxième essai, plus sérieux, à partir des fonds d’écran animés htc : ceux là marchent et n’ont qu’un seul bouton sélectionner. Quand je lance AnoHi, même résultat, reboot.
Et évidemment, je n’ai aucune idée de comment générer un crash log…
Pour l’instant, peu concluant
August 29th, 2011 - %I:%M %p
… Ok. Suite au deuxième essai, après le redémarrage, le fond d’écran est en fait installé. Le problème, c’est qu’il plante aussi… Du coup je n’ai plus de téléphone pour le moment. Mmm
Bon bon bon, je sens que je vais passer une bonne matinée moi.
(Je pense qu’un message d’alerte sur la page s’impose)
August 29th, 2011 - %I:%M %p
merci pour l’essai
le fond de fleur ne bougeait plus dans le menu de sélection? tu as du redémarrer le télephone?
ca sera dur de faire un log si ton télephone reboot, hormis installer les outils de développement ^^
c’est bizare, il faut que je trouve d’autres télephones pour tester :/
merci pour ton aide
August 29th, 2011 - %I:%M %p
Ouaip, comme je te dis, il est déjà bien rempli donc pas évident de savoir si c’est l’appli ou le téléphone le coupable… Ça m’aura permis de découvrir le mode sans échec qui permet de démarrer son téléphone android sans lancer la synchronisation avec votre compte Gmail.
Pour démarrer dans ce mode sans échec, il faut garder la touche “menu” appuyée pendant le démarrage du téléphone.
(Je copie-colle, ça peut servir)
August 29th, 2011 - %I:%M %p
il y a peut être une instruction que le desire ne supporte pas, et qui le fait crasher, mon frère va devoir analyser ça.
EDIT: d’ailleurs c’est quelle version de ROM que tu as?
September 2nd, 2011 - %I:%M %p
Alors, j’ai une officielle HTC/orange (ouais, joie)
Android 2.2
Baseband 32.49.00.32U_5.11.05.27
Kernel 2.6.32.15-ge2c73db
htc-kernel@and18-2#1
build 2.22.73.5 CL283825 release-keys
September 2nd, 2011 - %I:%M %p
Et j’hésite à tester sur la xoom du coup :p
September 2nd, 2011 - %I:%M %p
ok je vois.
il a bien apporté une modification qui a amélioré le comportement sur son Motorola cliq, mais a ce moment j’ai un problème sur mon Galaxy S, donc pour l’instant il faut qu’il fouille un peu plus – il fera une version application qui ne pourra pas faire rebooter en boucle le telephone pour tester de toute façon.
Pour la Xoom, elle est matériellement très proche de la transformer, j’aurais tendance a penser qu’il ne devrais pas y avoir de problème, mais j’hésite à te le demander
September 11th, 2011 - %I:%M %p
Can we make personal lists under vocab? If so, how do we do this? Managed to name and “upload” but did not show selected kanji and just took me to a blank screen. Is this coming soon? Also, it would be great to be able to search for kanji by the romaji rather than just the translations (especially if you are trying to make lists!!). Thanks.
September 11th, 2011 - %I:%M %p
Hi Sarah,
You should be able to do it the same was as the kanji … on the “change selection” screen input a name (it’s hard for now depending on your device but I have fixed it for V3), and it should refresh the screen with a new option : “load personal list”. and if you press the icon, it should show you all the personal list you have created.
And if you press one list it will load it.
what is the difference with you ? where does it fails ? what is your device, what version of the OS ?
Concerning the search by romaji or kana, I will be working on it for V3.
Thanks
September 11th, 2011 - %I:%M %p
I am using the latest version (I have no updates available when I check it on the android market) on a Samsung Galaxy S2. When I try to make a personal list it lets me enter the name, I hit “Upload Personal List” and it refreshes to a new page where it shows my list. However the vocab I can see listed are not vocab that I have selected (for example ベルト、デーと、内/中、発明 etc.). I had gone through and selected all the words I wanted to study from before trying to make the list. If I select the list my screen says please wait for about 2 seconds and nothing changes. There is a heart icon next to the list but it is grey and if I select it, it takes me a blank page that still has “Obenkyo” at the top.
September 11th, 2011 - %I:%M %p
One thing : the heart with a minus sign is the button to delete personnal lists (so it’s pretty logical that it will remove the list on the screen).
And when you click on the list when you go back the saved selection should be loaded again.
Concerning the vocabulary in the list indeed it seems to be wrong … I will add a fix for this to the version I will release in the coming days (2.6.5 with some fix and a new finish translation – will release it when the translation will be good).
I will indeed have to improve the usability of the personnal list :/
Thanks
September 12th, 2011 - %I:%M %p
Okay! The selections did change when I changed the lists!! I was thinking that it was going to take me to a new page or something I guess. Since I only had one list it wasn’t very apparent to me that anything was changing. Thank you for explaining it. ^_^ I feel a little silly now. Maybe just a little explanation on how to use lists somewhere would be enough, like “Select list and go back to select study method” or something.
So the only thing that isn’t working is the vocab it is showing under the names of my lists. Other than that the only thing I can think of to add would be the ability to search the vocab by the Japanese pronunciation.
September 12th, 2011 - %I:%M %p
Sorry for the poor GUI but it was added “quickly” by request and I never updated it since … going back to the selection screen should be a given yes … the thing is that is should be easy to code too … i’m not sure why I did not code it …
I will see for next release.
and for the search again, it’s something I will be working on V3 (it’s not so simple to do a romanji search when all the data I have is in kana, I have to convert your romaji in kana or convert all the database to romaji … and with the different forms of romaji its all the more complex ^^; )
I will be working on it … once I manage to finish to have the new tablet design working
September 13th, 2011 - %I:%M %p
Hopefully you could renew the ‘random’ method in the next versio
I started studying hiraganas, the first 15 ones and it only asked about 6 different ones of them all. Seems like it picks the random value based on the time spent on guessing the letter so if one spends 3 seconds on each it tends to pick the same letters for the next round. Keep up the good work!
September 13th, 2011 - %I:%M %p
Hi,
Well no the random method is a regular random that is by default (can be changed in settings), weighted by the score you have for the kana char (so the more you are wrong the more it will show up).
I am considering adding the “time parameter” (like time attack & time trial) but it won’t be in the near future unfortunatly
September 17th, 2011 - %I:%M %p
Hi Atomusk –
I really appreciate having your application available!
I’d like to make two feature request –
a) A vocabulary mode where you are shown the English word, and need to type the Japanese word, rather than choose from a list.
b) A kanji mode where you are shown a kanji (and maybe a sentence), and you need to type in the reading for that kanji, instead of choosing from a list. (Like what readthekanji.com does.)
Does that make sense?
Thanks again!
September 18th, 2011 - %I:%M %p
Well I must admit that have not considered this test primarily because I actually consider it too hard for my personal level ^^; and also because I never used a Japanese IME ^^;;
I will try to consider it for future updates …
thanks for the suggestion
Atomusk
September 25th, 2011 - %I:%M %p
Hello
Thanks for the app – I’m using it from beginning of the year, after introduction of vocabulary even more.
I’m going to beg mainly for one feature:
Prettily intimidating! For test purposes shorter list can be created, but how to prepare for that test? Please, add an option that divides such large collections (above 300 kanji) into fewer amounts, say 150 to 200 (as in school levels, it works great!); I’d suggest using kanji frequency or such order from those listed under the kanji.
As you can see, usually in learning, material is divided in lessons – small parts, easy to be remembered quickly. That is useful and acclaimed pracice. Then you can turn your own app to see ~1200 kanji in one hardly seekable bunch on JLPT 1
Minimalistic interface is great (black background helps saving energy on display
), but after reading that you use tablet, I could understand why I barely can see readings in “recognize kanji” or in last answers on FOUR inch screen. Next request: add option for such font scaling 
I see that you plan to change interface in V3. Add manual or more explanations, as some icons aren’t intuitive (“well, does that icon work…? I wonder if could try, it might format my phone”). Also I’m generally disappointed by amount of options in phone apps, I like messing with settings
So if you’d add more options, I’d be happy 
One hint: add level marks to kanji listed under entry in dictionary part: it should help checking, if kanji used don’t exceed current level of kanji learning.
Bug mention: I tried changing language in settings, but it seemed pointless as kanji meanings and vocabulary entries were still English-based (tried German). I observed that immediately after change kanji database seemed to be gone, but going through some screens refreshed succesfully. Then went back to default… kanji lists, vocabulary, were completely gone! Even restarting app didn’t help, only changing language again to other and then back.
Another: I can memorize well for each kanji, where proper answer will appear when testing… (like “upper left for 装”) please, shuffle better possible answers! Also possiblity to be tested with 9, 12 or even 15, instead of 6, possible answers would be great, even with more scrolling.
Now again thanks and I’m eagerly waiting for possibility to divide kanji list into smaller parts
September 26th, 2011 - %I:%M %p
Hi Gorat,
I will see if I can split level in “sub levels” with customisable size but it will not be for next version (there is some substancial changes to do) – it’s a pretty regular request, and I believe it would not be “so hard” to do …
Concerning V3 my main goal right now is to provide a tablet version (it’s pretty hard to have both smartphone and tablet version to work but I am making some progress :p ).
Concerning the possibility to do a “manual” I am pretty against it … first, it would require me to ask more to my translators, but as people often ask for features that are already in the app … I would rather make change that “advertise features better” than doing something like a “manual”
Font Scaling : for the vocabulary text size, I am also using a smartphone, and I am aware of that the text size makes it pretty unreadable … but there is so much data to display … your issue is with the test screen ? Or the Kanji screen ?
I think I will increase the size of the font on the readings of the test screen … it’s true that it’s pretty small :/
But the issue with text scaling is that it would make the screen design work harder for me since the screen have to be good for all devices.
Good idea to add the level of the kanji in the vocabulary … I have to improve this screen (I have in the database some info about vocabulary : Verb, Adjective … I have to find a way to display it).
For the translation, I have to check if I can reproduce your bug :/
But you have to consider that I don’t have the translation for everything. For vocabulary for instance I only have French (my mother language) and english.
For kanji I have more (spanish, German for the low levels …) so it might look like the translation went back to English …
The “database lost” issue is more problematic … but sometimes it seems that the database is locking itself and I’m not sure of what to do to “unlock it” … I will have to search a little bit on this subject …
Also for the “answer shuffle”, it is also a popular request, but I have to consider the “false positive” when the word applies to 2 responses, and would require some changes in the code …
will work on it
More choices : there is a problem of screen size to consider, but it could be a good idea to add a little bit of customization, indeed.
Thanks for theses suggestions, I am sorry I won’t be able to work on them for V3 (god I want to finish with this V3 version – I will probably post something on the blog in the coming days about it).
Regards
Atomusk
October 1st, 2011 - %I:%M %p
Yes, fais signe pour la v3. Je suis meme pret a crasher la xoom.
October 2nd, 2011 - %I:%M %p
pour le coup il va falloir encore un peu de patience
(c’est pas tout ça mais c’est que ça en demande des changements les framgents ^^ )