- What is an early preview?
- As the name suggests, this is a testing version of
the site. Many of
the final features are not available, and the interface may be a bit 'rough' - you'll
likely experience bugs. The
purpose of the preview is so that real users can 'battle test' the site and give
feedback, and so when it launches officially it works as expected. Also, it ensures that
I better understand the needs of users, the types of features that are
important, and bugs are fixed.
It gives you a chance to give
feedback and be part of the process of making the site better for you and other
users by highlighting issues that are not necessarily apparent while I'm building the
site.
- What is the Discord Channel?
-
The Discord
Channel functions as both the site community and the place to give feedback.
- What new features will be coming?
-
Soon to be implemented:
Show in-depth word info (Dictionary page entry), Show in-depth kanji-info (Kanji page entry), Favorite words, View History, Tag Words, Save sentences, Speak sentences (Speech synthesis), Related Kanji, Verb form explanations, Particle usage information, Upload files, Share, Word frequency info, Hide show particular furigana, Hide show furigana depending on frequency/JLPT Level, Annotate words, Contextual grammar lessons, Download translations - useful for long texts, Annotate sentences, Single word entry, Large text analysis
Medium Term:
Study texts,
Study Cards,
API,
English-Japanese dictionary
- Some features from before are
missing
- Remember this is a preview. In order to ensure the
smoothest update, each
feature will be rolled out one by one based on feedback from users within the Discord Channel.
The features will come thick and fast over the next few weeks.
- Will I lose data and history if I
switch between the two sites
- On the official launch day, all the data of the
old site will be synced to the new site. You'll be able to do this manually in advance
if you desire. The old system allowed for favoriting words. There will be a much
improved tagging system, but these words will be transferred. In short, you won't lose
data as both sets of data will be combined.
There is a small possibility that your history on this preview might not be saved.
However, this should not be the case.
- Where are some changes to date?
- Ask on Discord
about this but a fundamental change is a better 'breakdown' of words which better
corresponds to a learner's perceptions of what a word is. The system also presents
furigana as written in Japanese.
The enables many more features that depend on users being
able to annotate words, save words, determine frequency, list kanji - all features are
ready for testing.
A complete behind the scenes rewrite has made the code much
easier to update so expect new features to be added much more frequently once the first
main release is completed.
Examples
A short (incomplete) list of improvements to the conversion engine.
|
Name
|
Old
|
New
|
|
Better Breakdown
|
日本語
|
日本(Japan) + 語(language)
|
日本語 (Japanese)
|
|
Recognizes People
|
村上春樹
|
Murakami + Haruki
|
Murakami Haruki (1949-)
|
|
...and places
|
目白駅
|
Mejiro + Station
|
[station] Mejiro Station
|
|
Verb Forms
|
食べさせる
|
-
|
eat (causative/make)
|
|
勉強する
|
勉強(study) + する(do)
|
勉強する (to study)
|
|
Better Furigana
|
食べ過ぎた
|
食べ過ぎた
|
食
べ
過
ぎた
|
- There don't seem to be any length
limitations
- During the testing, you will be able to upload
large texts. This is part of the testing procedure. Part of the update is more efficient
conversion of very large texts.
- How long do you envisage this
taking?
- The first full release will hopefully occur during
October, 2022. The old site will remove up during November.
- A feature I really need is missing.
Can I suggest it?
- Yes. Go to the Discord Channel.
- A feature that was in the old
version is missing. Is it gone for good?
- Unlikely - it will likely be part of the rolling
update. Requests made by multiple users in the Discord
Channel will be prioritized.
- A feature I really need is missing.
Can I suggest it?
- Yes. Go to the Discord Channel.