Anyone know of a way to get word definitions while reading, like rikaichan, rikaisama, rikaikun on Android? I intend to use this while reading txt files [novels] and it helps enormously when not having to look up unknown words. I would be surprised if no one has developed something that could do this.

Using a chrome extension is out of the question because android's chrome doesnt support them yet. Firefox addons might work, but rikaichan is not supported yet. I heard of the rikai browser but there is no way to download the application anymore.

In the meantime I have been parsing the text files through http://www.rikai.com/perl/Home.pl which will generate an html file with definitions/readings which is pretty useful, but is a manual process. Additionally, for some reason (probably javascript issues) the definition popups are incredibly slow/do not work on chrome/firefox, but surprisingly work well on the default browser.

Now, I can read txt novels on my nexus 7 and touch an unknown word for a definition/reading popup. Its rather nice, but it would be great to get this on a browser.

It would be a godsend to get rikaisama on android, with its voice playback and japanese/japanese dictionary, but there are no plans for development on the platform.

Guess that means no one knows

Hi! I also just bought a Nexus 7 (my precious) and I have the same problem! But my question is different: How do you import HTML files from PC to parse them in Rikai? I still have to figure that out.

Here's Rikaichan for Firefox Android (v2):

(see https://github.com/ispedals/Rikachan-Android/releases for downloads; this thread for updates)

Changes
* You no longer have to enable Rikaichan for every web page. Rikaichan will be enabled for all web pages and tabs until it is disabled from the menu
* Added pitch accent information from Rikaisama
* Added Rikaisama's formatted save option

Installation Instructions
If you have installed Rikaichan Android before, uninstall it (menu ➡ addons ➡ Rikaichan Android ➡ uninstall) and restart Firefox before installing the new version

From Firefox for Android, tap the link of the version you want. It should then say "Downloading addon". After a while, depending on your connection speed, it should ask if you want to install Rikaichan Android. After clicking install, wait until the "installation complete" message appears. If you click on the menu, you should see a new item that says "Rikaichan".

Usage
From the menu, tap the Rikachan button. A message should appear saying Rikaichan is enabled. When you tap the first character of a word on a webpage, the Rikaichan popup will appear. Tapping on another word or tapping on the popup itself will make it go away. Double tapping, scrolling, and pinching still work and will not cause the current popup to disappear. Rikaichan will be enabled on all tabs. To disable Rikaichan, tap the Rikaichan button from the menu again.

Popup window
Unlike the normal Rikaichan popup, the popup contains five icons:

⇦: Tapping this will cause Rikaichan to move one character back. This is useful if, for example, you are looking up the word 理解 and accidentally tap 解 instead of 理. Tapping this arrow will make Rikaichan move a character back and will now correctly look up and display the definition of 理解.
⇨: Tapping this will cause Rikaichan go to the next word if possible. Rikaichan does not try very hard to find the next valid word, so this may not always work.
❇: Moves the popup to another location.
?: Saves the current term to a file. You must first set the filename in the options.
✂: Copies the current term to the clipboard.
You can also customize the format of how the term is saved/copied like in Rikaisama in the options (see Options below)

Tapping the popup will cause it to close, but tapping any of these icons will not.

Options
The options can be found by tapping the menu ➡ addons ➡ Rikaichan Android. These should mostly be self-explanatory and are all options included in normal Rikaichan and Rikaisama.

*The option, Filename to save to, must be set to be able to save terms to a file. An example filename is: /sdcard/Download/Words.txt
* Save Format uses the same format as in Rikaisama

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At this point Rikaichan has most of the features I need from desktop Rikaichan and Rikaisama (I may add Sanseido support later). However, I'm open to implementing any other features people want.

ballonguy,

I tested Rikaichan Android on my tiny 4 inch Galaxy (Gingerbread + latest non-beta version of Firefox) and so far it works as advertised. Good job!

it does work very well. thank you very much!

I found this: http://www.appszoom.com/android_applicat..._yzed.html
It's not in Google Play though. I didn't try it yet.

And who would've thought that the "balloonguy" would be our hero? Thanks a lot mate!!

(Tested on Firefox for Android 17.0 on Android 2.3.7 on Samsung Galaxy S, works fine!)

The Rikaichan Android addon works okay. The big problem I find is if you click anywhere in the vicinity of a link, Firefox thinks your clicking on the link. So you'll go to a lot of unwanted pages while trying to select kanji. >_<; Also it's simply no Rikaisama.

Balloonguy - This is basically exactly what I was looking for. It deserves its own thread. I dont know how many people would use it, but it is absolutely a godsend for reading novels and such (in txt form) on my android phone or tablet.

It works very well and performance isnt really a problem on my xperia ray 3.2" screen and nexus 7. Its much more usable than anything else I have found so far. Are you developing this actively?

Hi Balloonguy,

This thing works like a charm on my Galaxy Note 2 7105 with Jelly Bean 4.1.1.
Esp. with the hovering feature of my S-pen, the experience is almost exactly like rikaichan on my PC

May I know if you've hacked this add-on personally since I don't see this add-on on the official firefox android add-on page.

Another thing that you're already aware is there's not close button for the pop-up and having to enable rikai chan every time a new page comes up. Lastly, it'll be great if there's an indicator that says how much longer the download will take for the add-on since the add-on page on firefox android doesn't specifies that like the PC version... Not sure if you can do anything about it though...

All in all, great work! Please keep it up

Thanks heaps this is a great add on! I hope you will continue updating this as it is an invaluable tool! A tip for users I found putting the website into reader mode and using a stylus helps when selecting the word. Thanks again!!!

I've updated Rikaichan Android:

(see https://github.com/ispedals/Rikachan-Android/releases for downloads; this thread for updates)

Changes
* You no longer have to enable Rikaichan for every web page. Rikaichan will be enabled for all web pages and tabs until it is disabled from the menu
* Added pitch accent information from Rikaisama
* Added Rikaisama's formatted save option

If you have installed Rikaichan Android before, uninstall it (menu ➡ addons ➡ Rikaichan Android ➡ uninstall) and restart Firefox before installing the new version
(see above for more information)
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Thanks for the feedback, glad to know it works on other devices.

Yes, I've just hacked and pillaged things from Rikaichan and Rikaisama to get it to work (my thanks to all of Rikaichan's contributors and cb4960) and I can't do anything about not knowing how long the download will take, sorry. A stylus does help in preventing inadvertent clicks on links. I followed these instructions for making a stylus using a cotton swab: DIY: The 2-minute Stylus. When they say to wet the tip with a drop of water, you really only need to use a single drop.

Wow! This is wonderful - works great on my Samsung Galaxy Note 2. Thanks very much!

Hi balloonguy,

Would love to know if you'll still be updating this wonderful plug-in?
Would love to be able to close the pop-up window when certain definition table gets too large and obscures the phone's screen estate.

Thanks again for the great work

I wrote something for Android specifically for reading Japanese TXT file with the ability to search EXACTLY like Rikaichan using a downloaded EDCIT. Originally I was writing the App so that I can search for word more conveniently without needing a data plan.

It's not published on the Android App store, are any of you interested? I can publish it to the App Store (though it's still kinda in beta form). It'll be free and open sourced as I've made use of the Rikaichan algorithm.

I'd be interested in it. I was considering developing a Japanese reader like this to read 小説 but didn't have the time, so publish it on the App store or just even provide the apk. I'm also interested in the source code.

Yeah, it'd be great if you published it or even just provided the .apk.

The source code would be nice as well.

For some reason rikaichan on firefox/android keeps uninstalling itself on my smartphone but not on the nexus.

rrrrrray Wrote:I wrote something for Android specifically for reading Japanese TXT file with the ability to search EXACTLY like Rikaichan using a downloaded EDCIT. Originally I was writing the App so that I can search for word more conveniently without needing a data plan.

It's not published on the Android App store, are any of you interested? I can publish it to the App Store (though it's still kinda in beta form). It'll be free and open sourced as I've made use of the Rikaichan algorithm.


http://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o711...81cc7c.jpghttp://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o711...928caa.jpghttp://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o711...678464.jpg

Looks great! Hope to see it in the App store soon

Hello, rrrrrray,

I'm looking forward to this app - any news about when it will be available?

Thanks!

rrrrrray Wrote:I wrote something for Android specifically for reading Japanese TXT file with the ability to search EXACTLY like Rikaichan using a downloaded EDCIT. Originally I was writing the App so that I can search for word more conveniently without needing a data plan.

It's not published on the Android App store, are any of you interested? I can publish it to the App Store (though it's still kinda in beta form). It'll be free and open sourced as I've made use of the Rikaichan algorithm.


http://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o711...81cc7c.jpghttp://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o711...928caa.jpghttp://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o711...678464.jpg

Hi Guys,

I uploaded the app to Google Play.
I didn't have much time to improve upon it, so it's still in beta. But I think it's very useable.

Please search "JadeRead" on Google Play.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...zyz.mobile

Hope you guys like it.

Please send me any bugs you found or feature you wanted to have in the next version.

rrrrrray Wrote:Please send me any bugs you found or feature you wanted to have in the next version.

Access to the external SD card would be great!

jaderead is wonderful. much faster than using firefox with a plugin and it saves position when you close the file. the only suggestions i can offer are pinch to zoom, opening non txt files such as html as txt, opening the most recent file automatically on launch, and some way to highlight/copy words that the dictionary cant find like text selecton.

[RawToast]

rrrrrray Thank you for Jade Reader, it truly is wonderful

One thing I have noticed is you can only select folders from the /sdcard directory. Phones with internal memory and an sd card slot also have a /sdcard1 directory. I have noticed this on other apps, probably because the API won't let you navigate up to / in order to get to the /sdcard1 directory.

@sikieiki I have updated the app with the option to automatically launch the last file you are reading on, and the ability to make selections. Please take a look! I think my next step is opening HTML file has text, but I'm currently busy with other stuffs.

@toshiromiballza
I tested the app on my HTC Incredible S, I was able to access the sd card's storage. Is it not possible for you? What is the model of your Android device?

@RawToast
It could be an API limitation. I don't have enough devices to test my application and the Android emulator is painfully slow to use.
/sdcard is your internal memory while /sdcard1 pointing to your external memory card? What is the model of your Android device?

Now I've associated my app with text file, so you can workaround the problem by opening the text file directly from another file manager and choose Jade Reader to open it. Util then.