Fabrice --

Yeah, in the HIG they state that they won't allow any 'loading screens', but if you like at 75% of the application screens.. they have them. Even some of apples own applications have splash screens. But just in case I'll send you a backdrop with the toolbar so that you can put the loading screen above the toolbar.

For the icon, the 512x512 is just the application icon bigger. Not a screenshot or anything like that.

So good slices would be the icon 29x29 png, icon 57x57 png, icon 512x512 png, kanji backdrop square png (however big it was), paperweight png (minimum size that captures all shadows)

I believe that would at least be a start. I'm really not a proficient at graphics stuff at all so forgive me! By alpha do you mean a on a white background, or transparent? If possible transparent is best. I think I answered your question? :-P

John

I use my iPhone all the time to study Kanji. Particularly when on the move 'if' I can get connected. Not easy to do on a UK iPhone when I go to Japan though. Anything you can do that makes it not completely dependent on web access would be great.

Mind you, I have no idea of the complexities involved! Am in complete awe of your abilities to do this.

One thing I am missing slightly at the moment is the ability to work backwards from kanji to story. I do a slight work around, but just wondered if there is something I have missed.

Mike.

ファブリス Wrote:- "Kanji Practice Shodou" > kanji drawing screen calligraphy style, with paperweight at the top of the screen. This shodou setup is the idea behind the screen, to give a traditional calligraphy feel

love the shodou idea!!!

Mike,

The plan is definitely to have an offline ability. Though there are certain things that just don't make sense offline. I don't want each phone carrying around the entire revtk database so things like stories, etc will all be transient. (Cached for the lifetime of the running application)

But reviews, adding cards, removing, etc should all work without the site. You'll have to sync it up with the site though if you want the changes reflected on the main site (of course).

For the Kanji -> Story, I'll have to think about it. It's definitely doable but I vaguely remember something about this from the Reviewing the Kanji preface.
But should it not prove too difficult, I'll add it. The only thing is, would you want that on a 'separate review stack' or would it be the same as remembering the keyword->kanji? And the card is marked as 'remembered', regardless of which direction.

John

Thanks John for this encouraging news.

Re the Kanji -> story, whatever is easiest I suppose.

Whereas I can generally remember the kanji when it いｓ keyword -> kanji, going in the opposite direction is not so reliable. Yet when one reads kanji texts the flow is kanji -> meaning (keyword, story).

I trained as a musician and was taught that after practising things one way, try to find opposing ways to do it in order to embed the learning deeper. I suppose I am just applying the same principles, although in this case there is some logic to it.

Thanks again for all your help. When I started attempting Japanese I had to lug piles of books around with me on tour. Now its just my iPhone and a 電気辞書。Bliss.

Jamapi: Yes, the thing about german keywords though is that the stories aren't going to match up. As there is currently no way of marking the language of the story (to the keyword) I'm not sure how useful it would be... (unless you added all of your own stories). Are there lists of the german keywords anywhere for all 3007 kanji?

Katsuo: I'm not sure I'd be able to legally provide the application if it used the named radicals (since the emails I've had with Dr. Heisig imply that those radicals (use, name, pictograph) fall under the contract with the book publisher.)

Mike: Thanks for the words of encouragement! I'm not trying to be 'elitest' in only allowing or the forcing of a certain method, it is more of a 'I only have a certain amount of time' problem

P.S. It is open source, so anyone can contribute! Just issue me a pull request with the code you've done and I'll merge it in

I don't think for the moment that you are being elitist. A sterling effort and much to be admired. I will get out of your hair now.

Best

M

Just watched the sample-video. Looking very nice so far; however - for practice mode I think using a different font (as in more handwritten style font - horizontal strokes slightly inclined etc) would be good.

Hi John,
I think if keywords and story don’t match up in language would not be a problem.

Of course I speak and read English, but I did the experience that it is very very hard to review with English keywords, if you learned with the German keywords. Especially because a (stand alone) English word usually has more German meanings and so you have to have in mind the exact translation of all words. This means to review foreign characters with foreign words – and this is nearly impossible without a dictionary beside (and so not practicable with iPhone).

I have a list of the 2042 basic kanji German words, but I think it would not be a problem to get a full list (and if I know there will be German keywords in the app I type them in if need is :-)

Thank’s for your efforts! We all appreciate this!

I wouldn't worry about the splash screen. Apple even has a default system for showing a splash (rename your splash Default.png), and it doesn't make any sense to go to a black screen after while loading. The HIG are just that anyways, guidelines.

The no splash screens thing is probably to prevent the splash diarrhea (nice mental image) that you get when you start a console/ds game. One splash is ok, 10 splashes that you cannot skip are not.

If you don't need the splash time to load resources etc, then no splash is better. It's a cellphone so stuff should be as instant as possible.

Jamapi: I can definitely include the keywords since it is a relatively easy fix. If you are also up to it, it would be pretty neat to get a german localization of the application as well

Any other languages that have translated keywords are also welcome.

John

HerrPetersen: Yeah, Fabrice also scolded me about the font choice

Unfortunately the iPhone only has a handful of Japanese fonts from which to choose from.. none of them have the handwritten feel. (All probably optimized for reading on a small screened device)

I'm planning to build a tool that creates all the images before hand so we don't have to rely on the iPhones ability to render the font. Also this maybe include an animated strokeorder type display.

johnrb Wrote:I'm planning to build a tool that creates all the images before hand so we don't have to rely on the iPhones ability to render the font.

I'm a big fan of the YOz Pen-ji fonts for handwriting comparison.

YOzFontEP04 is a simple school print handwriting. I especially like YOzFontK04 - I would love my handwriting to look like that!

I'm interested in helping. I have a 64gb Touch that I have no intentions of jailbreaking. I echo the thoughts of most everyone else here as well, offline is a must. I have a corporate smartphone that I can't really dump all my review on, hence the Touch, which has little to no chance of wireless access for most of my day. I'm not really picky about font as long as its legible. Please let me know if I can do anything to help.

*does a ctrl+f for the word "android"*

Awww... no Android love from RTK?

Hey John;
Just wanted to say, good luck with all this! I don't pretend to understand even a tenth of the jargon on this thread but I'm very very excited about the possibility of the RTK iPhone app as I'm buying an iPhone in August (but no pressure haha) and am tired of lugging these books around.

Best of luck!!!

Ella

I second nintendomaniac64 (in fact, I found his message by "Ctrl+F")!

Hi John,

Speaking of translating, I would be happy to translate the interface into Spanish (I translate software for a living, so it would be something relatively easy to do). I do not have the keyword list in Spanish, though. I will try to find it and see what I can do.

Is this project dead? I sent a request to be a beta tester a bit back but haven't heard any response...

So have I and was wondering the exact same thing... In case you need any help, please let us know! I know there are a lot of people waiting for the app :-)

I believe John went away to Germany for a while. I think he's back now though...

Does anybody know what happened to this project? I still think it is a great idea and am still willing to help test and translate the tool.

[ファブリス]

I haven't got any news from John I'm afraid.

Really hope john gets back to us.
Would love to use a RevTK iphone/ipad app right now.