JapanesePod101.com

Blog / October 2014

  • 25 October 2014Options page.

    Work is advancing on the multiple indexes/editions support. There is no ideal way to do this sort of sweeping changes in the codebase, so I renamed the "frame number" column in the database to break the SQL queries and just slowly go through the pages and refactor/fix the code as I go. The solution I went for is the most obvious one: there is a new table that represents indexes or "sequences". Those sequences reference characters, along with a "sequence number" (ie. "frame number" for RTK). What this means is that 5th edition and 6th edition will be two indexes, both in fact refer to mostly the same characters, but depending which one the user selected, the displayed "frame numbers" will be different, along with how flashcard can be managed.

    Once that's done it should be quite easy to add "alternative" sequences such as "RTK Lite" with both Study page, and flashcard support. But one thing at a time.. I am wondering here, if adding JLPT sequences would make any sense? Let me know!

    Besides refactoring that means I need to add a completely new page and design a few more classes to handle an Options page. The main option here will be the RTK Book edition. All existing users will be set to 5th edition,and new users by default will be set on 6th edition. Existing users will be able to switch to 6th edition after the update.

    Can you think of some features on the website which could use an option? If you can think of something you'd like to have different "defaults", let me know! This will give me some additional options to add to the page.

  • 18 October 2014Plans for 6th edition support

    I am aware that the website does not directly support the 6th edition of Remembering the Kanji. For the time being gomtuu's 6th edition frame number converter can be used to add flashcards in order for the 6th edition index (forum thread).

    When using the Study page, keep in mind you can search by keywords and also by character. While the index is different, most keywords remain the same between 5th and 6th edition. ALL characters in the 6th edition are present on the site. They are just showing under a different index number (many characters that were present in RTK Volume 3, were added to the 6th edition to keep up with the official "common" kanji).

    Admittedly this is a cumbersome way of navigating through the Study pages since the previous/next arrows advance using the 5th edition ordering. I will try to get 5th and 6th edition support (both) working before the end of December.

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