JapanesePod101.com

Blog / January 2014

  • 26 January 2014Flashcard Review page optimized for smartphones !

    At long last, the flashcard review page is optimized to work on smartphones and small screen devices! As long as you have network access, you can now do reviews in your favorite spot :)

    On the right side, the View / Edit story dialog uses a simpler design that fits the smartphone display from edge to edge. 

    A refreshed design : On the desktop too, you will notice the review page has fresher design, with slightly larger buttons using vibrant colours to match the No/Yes/Easy answers. And you will still benefit from the opimized layout if the browser window is quite small, which could be handy on netbooks or laptops.

    Improved usability : The flashcard can be flipped by tapping on the flashcard (or clicking on the desktop), which should be particularly handy with the Vocab Shuffle mode, where you can just flip through a bunch of cards quite easily. To further improve usability on touch devices, the View / Edit Story dialog, and the Flashcard Edit dialog (where you can delete or skip cards) can be dismissed by tapping outside of the dialog. Update: Doh, touch on iPad (and I'm guessing smartphones as well) is not working. >_> This will be fixed next week. For now you can touch/click the buttons as usual.

    Feedback as usual is welcome and is particularly important for this update because I do not own a smartphone myself! Testing and development was made with the help of an emulator. Please post suggestions and feedback in this forum thread or through the contact form. Thank you!

    On a personal level, I don't know what just happened but I started on January 13th and have spent on average 5h a day, 35h in total this week including today Sunday. So now I am going to take a well deserved break for a few days :)

    So next week I hope with sufficient feedback I will be able to further improve the smartphone support if needed. Perhaps we could add some basic smartphone support for the Review Summary and the Study pages? Do we want to support landscape mode as well? Let me know!
  • 15 January 2014Mobile/Smartphone layout shaping up nicely

    The new flashcard review layout optimized for smartphone & mobile devices with smaller displays is shaping up nicely! In fact now I realize it's probably more comfortable on tablets as well, since the buttons have been made a little larger and taller.

    Please try it out and report any issues you find in this thread. Thank you!

    And... you may like it on the deskop too. It looks a bit fresher, with simpler buttons using colour coded no/yes/easy answers. The flashcard extends to the whole window, which may come handy if we want to add example words on the flashcard some time later...

  • 13 January 2014Need testers for mobile device layout

    I'd like to get the flashcard review page displaying nicely on mobile devices, once and for all. Fortunately it looks like I can use Opera Mobile Classic Emulator to preview a web page with varying configurations. And, it looks like CSS3 Media Queries are supported across the board on not-too-old hardware (ie. the included browser).

    If you'd like to help out and have some minutes spare please check out the thread, subscribe to it and help me out by testing and reporting what works and what doesn't.
  • 6 January 2014Thank you!

    I hope everyone had a great Christmas and / or New Year ;)

    I would like to thank everyone who has supported the website throughout 2013 with donations and feedback! There have been a higher than average amount of donations this month and I'm very grateful for your support.

    Thank you Katherine, Andrey, Todd, Jonathan, Stian, Andy, Lukasz, Kilian, Julianne, Julia, David, Ernest and Tania! Special thanks also to the adventurous who chose the recurring donation: Erich, Ken, Wisam, Helen, Charles, Eric and, Rene!

    And of course thank you to everyone who's donated throughout the year, I can't name everyone because it's quite tricky going through the email and making sure I didn't miss anyone. You know who you are!

    I would like also to thank JapanesePod101 for being such a great affiliate. And advertisers throughout 2013 : Cooori.com, Nihonshock.com, Goi App.com and HanziStudyPoster.com.

    Let's hope for more significant updates in 2014. And please let me know via contact or on the forum what works, and what doesn't. What is important for you? What would be the next top three features you'd like to see?

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