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Hey guys! After some months of constant development, many bugs, and much head-scratching, I am back with some updates to DaKanji! DaKanji is my little (or now not so little) pet project, whose goal is to make a fully offline, cross-platform (iOS, Android, MacOS, Windows, Linux), and fast & beautiful dictionary (or at least this is one of the goals). In my last post nearly a year ago (read it here if you are curious) I received lots of positive feedback, but also improvement ideas and bug reports. Now I finally finished catching up with the request queue and also with all my own ideas. So I am super proud that I just released DaKanji 3.4, which contains a truckload of new features, improvements, and bug fixes that should address nearly everything mentioned in the other post. Here is a short list of the most important changes since the last version.
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Word lists: organize words in lists and folders
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Anki integration: send words to Anki to study them
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Import Dictionary of Japanese Grammar (DoJG) anki deck to effortlessly look up grammar
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Clipboard screen to automatically lookup words that are in the OS's clipboard
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Kana charts with sounds and mnemonics
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Kanji charts: filter and sort kanjis by categories such as JLPT, 漢検, KLC and more
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Animated stroke order diagrams of kanjis
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Share DaKanji entries using deep links
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And many more features, Improvements, and fixes!
And now there is even a website called dakanji.app from which you can grab the latest release. So my question to you guys is (hence the clickbaity title), "Why do you use another dictionary?". What is DaKanji missing to make it the perfect dictionary and make you switch to it?
Thank you for reading all of this and I hope you give DaKanji a try and maybe even start using it from now on. 「DaKanji」で日本語学習頑張ってね！
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This is very cool. Japanese-Japanese dictionaries are over my head, and while I use jisho.org as my go-to lookup, this looks like a good way to just explore a bit. The pointers to JapaneseGraph and The Kanji Map are neat. I had never seen those before and they look very interesting.
thank you! One major difference between this and jisho is that DaKanji works fully offline. But in the future, I want to add Japanese definitions so that advanced learners can grasp the nuances between words. If you happen to have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out!
Thank you for your hard work! Actually, I was waiting for the connection between Dakanji and Anki!
Thank you so much! I hope you will get good use out of it!
Gave it a quick look, I would love it if the dictionary popup would remember your last used size on restart. As it is now the popup size is very small requiring me to resize it every time I open the program. It would also be good if the text in the text area would not disappear the moment I switch to another tab. There's no font size option either(or I just don't see it) and to my boomer eyes it's pretty hard to see. The part of speech highlighting is really really hard to see adjectives in light mode and very very hard to see nouns and adverbs in dark mode(Example). Anyways, really slick program I'm gonna be using it for sure. Thanks a lot for your efforts!
LE: This is on windows btw.
Thank you for checking it out and thank you even more for the nice words and improvement idas.
I will make DaKanji remember the popup size in the next release, thank you for the note!
Do you mean that the text in the Text-screen persists in one session or between restarts?
I am not sure how it works on Windows, but on mobile DaKanji respects accessibility settings, so when you increase the font size in the OS on iOS and Android the text becomes bigger. But if this does not work on Windows (I currently do not have access to a Windows machine) I will add a manual setting.
I am gonna change the colors for the next release, thank you for reminding me of this problem because I totally forgot about it.
The text I have in the Text-screen goes away if I use any other part of the application in one session. (Example)
Thanks, I got it now!
Is there a way to sync word lists that doesn't go through Anki? It would be cool to share lists between my iPhone, desktop, and Android e-reader all within the same ecosystem. (edit typo)
Thank you!
Currently, this is not possible (you can manually export the database and reimport it, but that is a hassle). However, in v3.6 (v3.5 will be focused on implementing all the nice feedback I am receiving here) I will add this along a SRS system. The foundation is already implemented so that DaKanji can sync in real-time between devices, only an account system is missing, so stay tuned!
Just downloaded it, pretty slick. Appreciation for the little page turning animation during set up. I'm on my Mac but I noticed the little graphic and dragged it over. Nice.
Seems really good so far. Couple small things: I'd love an option to replay the kanji getting drawn. It goes by very fast and it'd be cool to see it slowed down, maybe go step by step. Also, in the kanji drawing interface, it seems like there's a lot of options hidden among short and long presses, double taps, etc. On Mac it definitely shows that this is iOS/iPadOS first, that's fine, but I'm 100% gonna forget all those options by tomorrow and a little three-dot menu or something might be a nice option.
Hi, Thank you for giving DaKanji a try and special thanks for the on-boarding note, adding those things take a significant amount of time without adding "real features" and therefore I am always happy to see that those things are being noticed.
Regarding the animations, if you double-click / tap on the kanji, it will be drawn again. You can set the general animation speed in the settings. Additionally, you can drag left/right on a kanji to play the animation atl whatever speed you like. But I like your idea to add an option to play the animation stroke-by-stroke! will think about how to add it.
Currently, I added all those "hidden" features to the manual in lack of a better idea of how to make that information available. Do you have an idea?
Ahhhh, I see, okay now I've got the replays. Boom, taken care of.
As for hidden features and stuff, it's probably just a symptom of me being on Mac. A lot of those feel like they're designed for touch devices, which is totally fine, but on Mac with a trackpad or a mouse, it just tends to not make as much sense. Tbh idk if it's actually worth addressing for a single developer though because it would probably require you to split it off into a fork for macOS where you have more context menus or buttons and take more advantage of the screen real estate. That's probably a lot more work than it's worth. You could do it, blow it out, make a crazy advanced version for macOS and charge for it then disable the iOS version working on Mac. Loads of apps do that and it's a valid monetization strategy. Hell, Anki does that but in reverse. But that's an entirely different level of commitment.
Yes, sadly, there are compromises I needed to make. As most people use the app on mobile, the design is more targeted towards that. And yes, you are right. To truly address this, I would need to move all those gestures into buttons and other controls that can be clicked. This is also something that I am considering, but as you mentioned, for a solo dev, it's kind of impossible. Already supporting 5 os and 7 packaging formats is a huge effort. But also, as you said, the kind of "clunkiness" lets me develop features way faster, which is more important at the moment (at least I think so). Because there are so many cool things I would like to add, such as syncing your word lists between your devices or adding spaced repetition directly in the app so that DaKanji knows what you knows and can make smart suggestions based on it, this will maybe added in the future at some point.
Thank you again for all those points, and don't hesitate to reach out!
You've definitely got the right idea. It's not worth going down the macOS route imo, at least right now. Make the app a success on iOS first. The fact that it works on Mac is good enough. Hope it takes off!
I installed the app and had a try. It’s a good app but there are a couple of features I use in other dictionaries I use that are not present in DaKanji.
The main one would be that for some words I search by typing the word in kanji, the dictionary doesn’t tell me if the word is more commonly used written in kana alone.
Another useful information I would use is if the app would show me other similar kanji in the kanji page (same overall kanji but using a different radical, for example). Seeing 2 similar kanji at the same time along with their meaning is super useful for me because it helps me compare them and thus gives me some elements I have to pay attention to in order to correctly identify them. As it is now in DaKanji, that means I need to go back and forth 2 different kanji searches in order to be able to do that and that also means I need to know which 2 kanjis I want to compare before I even start searching.
Lastly, a nice to have feature would be a list of words using the searched kanji on the kanji page. That would help to learn more vocabulary associated with the specific kanji I am looking up.
The app is already quite good but those additional features would make it perfect in my opinion. You did an amazing job on it already.
Thank you for helping me with those nice suggestions. I am going to number them so its easier to reference them.
If I understand you correctly you want something like "Usually written with kana alone"?
This sounds actually really nice, but I am struggling to come up with an UI idea. Do you know of a dictionary that can do that?
Adding some example words that use this kanji on the kanji page should be super easy, I will add this in the next version.
And Thank you for the kind words, I will try to add your suggestions!
Very happy to see you post an update here! I love DaKanji and it is probably already the best offline Japanese learning resource. The best thing since SRS and popup dictionaries. And with these recent additions even more so! I was surprised to see grammar resources in the app. The word lists combined with anki support are also incredible, though this isn't a feature I'm using myself at the moment. What put DaKanji at the top for me was the handwriting recognition, which has been amazing from the start (at least since I've started using the app). An absolute game changer from having to search via radicals.
With that said, I do use other dictionaries. On mobile, I usually go to Takoboto first since its starts up faster and furigana in the media i consume (when available) make unknown words pretty easy to look up most of the time. The handwriting recognition on mobile is also a little slow, though I think its gotten faster since the last time I used it. This may be more an issue with my device than the software though. I don't have other mobile devices to try it out on.
On PC the convenience between online dictionaries and DaKanji is pretty even. However JPDB, in addition to being SRS, also sorts vocabulary by frequency in its database or order of appearance. This combined with premade lists of media make it preferable. However, as many people have stated in the past, JPDB is online and not guaranteed to be maintained, so I think DaKanji+anki still has a strong foothold. Using JPDB is a personal preference.
An improvement I'd like to see would be to DoJG. First, i think it would be neat to have an option in the settings to show the image file first over the app text.
Secondly, I ran into a bit of trouble when seeing the image. I can scroll down to it just fine, but once I get to the image, the mouse wheel zooms instead of scrolls. This would be fine for the image by itself, but it makes it difficult to scroll back up to the text. In full screen this is less of an issue since the sides of the image cut off on either side after a certain point and I can scroll back up fine with the mouse off the image. This relieves the scrolling issue, so it may be by design, but the problem remains when the window is smaller. I haven't used the DoJG with media on mobile yet, so I've only ran into this on PC.
Lastly, the sliders in the settings are a little bothersome to use. I can't see the current value when I hover over it, so I don't know what it is unless I click on it and change it. Similar issue on mobile.
As for additions to DaKanji, I think adding a counter chart or dictionary that has examples, especially for tricky numbers, would be fantastic.
All in all, DaKanji is an amazing app that has only gotten better over time. Thank you for creating this and I look forward to future updates!
Sorry if the comment is sloppy-looking, I don't use reddit too often.
Thank you so, so much for all the nice words yet still providing valid criticism.
Soon I will be adding a SRS system that will sync across devices, maybe then you will also use some word lists.
Regarding the startup time, I had a pretty stupid bug that made the app sometimes wait some time without doing anything. This is now resolved in v3.4 and the app starts instantly on my S24 (for me maybe even faster than takoboto). Maybe it also helps you.
I am not sure I understand the first point correctly. You want that the expansion tile with the image is the first thing that the user sees and then the text comes?
So the visual layout becomes
Title
Image
Textual description
is that correct? Basically swap the image with the text?
The second thing you mentioned is a really good point! I mainly used the DoJG integration on my phone where I did not notice it. I will add smth to make it better on Desktop platforms. Maybe smth like ctrl + mouse wheel to zoom? Currently the scrolling of the entry "battles" with the zooming of the image
The counter chart is also very good! I already wanted to add something like a game to train counting in Japanese / listening to Japanese numbers. I did not know there was such a comprehensive table, that would be perfect alongside this game!
It looks pretty cool, but when I try to setup Anki on Windows(10), the Test Anki setup button does nothing, so I can't set the deck for it to send to. Anki is open but it doesn't give me a message of any kind.
Hey there, sorry for the inconvenience!
I am unsure what is going wrong and currently have no access to a Windows machine. The "Check connection"-button should always show something so that is really weird. Do you have the Ankiconnect plugin installed?
Wow absolutely love this app! The one thing that I wish it had from my short time using it is Kanji sounds with native pronunciation (male and female pronunciation like in WaniKani would be ideal)
Thank you for giving DaKanji a chance!
I would really love to add more pronunciations (DaKanji has 6000ish pronunciations for words not kanjis) but I do not know of any source that I could use.
Oh, I might try anki integration, let's see how it goes.
Thank you! Let me know what you think!
Overall like it a lot!
On iOS, when inputting text in the text section, I can’t dismiss the keyboard (usually it’s with a swipe down) without opening the hamburger menu.
Thanks!
Oh, that's interesting, I will have a look if there is something I can do. Let me know if there is more!
Thanks! I hope I explained it well enough.
Great app though. The handwriting detection is much better than other dictionary apps I’ve used.
I also can’t seem to get it to display furigana in the text section. I’m toggling the button at the bottom, but no furigana is being added to text typed in the prompt. At least, I’m guessing that’s what is supposed to happen.
Thank you for this additional feedback.
私は林檎を食べる
should show
私、林檎、食べる with furigana. This does not happen?
It doesn’t seem to be working for me. I’ll try my best to describe what I’m doing.
I enter the section called Text from the hamburger menu. I click to bring up the keyboard and I type in a phrase in japanese. The keyboard blocks the bottom half of the screen from view, and I cannot dismiss the keyboard to access the buttons at the bottom of the screen, without reopening the hamburger menu. When I do this my text is still in the top square, but when I press the buttons at the bottom of the screen they don’t do anything to the text.
Hope that helps. I’ll try and reset/redownload the app and see if that works
wow, i’m impressed. i like the draw mode feature. it’s a bit complicated but the tutorial got me oriented even though i clicked through it as fast as i could.
i’ve been a long-time shirabe jisho user. it works quickly offline and has all the features i regularly need except pitch accent. the main difference i see between this and that is that the animation flows in this app, while kinda cool to look at, actually make the app feel a bit slow, and interfere with a snappy UI. if i could change one thing after just a few minutes, it would be that.
thank you for building, sharing, and asking for feedback! looking forward to using it more.
edit: i’m also noticing i have to click twice to get to a definition. is it that the first click closes the text box and the second opens the larger box?
Thank you for taking the time to check it out and writing feedback!
So you would like a setting to control speed of / turn of animations?
honestly, i would prefer if they were just off. i’m using it as a tool and the flashiness slows things down. but a setting would be fine.
i can also get used to it, now that i know that it’s not actually the lookup that’s taking time.
Thank you for this addition. I was already planning to add an animation speed slide for a long time, but time is limited so I focused on adding other features.
ah i figured out the flow here. if i click search after typing, i don’t have to click the definition twice to enter its view, but if i don’t click search i do. since it searches automatically without clicking, i’d prefer if a single click on a definition to me to its page.
This does not sound right, if you click on a search result it should always minimize the search bar and show that entry. If something else happens that is definitely not intended.
You are on an Android phone? Could you give me a step-by-step description how this happens?
i’m on iphone, on a 13 mini if that’s useful.
any time i search but don’t confirm, it shows a brief animation like i’m selecting the entry, but just closes the text box and stays on the same screen.
wait — this isn’t happening anymore! something must have triggered that state before that is now reset. i will let you know if i see it again.
i’ve noticed another feature of shirabe jisho that i miss — searching for conjugated forms will find the original verb in jisho — きられる will pull up 切る and 着る for example. it even parses ている and ています forms into one dictionary entry when possible. i can surely imagine this is not simple to code but it’s very useful when reading something unfamiliar.
thanks for responding.
Of course, I am replying, getting this kind of feedback is very important!
DaKanji currently can handle some deconjugation but the deconjugation of passive forms is something I did not specifically try and seems to be broken. This is a really good point that I will fix.
I tried it for a few minutes, here's my limited feedback
The MS store is the worst storefront I've ever had the displeasure of using. So buggy and slow, I almost couldn't download the app to try it because it wouldn't start downloading
The dictionary has buttons to quickly jump to different parts of the program, but the pages it brings you to don't have buttons to quickly jump back
there should be hover text for all the buttons that explains what they do
there should be a little ? icon somewhere out of the way where you can easily bring up the tutorial again
dictionary should be the top thing in the list view, not drawing.
the add to list function is a bit confusing, also messing around with it a bit caused the program to hang until I task managered it
the animations for switching don't feel super good.
Just some constructive feedback. I only messed with it for a few minutes, but the core functionality seemed good. I probably won't use it though, as I feel like Jisho is just simpler and fits my use case better, and I don't have to download anything for it.
Thank you!
Sorry for the store, but there is not too much I can do about it. But if you feel like it you can also get the latest release from [GitHub](https://github.com/CaptainDario/DaKanji/releases)
True buttons to go back would be nice, I will think about how to add that
Tooltips would be a nice addition I agree
Currently you can reshow the tutorial in the settings. Not sure if this is direct enough
You can reorder the elements in the sidebar by dragging them
That the program hangs should definitely not happen, I will look into it. You have some steps to reproduce it by any chance?
I really appreciate you trying it out even though you do not plan on switching away from jisho. For me, knowing that it works regardless of if I have internet or not and that I know that nobody can shut the "service" down is really important. But I understand that this is not the case for everybody.
Not exactly, try rapidly clicking on both create list buttons (I didn't understand the difference between them) a few times and then the dot buttons below, I tried it again just now and was able to reproduce it really fast https://i.imgur.com/k3osUlE.png
I am gonna try to solve this but this sounds difficult to tackle. But thank you so much for making me aware of it
Oh idk if it matters, but this was the version of the page you get to through clicking a word and then adding to list, not the one you get to through the navigation menu
Looks nice—does it show pitch accent (pronunciation) for words? Most dictionary apps lack that
Thanks for your question! Yes, it does show pitch accent for most words.
This is my first time downloading and trying it, and honestly it's wonderful. I have two minor complaints though:
As someone else mentioned, having a dictionary entry for a word breakdown how common something is written in kanji or kana
The other is not having the frequency of the word shown in a dictionary entry.
Both are very minor, but I noticed that when comparing it to what I normally use (jpdb.io)
Although I will be switching over now, since I really like the offline mobile app aspect.
Thank you for trying DaKanji and even more for switching!
To your first remark, you would like to have a note like "Usually written using kana alone"?
I think the second aspect is already included in DaKanji just turned off by default. In settings -> dictionary, you can enable "show word frequency"
Hope this helps!
That would be useful, although what I'm thinking of (and imo would be more informative) is showing the writing with percentages. I'm probably not explaining it the best, but the "Alt. forms" on jpdb like this
Now I see that, although now I have more suggestions lol. I can only see the frequency when searching, and not on the actual dictionary entry of the word somewhere (when I think it makes the most sense for it to be on both). And that it would be nice if you could toggle between the zipf frequency and actual frequency (instead of "6" it could be just "1000"), seeing that it's just a mathematical calculation and a toggle in the settings I think it would be reasonably easy to implement (but I don't code much lol)
Thanks for the responsiveness, it's already an incredible app and you're trying to make it even better :)
I tried installing it on my Windows a couple of months ago. Didn't like that it's 200+ MB and then after I installed it I didn't like how I was greeted so I had to delete it right after.
Went for Tagaini Jisho instead, no features but it's light.
Thank you! This is a really valuable inside!
Sadly, I cannot do too much about the size (90% are the dictionary files), but can you tell me what you did not like about the onboarding?
Even the word "onboarding" that you just used suggests that I am supposed to become a client of this software and tie my credit card to it and etc. While I was looking for something light and free of charge. This app makes its best to appear free but then greets you like you have to pay. It looks like a commercial product and I wasn't looking for using one.
Feature wise. I don't know exactly what features it has but I suggest adding something that makes it easier to split kanji and learn them by parts. Like 好, after I open its entry I would like to be able to quickly look up what 女 and 子 mean so it would make it easier to memorize the kanji (you will make a lil story in your head about lil girls liking things and etc).
Also more focus on radicals would be nice as well. Knowing something like 氵 is very helpful.
It's interesting that DaKanji gave you that impression, Thank you! But you can be relieved, it's free.
As you did not really try it, I do not know what exactly you expect in regards to the radical features. But there are a few. And yes, every kanji entry has all radicals associated, and there is also kanji lookup via radicals.
Are you stupid or something 😭😭