It is 2024 and we still do not have a native mobile app from the amazing people at WaniKani. I am a long-time user of this wonderful platform and being a software engineer I always thought I can do more for this community and its users. In the past three months, I began working on a native Android app like no other before it. I am passionate about creating apps with beautiful user interface that functions, and the WaniKani website does a great job with its visuals and graphics.
I like the rich user interface on the website and so I have built this app to look and feel like the web app with some minor tweaks in certain parts.
In the coming weeks/months, I will publish a beta version of the app for beta testers. Suffice to say, I will be counting on the community to help test this app before I make a generally available version.
In the meantime, I will continue fine tuning the app while also finishing up some pending features.
Please feel free to share your thoughts and features you would like to see (no guarantees they will be available in the first version of the app.) Your feedback is welcomed and appreciated.
When the beta version becomes available, I will let the community know.
I have to say Iām curious what you feel is inadequate about just installing the PWA (especially if you find WaniKaniās web interface so good you just want to tweak it in places). Because Iām like 85% certain the reason thereās no native app is because they put in the effort to design the site to be a PWA as well, meaning one can āinstallā it just like an app from their browser.
In any case, if youāre wondering about features, Iād say it needs to at the very least do everything Smouldering Durtles can, but it sounds like with a more WK-like UI. And speaking of SD, similar to my first question, what about it did you find so inadequate you wanted to make your own app rather than making suggestions or contributions (since it is open source)?
Also will your app be open source? I have to say Iām far more likely to use an app that is than isnāt particularly because the community seems to have a 3rd party app abandonment problem. Itās great that Flaming Durtles was open source so someone could take what was there and continue it, others we werenāt so lucky. Iām not keen on using another closed source community offering.
And perhaps one of the most important requests for me (and something I was thinking about learning how to implement myself and submit a PR to SD eventually) is a loose āintegrationā with the Heatmap userscript. While the Reviews API endpoint is partially disabled, Heatmap (and the library script it uses, Review Cache) can only use locally saved reviews to display your review history. This means any reviews done in app would not show up on your Heatmap. I would love it if this app saved the reviews you do in the Review Cache format and modified a local file the user can easily access with it; the user could then transfer/copy that file to their main device with Heatmap and insert those reviews done on the app to the script so their browser Heatmap includes any reviews they do on the app.
@LupoMikti you made a good point for a PWA, might explain why no native app. PWAs are great especially on Android.
On your second point, I am primarily an iPhone user who is also a visual learner. I appreciate a good UI/UX. I used SD (great app) for a while but it was lacking in the visual aspect which caused me to discontinue it. Having said that, SD has been a source of inspiration for what I want this app to be in terms of feature but with a familiar UI/UX.
Speaking of making contributions, the source code for SD is based on Java which is no longer the default language for Android development. I spent a couple of weeks reading the source code and trying to see if I could fix its UI but soon found out doing that would take a lot to get in place.
In the meantime, this app is not open source. I intend to keep updating and refining the app as required based on feedback from the community. There is no plan to abandon the app.
For your last point, if I could get more details on the inner workings of the feature in your last paragraph, perhaps I could make a plan to include it.
Edit: And I do wish you the best in this project! It will be nice to have something with a really polished UI for people to choose.
I see. Not being familiar with mobile app development myself I didnāt realize this was the case and it makes sense.
Well there certainly is never a plan for anyone to abandon their app. But the track record has shown a different pattern in the uh 6 years that Iāve been a Wanikani user. Perhaps itās an unrefined and flawed opinion, but I am nonetheless of the opinion currently that any single developer application that is a 3rd party integration into a website via its API, and thus unsupported by that website, should be open source, else the likelihood of stalling and/or abandonment when it comes to keeping up with changes to that website/API, or bugs, or feature requests, massively increases.
Jakeipuu used to be my go-to app, seemed quite promising and maintained. Then that just stopped one day. No announcement or anything. And sometime last year I discovered itās even been taken off of the Play Store. There were people willing to assist in its maintenance and development in that thread, but couldnāt due to the closed source nature. Iād rather not see another instance of this 2, 3+ years down the line.
I will get back to you on this in more detail once I have completed my pull request to Review Cache to give users an interface for importing/exporting their review cache array from/to a file. In the meantime, if youād like to investigate yourself, you can check out the Heatmap script thread (additional links in that post, including Kumireiās github where you can also find the Review Cache library script).
Given the time youāve spent looking at the codebase, I appreciate you understand the size of the undertaking it would be to convert it to Kotlin?
Itās something Iām working on and that will likely happen, but is on the back, back burner given that A) I work a full time tech job already and B) itās an open source app for which I accept no recompose and can therefore not really justify putting a gigantic amount of time into it verses, yāknow, spending time with my family.
When you say fix here, do you in fact mean modernise? Streamline?
(Iām only the maintainer, not the original designer (even if I have made a few UI changes), so I donāt take any comments about the UI personally, Iām just trying to understand, hehe)
Thank you so much for ensuring there is a working Android app with SD. I know what it takes to have a full-time job while also maintaining a codebase such as SDās, I appreciate your work.
Yes, no kidding the codebase is big and converting to Kotlin would be such a huge undertaking.
Yes, I was referring to modernising and streamlining the UI.
Itās great to have a new app, the more options the better.
I like doing my studying / reviews on an e-ink tablet, so theming is the option iām most looking forward to.
SD has that, but it doesnāt let you change the background color, which would make the app a lot more usable on a black and white e-ink screen.
Quick update: I am steadily cleaning up my to-do list for the app as it nears the alpha/beta release. I got some little things to tidy up before it becomes ready for testing.
Today, I noticed WaniKani made an update to the SRS Progress section replacing the card view with a fresh style.
PS: I have now added this new style to a list of SRS Progress view available for selection in the Settings page of the app ā the more options the better.
Hi all, it has been a while since I last updated you on the status of the app. Most of the appās features are complete except the Lessons feature. I left out the latter because I want other features properly tested, besides, some of the work done in the other parts will be reused for the Lessons.
I would like to get some testers onboard for an internal testing of some features of the app. Specifically, I am very much interested in testing the Reviews section.
Please if you would like to help test the app please indicate by replying this post.
Also, a suggestion for how to handle your emails to avoid making it public on here would be nice.
