[Android] Flaming Durtles - Android app with offline support

This is now my favorite app.
Dankjewel :slight_smile:

Iā€™m also level 31, but donā€™t have the extra kanji. So it must be because you started WK before the mnemonic overhaul.

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For me this is perfect since i always to meaning->reading. If itā€™s changed it should be optional :slight_smile:

Also a small thing: I use anki mode and my synonyms dont dont show at the first slide, but only on the second one where theres everything. Can you add the user defined synonyms to the anki mode? Even better, make them bold :slight_smile:

Iā€™ve put it on the list.

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Iā€™ve submitted a new release to the store, it should appear for updates some time tomorrow. It has a couple of bugfixes I want to get out there quickly. After this Iā€™m going to have a couple of very busy days, which wonā€™t leave a lot of time for Flaming Durtles. Iā€™ve made a long list of suggestions to go through, so I surely will not get bored :slight_smile:

Version 1.3.0, 2019-08-19:

  • Add option to hide context sentence translations until tapped.
  • Redo the layout of the level progression bar chart.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause problems when WaniKani moves subjects to a higher level than the userā€™s level.
  • Limit network access to WiFi if desired. Option to disable audio auto-download.
  • Fixed a bug where a level-up wasnā€™t noticed soon enough.
  • Some behind the scenes database improvements that should make things a bit faster.
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Thank you for this awesome app! Now I can finally do reviews without getting disconnects on the train :smiley:

Do you plan to share the source code e.g. on Github or another platform? Iā€™m sure there might be a few developers who would submit patches or new features. I would like to have an AnkiDroid integration as Akebi offers it. Might implement it myself if the code gets open-sourced and I find some time to get more into Android development.

Meanwhile I noticed a bug where some of my reviews keep reappearing after I finished them. This happens always for 久 (kanji), ä¹…ć—ć„ and ä¹…ć—ć„ć¶ć‚Š. Oddly enough they are actually from level 32, while Iā€™m currently on level 22. In WK itself it seems that they are still locked for me, although I managed to bring them to Enlightened status somehow. I guess that your app thinks that the items are ready to burn, while WK doesnā€™t allow to update the review status yet. Let me know if I can provide you any debug output. I havenā€™t read the whole thread yet and still use version 1.2.0 - so maybe this behaviour is already known to you.

At some point, probably. Right now the code is in a private repo on GitHub, so opening it up will be easy once I decide to. But Iā€™m hesitant to do so any time soon. Partly because the codebase is rather ugly and not up to my usual standards as a professional dev (itā€™s just a casual hobby project after all), and I donā€™t want this to stand as an example of how I code. Partly because Iā€™m not looking forward to the effort of maintaining and supporting it as an open source project. Partly because WaniKani/Tofugu have some rules for software that uses their API and I want to make sure my code stays in line with those rules.

Itā€™ll happen some day, Iā€™m sure, but donā€™t hold your breath :slight_smile:

This is a known bug. It happens because those kanji have been moved from a low level to a higher level by the Crabigator in a past content update. But you unlocked and leveled up those kanji before then. You wonā€™t see reviews for those kanji until you hit the level they are now at, but Flaming Durtles doesnā€™t know that and tries to give you the reviews anyway. The fix is in release 1.3.0, which is waiting for Googleā€™s approval right now, and it should show up for you in the store some time tomorrow.

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I installed this on my smartphone last night and played around with it a little, but the true test was using it on the bus ride home from work today.

*insert praise here*

With praise now out of the way (there was a lot of praise, by the way), here are the items that stood out to me:

  1. I had a card come up and I tried to figure out the pronunciation. Then I noticed it was for meaning, andā€¦I didnā€™t know the meaning either. I chose ā€œDonā€™t Knowā€, and was presented with full information, including both the meaning (which is what I needed to see) and the hiragana spelling (which I hadnā€™t been quized on yet this session). This spoiled the answer for the reading, ensuring I wouldnā€™t be able to get it wrong. WaniKani.com will only show the meaning when getting it wrong here. (I donā€™t know if WaniKani treats getting both sides wrong the same or differently versus one side.)

  2. Others may disagree with me here, so donā€™t rely on my input alone, but for the timeline, thereā€™s no point in having numbers on the left and lines across when there are numbers over each bar.

    Current:

    Quick mock-up without extra lines and numbers:

Regardless of whether those are kept or removed, I do think it would be useful to have light and dark vertical lines for few hours like the timeline script for wanikani.com (I didnā€™t include them in my mockup.) Otherwise, itā€™s a bit difficult to know which bar goes with which time.

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100% Disagree

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I knew someone might disagree =D Itā€™s not a big thing for me either way.

But more importantly, I do think vertical lines for hours would be a nice addition.

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Personally I disagree with removing the horizontal lines, but what about having something like Tsurukame does, where the purple line indicates how many reviews youā€™ll have at a given hour?

I agree that having the same number on the left and above the bar is a little redundant, although I wouldnā€™t necessarily remove it. I definitely support the idea of having vertical lines as well, itā€™d be a lot better :smiley:

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From the screenshots it looks like youā€™re using the sideloaded version of the app. Make sure you get it from the Google Play Store, that version is newer and already has a bunch of improvements.

The layout of the timeline chart is a very delicate balance. Removing things makes it harder to read, especially on large screens, adding things makes it overcrowded, especially on small screens. Iā€™m also limited by the capabilities of the chart library I use. Iā€™ll continue to look for improvements, but for now it stays the way it is.

The subject info dump is probably the biggest issue reported so far :grinning:, although it was exactly how I want it for myself. Iā€™ve made the amount of information a bit limited, and most recently Iā€™ve made it configurable. Make sure you get the store version of the app, youā€™ll get what youā€™re looking for.

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I was thinking I did, but apparently not. Iā€™ll be sure to do that today!

I just downloaded the app and after a couple of minutes of ā€œx background tasksā€ I was finally able to do some reviews.
I made a typo though and now Iā€™m looking for the undo button but I canā€™t find it. Where is it? :eyes:

Other than that it seems like a great app! Lots of great userscript features included.

One small suggestion, though: the green/red right/wrong circle that shows up after answering shouldnā€™t disappear until you tap next. I was looking away for a moment and then you canā€™t see if you got it right or wrong by glancing over.

Itā€™s disabled by default. You can find it under advanced settings, near the bottom. A lot of the features are disabled by default, be sure to look through the settings menu to set things up to your liking.

Then donā€™ t look away :wink:

Seriously though, the toast for correct/incorrect answer goes away to make sure it doesnā€™t cover anything important or clutter the screen unnecessarily. Basically, if you gave a wrong answer you can tell because itā€™s highlighted in red, and if you gave the right answer either you can see it highlighted in green, or if you have lightning mode enabled, you can tell by the fact that youā€™re now looking at a new question to answer.

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Oops, when I went through the settings earlier I stopped at ā€˜Otherā€™ for some reason. So close. >.<

True. I should pay full attention when doing the reviews. :sweat_smile:

Okay, so since the input field color indicates if the answer is wrong or right then nevermind my suggestion. I already assumed it was, but now that Iā€™ve had some more reviewsā€¦ turns out itā€™s switched. Iā€™ve just typed in a wrong meaning of a kanji, but the input field is highlighted in green. I then entered the correct answer and it is in red.

ā€œWhat happens when you let a colourblind person design a UI that uses colours to indicate important information?ā€

ā€œCorrect.ā€

ā€œIā€™ll take Reasons I Hate My Life for 400, Alex.ā€

In other words, I made a booboo, and itā€™ll be fixed in 1.4.0. Right now Iā€™m still waiting for the snails at Google to approve 1.3.0, so itā€™ll be a couple of days before you see it.

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Welp. No idea why this (passive-aggressive?) quote part of the answer was necessary. If you felt attacked by me bringing up that issue, Iā€™m sorry. I had no idea youā€™re colorblind.

No passive-aggressiveness was intended, it was just a joke. I was not trying to take anything out on you. I very much appreciate all the feedback I am getting here from all of you. My apologies if I gave the wrong impression.

Itā€™s just the one-millionth little stupid annoyance that comes with being colourblind and other stuff, and sometimes I become sarcastic in frustration.

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Ah, all right. I misunderstood/misinterpreted it then. The woes of solely written communication, I guess. :sweat_smile:

Now that this is cleared up, once again thanks for the great app. Iā€™ll definitely be using it from now on.