[Android] Leap for WaniKani Demo (Native, Offline, No Web)

Thanks! Yes, that’s already supported via Android’s Notification Categories in the system Settings.

  1. Long press the app icon and press “app info”, or go find Leap for WaniKani in the Android system Settings
  2. On the Leap for WaniKani App Info system Settings page, select “Notifications”
  3. Select the “Notification Categories” you’d like to subscribe to: Lessons and Reviews, Reviews-only, or Lessons-only

Notification Categories were introduced as part of Android 8 in 2017. Most Android phones today should support it.

The frequency of how often Leap for WaniKani checks for updates is controlled from within the app in Notification Preferences. The default is every hour, but I’ve selected every 12 hours. This means that every 12 hours Leap for WaniKani will check WaniKani for an update and send a notification based on the Notification Channels you’re subscribed to. There are many configurations!

God damn it. I didn’t think about the Android settings… I just looked in the app. :grimacing:
Maybe you should add a link to the android settings page from the app… to avoid people being stupid like me. :smiley:

Another question then: I see that when writing readings my phone starts with a capital letter, causing a katakana rather than hiragana and if I’m not careful I will get a wrong reading. Any tips for avoiding that?

It’s definitely not a stupid question! I’ll take a look into adding a link to the Notification Categories Android System Settings inside the navigation drawer.

As far as the keyboard goes, I think it might have to do with the default keyboard on your phone. I use Gboard, the Google keyboard, and it correctly defaults to lowercase.

You could try:

  1. Go to your Android System Settings and see if there are any keyboard preferences you can change with your current keyboard
  2. Try Gboard: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.inputmethod.latin&hl=en_US

I’m using Swiftkey. There is a setting to disable automatic uppercase at the start of sentences, but I’d prefer to have the feature turned on, as it is pretty convenient when writing messages. The old Wanikani app I used previously didn’t have this issue though.

I think you found the answer; i.e. your Swiftkey setting that auto-uppercases at the start of sentences.

This is what I think is going on in your case… Currently, the reviews are an embedded webview. This means that wanikani.com and web’s implementation dictates that the default input is lowercase. This is why in my case, my input for reviews are always lowercase while my text messages in my Messages app are sentence case; starting with a capital letter and the rest lowercase. The application determines the casing. Your Swiftkey system setting is overriding the default behavior and is causing an undesirable side effect since wanikani.com treats “Ku” and “ku” as two different answers.

You might be able to find a create solution with your settings to toggle between the two, but in any case your system setting is incompatible with the WaniKani input scheme. Sorry there isn’t an easier answer!

Hey, I hope everyone is healthy and is able to use this time to catch up on their language studies. I took a staycation this week and spent a day on a feature I wanted - Review Forecasts - and also added additional Notification Category settings that @sensei321 suggested a couple weeks ago. I think this rounds out a v1 Dashboard and Notification Settings which are pretty full-featured. Thanks for your feedback to make that happen.

v1.2 Features

  • A 24-hour Review Forecast split between “Today” and “Tomorrow” cards
  • In addition to Notification Frequency, Notification Category settings are now in the nav drawer. This allows you to toggle Review-only, Lessons-only, or Lessons and Reviews notifications in the system Settings.
  • Design updates following the WaniKani design system

Keyboard
There is a pretty frustrating implementation on the WaniKani Mobile Web that causes the keyboard to close when you enter an answer. I tried to find a short-term fix, but there isn’t anything within my control other than a full rewrite of Reviews.

However, I did contact WaniKani about it and they said that while there is no timeline, they are aware of the issue. If or when they fix it, Reviews via the mobile web will be much much faster. If anyone also uses Bunpro, my goal is a similar state at least for now. We’ll be more reliable that that app, though!

Future
Everything that I mentioned in my open source proposal post is still true and this app will likely remain in a hybrid web/app state for the rest of the year.

I do not have a roadmap or timetable, and at this time there really aren’t that many users, but looking forward these are the things that are on my radar.

  1. Level Up - Small/Medium Effort:
    I usually look at the web’s Dashboard to try and figure out when I’ll reach the next level and what Kanji are required to do so. A mobile-optimized UI/UX for this on the Leap for WaniKani Dashboard would be nice.

  2. Learned - Medium Effort
    Similar to the first post, there would be a bottom nav with a Learned Screen that shows all of your Radicals, Kanji, and Vocabulary in a list and a Detail Screen if you click on one. This isn’t highly requested, though.

  3. Reviews - Big Effort
    If I do this, it would match the WK UI/UX and have fully automated tests to make sure we are bug-free. I’m also thinking of a setting that lets a user decide to switch between mobile web or native in the event there is a feature like audio-playback that hasn’t been implemented yet. I have my eye on the keyboard fix in the previous section.

  4. Lessons - Big Effort
    Similar to the first post, I have the Lessons UI/UX done; but the Reviews feature will need to be done first so that I can implement the Quiz at the end.

v1.2 Screenshots
Dashboard with Review Forecast

Nav Drawer with Notification Frequency and Categories

In-App Notification Frequency

Deeplink to Notification Category System Settings

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The reviews feature actually isn’t so far off although there is still some important work to be done in terms of the WaniKani input method, syncing, and automated testing to ensure it’s reliable. I think I’m going to contact WaniKani/Tofugu to see what they think about allowing a free and pro version so that long-term support is a possibility for me. If that is the case, then I could see building out a large feature set.

native_reviews_demo_high

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Hi everyone, this will be the last update for a while. I contacted WaniKani HQ about the API terms and conditions with respect to a free and pro version of this app. While the terms and business strategy may change in the future, at this time their stance is that no third party app can monetize. For anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation, this is the specific clause I asked about:

Tofugu may offer subscription-based access to our API for those Users who require high-throughput access or access that would result in resale of Tofugu’s Service.

However, one of my goals is complete in that I was able to share the open source proposal and the variety of ways these types of community projects could go from either GitHub Sponsors (WaniKani funds community developers) to paid third-party apps, or both. While I am of course interested in this for myself, I am also interested in this joint style public-private partnership here since there is already a rich open source community and I think it would lead to even higher quality language learning tools that could be potentially applicable beyond just WaniKani. And beyond just creating an app for their portfolio, it could support indie software developers, their side gig, or potentially help them launch a fulltime job out of it. I think there are many developers here who could pull off a full port of the website for iOS or Android apps with the WaniKani API, but hopefully it is understandable that it doesn’t mean you should do it for free. Remember that this is still a private company, you are improving their product, and your talents are highly valuable! There are creative options out there which I hope we can pursue later.

For now, I will continue to support Leap for WaniKani as a hybrid native/web app with Dashboard and notification features as it exists today. This feature set is more or less completed.

See you in the POLLS

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I’m sorry to hear that your plans for your app aren’t working out as hoped. It was a bit of a long shot to begin with, but your idea is very interesting and I was hoping it would work out with WK in practice.

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