Jitai (字体): The font randomizer that fits

cplaverty said...[...]
I... feel like you're taking this entirely too seriously. The reason I didn't write to you personally - and instead only mention it in passing in a post mostly about something else - is simple: it's not that big a deal. I'm glad it's in the app, am a bit unhappy with how attribution was handled, but overall it's all just very mild.

cplaverty said...Your reply to Plantron ("[l]uckily it wasn't entirely plagiarism") gives a very strong implication to me, through the inclusion of the word "entirely", that you deemed it a form of plagiarism.
Ah, I'm sorry. That's not how I meant it. I don't feel like you plagiarized anything.

cplaverty said..The link to the script on OpenUserJS (https://openuserjs.org/scripts/obskyr/Jitai) indicates the licence is MIT.
Oh, whoops. I forgot OpenUserJS automatically says scripts are licensed under MIT if you don't manually change it in post. Well well, it's my favorite license in any case; I'll keep it. Regardless of license, though, I'd appreciate the attribution.

cplaverty said...[...]I assume you saw the source for the modified version of the script in order to belittle the scope of my (admittedly minor) changes.
Then I wasn't really belittling the change, was I... Don't get me wrong, it was a necessary and good change, but it was really minor.


dshoemaker said... @obskyr  aren't you being a bit hypocritical? Your userscript is based on another userscript (which isn't entirely plagiarism I suppose).  @cplaverty actually did more to give you credit than you have to @wind, so why are you expecting more?
Ah, maybe it's not clear enough in the description - Jitai isn't actually based on @Wind's Wanikani Random Fonts. In fact, Jitai was written from a blank canvas up. It was the reason I decided to make Jitai, however, which may be the source of the confusion.

I have changed from Chrome to Cent Browser which is typically improved Chrome, because they still support GDI. And the script isn’t working for me. Actually, there is like one font the whole time and when I hover with mouse over the text it changes to default font, but apart from that nothing changes. 

embe said... I have changed from Chrome to Cent Browser which is typically improved Chrome, because they still support GDI. And the script isn't working for me. Actually, there is like one font the whole time and when I hover with mouse over the text it changes to default font, but apart from that nothing changes. 
Whoaaa, that's really weird...

I downloaded Cent Browser to try it, but I couldn't reproduce the bug. I also installed Reorder Ultimate, which has typically been a source of problems, but still everything worked fine. Are you running any other extensions alongside it? Does it work if you isolate Jitai to be running by itself? Oh, and are you using TamperMonkey?

It does randomise but only 3 fonts at different intervals, that is, once for different amount of word change.

embe said... It does randomise but only 3 fonts at different intervals, that is, once for different amount of word change.
I don't entirely understand what "once for different amount of word change" means, but in any case, I don't have that problem. Even in Cent Browser, it uses all the fonts I have installed. As mentioned, it'd be good to know if you're using TamperMonkey or just the built-in Chromium userscript facilities, and whether you've tried isolating Jitai.

Something I’d really like to see is a button to temporarily switch to the browser default font. I know I can do that by hovering over the kanji, but that is kind of awkward because I have to get to the mouse, and then I often forget to move the mouse back off the kanji, so I don’t get any benefit from having Jitai for the rest of the session.

(Left CTRL would probably work well.)

Taschi said... Something I'd really like to see is a button to temporarily switch to the browser default font. I know I can do that by hovering over the kanji, but that is kind of awkward because I have to get to the mouse, and then I often forget to move the mouse back off the kanji, so I don't get any benefit from having Jitai for the rest of the session.

(Left CTRL would probably work well.)
Thanks for the suggestion! We've talked about this before a few times, though. Basically, it counters the point of Jitai a bit.

That you forget to remove the mouse from the word is a bit of a problem though, hmm... I feel a bit silly asking, but is that something you could learn to not do? The only solution I can think of is doing the hover via JavaScript instead of CSS and undoing the hover effect each time the font switches, but that'd be some really weird behavior I think...

Oh, by the way, your avatar is from a real sweet game series! Nice one.

I can see that it counters the point a bit, just like the possibility to hover does.

My angle is that learning to read some of the weirder fonts in Jitai’s list just requires the possibility to switch back to contrast and compare, which a) allows you to learn instead of just guessing when you first encounter a weird glyph, and b) strenghtens recognition of the basic shapes of individual kanji. And I probably don’t have to tell you how hard distinguishing between “plate” and “blood” can be in some fonts (while it’s fairly obvious in some others).

Taschi said... My angle is that learning to read some of the weirder fonts in Jitai's list just *requires* the possibility to switch back to contrast and compare, which a) allows you to learn instead of just guessing when you first encounter a weird glyph, and b) strenghtens recognition of the basic shapes of individual kanji. And I probably don't have to tell you how hard distinguishing between "plate" and "blood" can be in some fonts (while it's fairly obvious in some others).
Absolutely, it does require the possibility to compare. However, having a keyboard shortcut makes it too easy. The first time you encounter a new glyph you don't understand you can hover if you can't figure it out, and then hopefully after that you should know it - or at least be better at recognizing it. If it's a bit more of a hassle to checck the normal font, it's harder to reflexively go for the font switch and negate any interpretation practice you might've gotten if you kept at it for a little bit more.

Hey, I need some help for the additional fonts.
I have unzipped everything and have différent types of files (.lzh, .crx, .ttf, .otf, .eot, .woff). The readme files are not lisible. What do I have to do with these? Can’t open them.

Sorry if someone already asked the question.

plantron said...
Capu said... Hey, I need some help for the additional fonts.
I have unzipped everything and have différent types of files (.lzh, .crx, .ttf, .otf, .eot, .woff). The readme files are not lisible. What do I have to do with these? Can't open them.

Sorry if someone already asked the question.
 Can you at least tell us your operating system and version?
 Oh sorry!
I use Windows 10.
Capu said...
plantron said...
Capu said... Hey, I need some help for the additional fonts.
I have unzipped everything and have différent types of files (.lzh, .crx, .ttf, .otf, .eot, .woff). The readme files are not lisible. What do I have to do with these? Can't open them.

Sorry if someone already asked the question.
 Can you at least tell us your operating system and version?
 Oh sorry!
I use Windows 10.
 lzh: some version of japanese zip files〜
crx: uwaa〜 as far i know this is chrome extension〜 why it included in font files?
ttf : true type font〜 it's golden standard but now begin replaced by OTF
otf: opentype font〜 new modern standard and have more advanced ligature and glyps compared ttf〜
eot: embedded font usually for web purpose〜
woff: function same like eot for displaying on web〜

purotip〜 if your package contain both otf and ttf〜 im prefer otf since it more robust〜 but if your package contain only TTF nothing wrong with that and is okay for use〜

otf/ttf  is cross platform which is also okay on win 10〜 make sure dont install both to avoid conflict in some program〜

ciao〜♪
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Thanks for your answers! I think it was not recognized and considered as a unidentified file at the begining, this is why I couldn’t do anything with the files (I maybe wrong though).

For the crx it’s my mistake. It’s a chrome extension like you said.

So I have nothing to do with the .lzf file?

k thx

I just tried this out on my review session and it was quite refreshing. Thanks for this incredibly practical userscript!

I haven’t scoured this thread, so I apologize if this has already been mentioned, but I use the rikaisama extension all the time and the moving the cursor to the kanji or word makes it dangerously close to revealing the answer through a pop-up for me, and that did happen on a few occasions. If it was possible to extend the mouse detection range (perhaps even to the upper frame of the review screen) or allow a keyboard shortcut that would be fantastic.

Been using this since level 1, and it is absolutely awesome.  Thank you so much!

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I just wanted to say I started using this and it is THE COOLEST THING! It’s so cool! It’s wild how different some of the kanji can look. Blows my mind! Thank you so much, @obskyr!

If anyone has any fonts not mentioned in the original post that they can recommend, I’m all ears.

2 Likes

LOVE IT !
Not only does this force me to think more in terms of radicals, but it also keeps reviews more interesting.
On the first day of using this, I already failed a burn because 帰 looked weird in the font.

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One of the fonts Jitai uses, chifont+, has updated! There’s a new version of it out called Nchifont+. Naturally, since I can’t stay away from writing code for everything, I wrote a script to compare two fonts, see which glyphs are different, and make a comparison GIF of them. As it turns out, Chihaya (the author of the font) redrew nearly every kanji, which made for a ridiculously huge gif, so… I ended up having to basically throw that code out. Instead, I made the script output a comparison GIF for WaniKani’s first 225 kanji - check it out:


Since I put all this time into making this script… if you’d like a comparison gif between two fonts, I guess I take requests now :sweat_smile:

I don’t know about you, but personally I like the original chifont+! I appreciate that it’s wonkier than the more proper Nchifont+. Hand writing is often wonky, after all.

Anyway, this means a small update is coming in not too long, to support Nchifont+. I might add a few more fonts, even (more handwriting, anyone?), and I think I’ll see if I can extend the hover area a bit in accordance with @Inserio’s suggestion - Rikai-chan-kun-sama seems to be a fairly common browser extension.

6 Likes

Thanks for this amazing extension! I wish I had it years ago when I started WK.

Just one problem, I can’t figure out where to download chifont+/Nchifont+. I followed the link on Github and wasn’t able to track the download down from there.