MaruMori.io & Kitsun.io - [UPDATE: ALL ABOARD THE N3 TRAIN] - Grammar SRS, Grammar Lessons, Reading Exercises, Vocabulary, Kanji and more!

Gonna take Kitsun down for the update pretty soon (~5-15min)

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I just want to say everything about this project is awesome! I seriously think you have a product on your hand that could seriously rival ANKI and allow for much greater flexibility in one’s learning once the leveling systems are in place :slight_smile:

On the other hand, as a customer that creates their own cards, I just don’t know WHY not to say I WON’T use it, just the appeal is somewhat confusing I would want to use this over ANKI yknow? I found a WK Deck template to use for anki, and creating related cards is really easy, such that I’m generating conjugation cards for adjective and verbs to test my conjugation skills from one parent card once learned, and burying the related cards for another day. The interval system isn’t exactly like WK, but I’ve played it around enough using extensions that I was able to stop resetting to lvl 1 every time I got a card wrong.

Yes this took a lot of work on my part and is clumsy, and your user interface and interval set up is much more user friendly, but styling is not carried over to new cards very well, as I assume they use a different language, which means I’m basically gonna have to remake a lot of cards I’ve just spent ages remaking. Alternatively, I could give up learning the cards I made myself and go for a core vocab deck, but isn’t something I really want to put in the hand of other users at this moment in time.

A few suggestions I feel would really help fix this issue and put you on your way to a surefire win of a product;

  • Allow users to switch between templates for cards by remapping fields (and possibly allow them to do this in bulk when importing) currently the program just deletes all fields when changing a card to a new template.
  • Create a template store, I think this will really win the users over. Just as you have a store for user decks, having an area to showcase templates people have shared with the community will really up engagement and allow people to customize their decks
  • Conditional unlocks on related cards though SRS levels, just as WK requires you to Guru a radical before unlocking the Kanji, I want to test conjugations, and would therefore not want all conjugations unlocked at once the moment I learn a new item (leaving them locked in a similar way to how Vocab is)
  • Bunpro integration? https://bunpro.jp/api You could allow for some crazy decks that could have multiple contexts such as Guruing a Vocab card, and maybe using Bunpro’s API (say you completed a lesson for conjugating verbs into to the た form) then unlocks the respective conjugation for that vocab you’ve already learned, I think this would cement the app as a true study powerhouse, as you are respecting that people will be at different levels of study and proficiency, and won’t end up overwhelming them with concepts they are not ready for.

Things I do love

  • Add to front of lesson queue action in card search
    I think this can’t be advertised as a feature enough, one thing that pisses me off more than anything, is learning a kanji or word in a book, knowing it exists within the SRS system/deck, but being told “No you can’t add that to your SRS yet because it’s too high level according to the creator!”
  • Having separate ‘learn’ and ‘review’ sections like WK does, again should be advertised as a feature, being able to pre-learn the first card of material before being tested is something Anki sorely lacks (AFAIK)

All in all, seriously keep up the good work! I’ll definitely try to keep in with the community you are building and see where this goes. If I can think of any further feedback, I’ll be sure to let you know :slight_smile:

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@neicul: At least for me it’s a competition for Wanikani moneywise. Nevertheless I wish you good luck with your project. At least as long as Wankikani doesn’t die :smile:
The main points for Wanikani for me are SRS+stories.
Also Wanikani can be improved. ATM I proposed lightweight private levels to the Wanikani guys. And then I imagine to add private Wanikani items from any Japanese web pages with a mouse click. So you see there ist potential too.
Or a feature which allows to mark rendaku errors as yellow instead of red. Because ATM I’m not so interested in readings but more in meanings to be able to read sometime.
Anyways I agree with you that Kanji and vocab isn’t enough. I got some grammar knowledge from elsewhere.

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Hi!

Thanks for the thoughtfully put together message and the awesome feedback!
I’m splitting this up into two comments to maintain readability:

PART 1:

I think the main reasons why someone would use this over anki are the following:

Modern interface
One of the most common complaints with Anki is that it looks outdated and feels un-intuitive to the average user. Kitsun is web-based and has a modern UI/UX. This also means that your cards can make use of HTML5 and CSS3 features.

Ease of starting
Anki is relatively difficult for users to get used to and it takes quite some effort to start creating cards that have the visual flair that we nowadays expect. In Kitsun there are default templates and layouts which allow the user to instantly start creating their flashcards.

Any deck created also has default settings which make sense (based on WaniKani’s system).

I agree with you that after setting up anki, it also becomes relatively easy to create cards, but most people will not take the effort or don’t know how to set it up.

Community Centre
Next to this, the user can just go to the Community Centre page and instantly grab the shared decks that they want, without having to download, import or tweak anything.

Instant updates
Another benefit from this is that whenever the creator wants to update their shared decks, they can just do so by clicking the update button. This action will instantly update the deck for all current and future users with the changes that the creator made in the original deck which was used for publishing. No need to re-download anything.

Cloud Storage
Everything is stored in online databases and servers right under your own account. Meaning you won’t need to sync or download anything.

Same Experience Everywhere
Kitsun is a progressive web app, meaning that it should provide the same experience on every type of device that supports websites (excluding some small browser limitations).

Gamification
Gamification definitely helps users with studying if done right. It boosts their studying behavior and helps build a habit. Taking a note from Wanikani, Kitsun incorporates a similar system.

Community Forums
To help build a community, Kitsun also has forums available. We have threads for every Community Deck so that users can discuss the deck or provide feedback to the creators. Another use for the forums is voting on new features and requesting features.

Instant Cards from Dictionaries
This one is hot off the press, having the flow of:

Encounter vocab in wild → search it in Kitsun (with the Jisho.org API) → instantly add it as a flashcard to learn

is something Anki does not offer or needs time/skills to set up.

Collaboration (coming soon)
Ever wanted to create a deck with multiple people (e.g. a layout designer, a content creator, a quality checker etc)? This will soon be possible on Kitsun.

Example use-case:
On the WaniKani forums users often form bookclubs. The users can make a shared deck on which they can all collaborate to insert unknown vocab. That way other bookclub members can use the deck to pre-learn or retain the vocab they encounter while reading a certain book.

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PART 2:

I’m pretty sure this template was made by @hinekidori, who in turn also made it compatible with Kitsun. Maybe if you ask him kindly? :wink: As for layout syntax differences, yes there are some, but most of it should import well. Please do not publish a deck with this styling though, as I would prefer WK styling to stay over here at WK ^^

Good suggestion and definitely doable! It’s something that has been bugging me as well. Gonna put it on the list :slight_smile:

This has been brought up before and is definitely coming in the future :smiley:

Also already on the planning! I’m adding levels (part of card creation) which unlock after you get YY% (customizable) on SRS rank X (customizable) of the previous level.

I’d love to work together with Bunpro, WK or similar websites and implement something beneficial for users of those programs :slight_smile:

Once again thanks for the compliments! I’m glad you like it!

Edit: Gonna take kitsun down now :wink:

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I’m really interested in what you have planned for this as I can’t see any reference to it in the documentation at the moment. I assume it’s the level based srs system you were referring to?

Either way thanks for your long reply! I’m really glad to see you have all this under consideration! I’ll be looking forward to what your updates bring :slight_smile:

Also, no the layout I used was by cirhak and closely resembles the sample one on Kitsun, though I respect your wishes, maybe one day I’ll learn to make my own :sweat_smile:

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Deck/Card levels (the one mentioned above), user levels (experience / achievements / flairs etc) and some more stuff. I have a degree in Game Design and Theory which included a study of gamification, so I’m fairly confident I can whip up something cool :smiley:

Ah! They did base it on the one hineki made hahah. But if you need help with setting it up for Kitsun, feel free to join the Kitsun discord or add me personally (Neicudi#8494)

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Kitsun is back up!


2018-12-23


New features:

  • First version of the landing page is done and set as the default page for https://kitsun.io when you are not logged in. Otherwise it will redirect you to your decks.

  • Added a terms of service page (Kitsun.io) in preparation of launch. When creating an account you will have to accept the terms first. I’m soon implementing a popup which will ask anyone who registered before this update to accept it.

  • Community Centre - Added a frontpage sidemenu item which takes you back to the starting page.


Bugfixes:

  • Edit Card Page - Next Review date & time info is now hidden for hibernated and filtered cards.

  • Community Centre - The header (search bar and buttons) will not scroll down with you anymore.

  • Reviews & Lessons - The content beneath the ‘More Information’ button should now be hidden during reviews as well. Clicking the button will make the content appear as usual :slight_smile:

  • Dictionaries page - Tags should now always appear below the other information.

  • Kitsun N5/N4 JLPT Decks - Updated the layouts to utilize the latest version of the default Kitsun layouts. AKA it looks and wraps better now.

  • Fixed the {{addclass:fieldname}} layout field type. It should now correctly add the customstyle class to the ids listed in the field.

  • kitsun-click (used to create cards with clickable elements) will now not work when the layout contains a type field as well.

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I had to wait until this morning as I didn‘t have lessons in my queue. The image is still not showing during quiz.
If you want to have a look at the deck, it is the „Writing“ deck. If you find any improvements to how the layout is set up (or errors), please let me know! :bowing_woman:
Thanks for having a look at it!

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I’m currently looking but you have no lessons available atm, I’m gonna unlock one and revert it after I’m done. So if you see something happen in your account, don’t worry :slight_smile:

Done!

The problem was related to the content having the css style visibility:hidden, this should have been display:none. I’ve changed it for you :slight_smile:

As for general layout setup, you might want to put the other info inside as well? That way you’d hide all info unless you are doing lessons or click the button. Next to that, maybe align the “level” information to the centre?

But anyways, styling is very personal, so do whatever you think feels right :smile:

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Yeah, there is still a lot I have to learn, I just began to dig into HTML and CSS. Thank you very much, now it displays correctly!
:grinning:

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Check the side bar. That’s the most I can scroll down. Is that how it is supposed to work? xD (notice the blank space under the side bar)

disappears for another century

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I think it’s just a visual bug, as you dont have any decks below that so no need to scroll further :smiley:

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Taking Kitsun down very soon for a update!

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Back online.

2018-12-26


New Features:

  • My Cards page has been added to the sidebar. Clicking it will take you to the corresponding page where you can search through ALL the cards of ALL the decks you have! This is super handy to use when you want to learn a certain item but aren’t sure if it already exists or not. Of course, if it exists, just add it to the front of the learning queue and start right away!

  • Card Animations setting - You can now disable ALL layout animations (except the input shakes when inputting a wrong answer). The setting can be found in the general settings of the settings page.


Bugfixes:

  • Fixed an issue where the height of the quiz container was not set, causing some layouts to display the wrong height.

Update on the launch ETA: About 2-3 weeks! I’ll let you all know asap once I have a specific date!

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The possibilites

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Would it be possible to actually remove any number from here? I know that before, u had it showing 0, which didn’t make sense. However, I always find myself having to delete the 1, since most of the times I want a different number anyway (and I guess most users). With no number showing up, the person would just input their own and that’s it.

Plus, this almost happened:

hahaha

I feel great, but not that much great, :fox_face:さま.

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I made it 1 based on feedback by other users :stuck_out_tongue: I guess I could make it have no default, but with 0 you normally also had to delete it first right?

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Yeah, yeah. I agree that 1>0. My point is that blank > 1 > 0. Is it possible?

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