Tagaini Jisho A free Japanese dictionary and study assistant

The first release candidate for the upcoming 0.2.6 version is available. Since no deep changes have been introduced, it is probably safe for all users to try it. Some rough edges are still present, but they only concern new features.

https://launchpad.net/tagaini-jisho/devel/0.2.6rc1

The biggest change of this release is the introduction of HTML/CSS templates for the detailed view, which will on the long term allow to customize how information is displayed. Changing them is not easy for the end user yet, but it is the first step in this direction. Also, if you think you can improve the layout of the current templates, please don't hesitate to discuss it on the mailing list or forum!

A new export format has also been introduced, that outputs a single HTML file containing all the entries of a list or search result. This file uses Javascript to propose list review but also basic flashcards. If you want to practice on your iPhone or Android device, you may want to consider this. This feature is not 100% complete yet, but is already working. The HTML file is also a template, so users are encouraged to submit improvements.

Some improvements have also been brought to the lists feature introduced in 0.2.5. Kanji stroke orders (both animations and printed output) have also been augmented with the ability to display the stroke numbers.

People who want to contribute translations can now try them by putting them into the i18n subdirectory of the directory where Tagaini has been installed. Please note that if you want to update the translation file of your preferred language for 0.2.6, this is the moment to do it! Updated translation templates to complete with Qt Linguist or any compatible translation software are available here:

http://gitorious.org/tagaini-jisho/tagaini-jisho/trees/master/i18n

A long due release, Tagaini Jisho 0.2.5 is finally available for Linux, Windows and MacOS.

An important milestone, this release switches to CMake for easier building and many of the internals have been rewritten and made more robust.

Feature-wise, a radical and components based kanji search and input panel makes it easier than never to find and input mysterious kanji. If you can only recognize or input one of the components of an unknown kanji, then you found the beginning of the thread and just need to follow it up to the kanji you are looking for.

Hierarchical and ordered lists also make their entrance, providing an additional way to organize and study entries. Book readers who want to organize new vocabulary and kanji by chapter and need to print booklets featuring them by order of appearance, rejoice!

A clipboard-search feature has also appeared, which automatically looks up the clipboard contents as it changes.

Due to the introduction of lists, the user interface has also been somehow redesigned, and now features hideable and movable parts to let you organize the layout according to your study. Some improvements are particularly notable on Windows, where the popup windows finally behave as they should and close when the clicks outside them.

The second release candidate for 0.2.5 is available. I decided to run a second rc cycle because it features many changes compared to rc1 (more than 50 commits) and also to give a last chance for external contributors to update the documentation and translations. I have stopped maintaining the French translation, so anyone who wants to take over is welcome to contact me. Other translations awaiting maintainers are German, Spanish, Russian (and maybe Dutch?). Translating is nothing difficult, and does not require any technical skill - just the ability to translate sentences from English to another language.

It is getting increasingly difficult for me to maintain all the stuff related to Tagaini (website, packaging, etc.) so if you can, please consider contributing if you can (see http://www.tagaini.net/jobs ). Failing to build a community around Tagaini will result in degraded releases (like the French translation not being available or the documentation not being up-to-date), which I would like to avoid but unfortunately is beyond my control.

0.2.5 final will probably be released at the beginning of next week. By the meantime, please get this release at https://launchpad.net/tagaini-jisho/+milestone/0.2.5rc2 and report any problem that is not listed below.

The list of changes with respect to rc1 include:

• Radical and component kanji selectors have been improved and work much more consistently;
• In order to avoid repeating the fiasco of rc1, Tagaini can now start even if the user database is corrupted. In this case, it will do so on a temporary database that is created from scratch. In the preferences window, the user can also get the path to the user database file and recreate it from scratch;
• Lists are 100% complete, with print ability;
• Menus moved into their relevant widget when relevant;
• Fixed some inconsistencies when non-kanji characters were displayed in the results list
• Radical information now displayed in the detailed view - yes, Tagaini finally support radicals!

Things that are broken and I will attempt to fix for the final release, probably due by the end of this week/beginning of next:

• User manual link is not working on Windows
• Under Windows, popups do not close when clicking outside them, which is not really handy for the radical/component input systems.

The release candidate of Tagaini Jisho 0.2.5 is now available, both source code and Windows binaries (Mac binaries will arrive a little bit later). It fixes a couple of bugs and all the planned features have been implemented. Some more polishing needs to be done, and unless anything goes wrong the final 0.2.5 should be released next week. If you can, please test this version, as it is the last chance to squeeze bugs before 0.2.5 is out!

The translation strings are frozen and it is therefore safe for people willing to provide a translation of the user interface to do it. The translation templates are available from the source tarball in the i18n directory (files with .ts suffix, can be opened with Qt Linguist for translation). Right now we have a French and Dutch translations (both needing to be updated) but anybody is welcome to contribute a new language. If you can, please consider maintaining a translation - it only takes a moment to update and makes Tagaini accessible to more users. Also, I'm still looking for people to maintain binaries versions of the software (Windows, Mac, Ubuntu, OpenSuse, Fedora, ...). If you have experience in packaging for your Linux distribution, please consider maintaining its binary package. If you have experience with Winamp's installer (or any other good Windows installer program), please take over the Windows binary. If you understand Mac OSX bundles, the Mac version is in need for some love too.

The second beta of 0.2.5 has been released. Compared to the first one, it features improved lists management, a mode to auto-search on the clipboard contents when it changes, a reworked user interface that allows the search interface to be moved anywhere on the screen, and several internal changes to improve stability. The components selector has been disabled for this release and it is not sure whether it will make it for the final version - most likely, it will be replaced by a classical multi-radical selector.

Please download and try this version (warning: no way back to 0.2.4!), and report any problem you may have with it!