JCJP Update Blog

New Update on Random Practice Question and Weak List:
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-89.html

New Updates on GUI:
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-90.html

Reverse Question Feature

more info:
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-91.html

If you are using twitter.com, now you can tweet your activity log from your statistics page.

Thanks for the link beeant. I was wondering why the forum wasn't there anymore. ^^

I am sorry for removing the forum from the site.
I just think that this bulletin and forum has a similar function on this site. So with this bulletin, I dont think this site needs a forum anymore...

Also, I think that some user may get confused whether he/she should post in the forum or bulletin.

This bulletin may not be perfect, however if you give any suggestions and your needs on how a bulletin should be, your are free to give any suggestions.
for example, embed photo in the bulletin, embed video, attachment, etc.
I want to include this sub-feature on this bulletin feature, however I dont know if it will be necessary, unless some user tell me.

New update on Latest posts and comments on Footer:

http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-94.html

Google Translation in kanji practice question

http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-96.html

Now you can post video.
you can post video and create your own vocabulary list based on the video.

http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-99.html

two new updates:

delete vocabulary in video function
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-100.html

Level Checkbox selection on Random Practice Question
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-101.html

new update:

Vocabulary Reverse Question (Japanese to English)
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-102.html

new update:

Post Bulletin Modification
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-104.html

new update:

Russian Translation
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-105.html

new update:

DutchTranslation
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-106.html

new update:

Level 4 Kanji Lessons and Chapter Tests (36 - 40)
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-107.html

new update:

Group Page:
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-108.html

new update:

Kanji Google Translation to Prefered Language
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-109.html

new update:

Chat feature has been reimplemented
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-110.html

new update:

Group List Page
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-112.html

i know, i am not supposed to answer here BUT the new starting page... i dont like it ^-^. the chaptertestlist has to be up somewhere, well where it was. i think its an crucial part. opening your charts and seeng your chapterresults. atleast you could implement it in those row "comments, weak list, sentence" etc. since its top priotity is learning.....sorry for nagging

Hello ibun,

its totally fine to post here, and that is the purpose actually...

Thank you for your suggestion, I already modify it a bit. Did you mean statistics page?
I tried to put the chapter test progress on the top of the tabs list, but it doesnt seem balanced with the height of the box on the left. So I put the activity tab on the top of the selection, as the activity list will grow.

maybe I will change the chapter test progress on the top of the selection after JCJP has enough chapters to fill in the height.

Thank You,
JCJP Admin

I changed the Chapter Test progress back to the first top selection, the page will automatically slide toggle the chapter lists of the user's level.

new update:

Practice, Quiz, Chapter Tests interface
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/

Sentence Correction Voting
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-118.html

hey ....would be hard to build a practice database based on the sentences.

Like "this ramen tastes like cat feet"
answers
*a
*b
*c
*d

first english only and if there are more sentences for other languages than those? i understand that its risky since not everyone knows how to build correct sentences.

and again for the normal practice. may it be possible to implement the questions in both languages. you have the drop downmenue

default
reverse

what about "both"

question one:

umbrella

*傘
*クマ
*魚
*体

question two:

誕生日

*birthday
*birthmark
*holiday
*newyear

question 3 japanese, 4 english, 5 japanese, 6 japanese, 7 english ,8 english

and then so on, just random.

I like the random option.
About making practice based on the sentences, I think it's very hard to do it well. If you put a correct answer and another three random ones, it will be very very easy to tell wich is the correct one. The incorrect answers should be similar or there will be no challenge at all.

所で、we need to vote also for the sentences that have no corrections.
And, can the author vote for him/herself?
I don't know if it's possible now, but I think it should be forbidden. And I miss the option to delete my own failures ^_^!

just write one correct and take 3 sentences translated from beginners. they will all seem identical BUT only one is correct. that what i thought too. never the less it should be hard enough at first.

or maybe

you'll have it in japanese with kanji etc and the answers are simplified with hiragana and katakana. would be easy to build some "wrongs" and let that "sentence practise" just be for level 3 and above so you can expect all learnes to know how to read in japanese. so it would be no strain for beginners. its just about collecting ideas.

Ibunさん, I think taking beginner's sentences will be harder than building the wrong ones manually. You need many (three at least) wrong "beginner's" sentences to do that, so at the end you'll make them on purpose.



Beeant閣下, there is a little bug in the new Random Practice Question Page.
Well, I don't know if the bug is new or related to the last changes you've made.

If you start typing in the answer box, but then point & click an option with the mouse, the text in the box (possibly incomplete or mistyped) seems to be taken as the answer, and not the option selected with the mouse.
Due to that, you can select a valid answer but you get a failure.

And about the last changes, I think that there are only 7 vocabulary entries with double kanji form (separated with "/"), so it's nearly impossible try them at random.

じゃ

Hello ibun and spanz,

thank you for commenting and discussing some possible modifications and features.

I'm sorry for my late reply,

first I like the all random idea, I will implement it ASAP.
for the sentence practice question, it is possible to be implemented, like instead of giving 4 options of 4 difference sentence, we can put 4 options of similar options but the word order is randomized, (force the user to read/practice reading). but, the problem is that, there are some sentences with errors.

spanz:
the author cant vote for him/her self.
for the original sentence voting.
it is good to have votes for original sentence, to see if the sentence is good quality, but I dont really think that it is necessary. if it is really needed in the future, I will implement it.

Actually its not a bug that is caused by the latest modification. It is javascript problem. its not only if you click the option, if you press tab, enter, click somewhere else, or any change that makes the text pointer goes out from the inputbox, the javascript will automatically load the checking script and go to the next question.
I will fix this problem.

thanks for counting the number of vocabularies with "/", I thought there were many of them, haha.
You can try it when you find them, try level 1 vocabulary.

Thanks =D

can I suggest something here? Is it possible to have our wrong answer displayed at the side after making the mistake? Maybe below the correct answer that is shown on the left?

Sometimes people make unintentional mistake that they didn't even realized and they were sure that they were right but could not check what did they chose before. It would be helpful for reflection purposes.

new update:

Search Sentence in Group Page
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-120.html

Two small bugs in the new search sentence function.

Possible bug (or wrong formed sentence):
Search for "1" (without "").

Search result:
back to sentence list

Japanese:
1書物
make correction
by bahasa_jepang via Bahasa Indonesia
English:

1'>(sentence not available)
1' onclick='openAddnewsent("6", "alternate")'>1'>add English sentence translation

This "sentence" has not translation, but that doesn't cause problems in other phrases.
It seems that 1書物 is a problematic "sentence".

Actual bug:
If you search for "ñ" (w/o "") in the English group, you get a bunch of illogical answers. Some of them include "via español", but some don't.
There should be zero answers, so clearly something's wrong.

Apart from these oddities, the searching function works very well. It search in both fields (japanese and translated). That's good. And useful!

Thank you for finding the bug spanz =D I owe you a lot!

I have fixed the 1書物 problem.

but I couldnt identify what is wrong with "ñ" problem...

for "via español" problem, I think that is normal, the Japanese sentence can be corrected from all group pages. So, this via message is to tell where is the correction comes from.

Thank You,
I will try to find the "ñ" problem, it seems like MySQL bug... but maybe my codes are wrong.

I have been feeling sad lately...
I have noticed that some websites (I dont want to mention) copy some features in JCJP.
They are working as a company and I am working alone...
As long as I released a new feature,
1-2 weeks later, I can see the same feature on their page.. =(

いいえ、こちらこそ！
The "via español" is not a problem. I just thought that the "ñ" in "via español" could explain the results, but it's not the case.

For your information, there are some characters that show similar behaviour.
Searching for one of these (or even sometimes strings of two or more of them) produces variable and absurd results. Surely these are not the only ones...
ñ,ç,_

Searching for
?,/
produces a lot of warnings without any visible sentence. Some of the results for "?" contain indeed the "?", but even in these cases, the sentence texts are not shown. Only the corrections are shown.

And if you want a really strange result, try searching for "."
Given the results, I thought that the string ".." should give the same answers. I was wrong...

I've checked if "ñ" in UTF8 / Unicode Little Endian / Unicode Big Endian can match partially some of the kana/kanji strings in the list, but doesn't seem
to be true, so I'm lost.

Anyway, none of these are big problems. You can leave the system as it is for the moment.

I didn't see your sad comment. Sorry.
Are you sure they are copying you? several websites? すごい! You must be in the right way!
Take a break if you feel you've lost motivation. Maybe they will come with another idea you can copy.
Don't give up!

Thank you for your motivating words spanz. =D
I don't want to give up, because I also like developing this site, meeting new people like you, etc.

For the searching bugs, as you said it is not a big problem ( I also think so ) so I will leave it as it is now.

I am planning to modify the whole codes of JCJP to make it more efficient, faster, and easier to maintain such as new feature development, etc.
Because of this, the new feature release might be delayed for a while.

Don't worry too much, boss. We're not in a hurry.

"I am planning to modify the whole codes of JCJP to make it more efficient, faster, and easier to maintain."
Wow, sure you are a 働き者!

I hope you'll change the developing order, and give priority to:
1-Your studies
2-Making JCJP easier to maintain (good idea, but you'll need a lot of willpower)
3-Making JCJP faster
4-Taking advice from fools like me

頑張って下さい!

I have done around 5%-10% on rewriting the whole code.
Please be patient for the new feature updates. =D

10-4

10-4?

Ok　/ affirmative / understood / 分かった。
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten-code

ごめんね、　I did not want you to lose your time.

Hello, beeant.

Lately (aprox. from yesterday), I'm suffering multiple locks in the Random Practice with reverse mode Spanish vocabulary setting.
There are some answers that I can't select. Whenever one of these "special" answers is the correct one, I get stuck. In order to advance without a fail, I need to reload the page loosing all the combos.
Your code doesn't crash. Everything still works. The little ball mark follows the mouse, and I can select any other answer (failing the question, of course!).
If I click the correct one, nothing happens.

Is this problem related to your latest work?
(No need to fix it yet. Surely it affects only to reverse Spanish questions) This is only for your information.

Here are two of these "special" answers:

1980年代
1980ねんだい
condición / estado actual
compañero / contrincante
tal que / como / así
los años 80

The last one (the correct one) is the only unselectable option. Every time this question appears, I get stuck.

心から
こころから
palabra que simula el sonido de algo que no suena
psicología
de corazón / con el corazón
hecho / certeza / realidad

Here, the unselectable option is the third one.

The accented vowels and "ñ" don't cause problems in other questions, so I don't know what's happening here.

奇妙な事だよ。

じゃ！

Hello spanz,

Thank you so much for finding lots of bugs and report the problems to me. I will try to get it fixed ASAP, I am working on the next release, hopefully I can get it done by the end of November.
as I told you before, I am rewriting the whole codes from scratch.

Sorry for replying your long message with this short notice.
I will get back to you when everything is stable.

Thank You,
bn

i was just curious, what was ment with "chat and lessons integrated"? i dont wanted to spam the other thread. °~°

Its something like you can chat and doing practice at the same time and in same window.

Hello,

I would like to inform to all JCJP users that the new JCJP is almost done, I am looking for volunteer for testing, looking for current bugs, though I have noticed some bugs and some error message still appear, I am also looking for small/big bugs that I havent notice.

If you would like to participate to be the first who use the new JCJP, please email me or tell me via this thread.

I am sorry but not everybody can try it for now, I may reject some.

Thank You,
JCJP Admin

New blog post New JCJP Preview

http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-121.html

please give some comments =D
Thank You,
JCJP Admin

Nice, but how's the main page and statistics look like? Sono mama de ii to omou... New look is ok though, if it's still as informative as it is now...

Hello arheena,

Thank you for being the first who response to this post.

Actually the information will just gonna be the same, the main modification of the site the codes behind it (which you may not really care about)
I am hoping that with the new organized codes, I can release more new features in a more efficient way (faster).

Also, I did some modification to the layout. Basically, most of the new page layout is just the same. I am trying to make it cleaner design and free from distraction, and more organized. So that you can learn more efficiently.

Please tell me if you have any suggestion on the layout or anything.

Thank You,
JCJP Admin

It's too soon to make useful comments, but I like the idea of showing the sentences in the vocabulary lesson. Too bad that you'll need a good filter (someone has to filter out the incorrect phrases), or the lesson won't be a true lesson.
Some silly questions:
1-What's the new page Recess? Sounds good!
2-And Community? It's a new name for Groups?
3-In the practice preview picture, below the answer box, there are two strange pink boxes:
-subject, theme, task
-6x wrong, added to weak list
These don't seem to have relation with the question above. What's their purpose?

Anoo, beeant-dono, if you want me to find stupid bugs, I would like to try the new version. Please!

Hello spanz,

Long time no talk.
The recess is actually just a category that includes Photo and Video, so its nothing new. ( I am trying to make this site to be like real Class, there are lessons, practice, tests, and also recess/break, haha this may sound silly.)

Community is also the same, its just a category that includes Groups and Bulletin.

For the Practice, I am trying to take a screenshot that shows all the features, so the 2 lines of pinkboxes are showing two different corrections.
- first is the correction for click answer
- second is for type answer (it doesnt show the typed answer on the screenshot because its been automatically reset)

I would be happy if you are willing to try the new version, but I am currently fixing some bugs and completing the kanji lessons (reorganizing the kanji lessons) so its kind of messed up now.

and I am trying to get a new server for the new JCJP (hopefully JCJP would make some money in the future to cover the extra cost) =(
After I got the new server, completed the kanji lessons, and fixed the bugs, I will let you know how to access it.

ps: since this month is a busy month for me, I am not sure if I can fulfill my promise that the new JCJP would be released by the end of November. I am really sorry for this. =(


Thank you,
JCJP Admin

Take your time, man, and don't forget your real classes. We don't need a deadline.
幸運を祈るよ。

More comments:
>> In the practice section, does it mean that we can't see both kanji and kana (like the way it is now)? And what is reverse vocabulary?
>> The main page looks simpler, with no today's ranking and recent users activity, but I think it's fine ^^
>> Where's the chat feature? is it in recess?

Good luck with the new server ^^

i think i have to use it first...but o.ô dunno.. i dont like it that much, but as allways its a personal thing of taste. since i am accessing everybit of information via one page: statistics. it gives a more compact feel than the new layout. like said, first have to use it, since a few screenshots are to less to judge all look&feel compared to usability. since this site works flawlessly and i didnt notice anyone complaining, you can take all the time you need

Hello,

I am sorry for my late reply,
arhena: you can select them both Kanji and kana and it will show both of them :D
Reverse Vocabulary is just like we have now, so English (other language) will be the answer and Japanese will be the question (for vocabulary practice)
Ya, I am trying to make it simple and comfortable for learning, and easy to use. Maybe I will put Today's ranking section on the ranking page.
I have not create a chat feature for the next release :(

ibun: the statistics page will give you the same information. Yes its true, by just looking at the screenshot, its difficult to tell.
Actually I am concentrating on usability on the next release layout design. But if you say so there must something is wrong with it or you should try it first.

Actually there are some complains coming from the feedback form. However most of the feedback are good and makes me happy :D anyway, I accept all feedback good or bad it doesnt really matter.

The next release is now ready for test, though it still hasnt got all the features that the current JCJP has. The problem is that I am having problem looking for a reasonable server/hosting for it :( I definitely let you guys know when its ready. =D

Thank you for your questions,
JCJP Admin

ah youre implementing now mixed questions or did i get you wrong? would be nice to see that ^-^. i didnt meant to rant about it...sorry...it was just my impression, because i dont like candy colours. we will see after implementation....i can still complain after that ^-^ *laughs* give a call if the testing page is up.
thanks for your hard work o(^-^)b

Hello,

Finally, I released the NEW JCJP! =D

I know there will be lots of bugs.
I hope that all of JCJP users will participate to find the bugs and report them to me.

Up until now, I would like to say thank you to spanz, arheena, ibun, tofuqueen, Mike for testing the new JCJP before I released it.

Special thanks to spanz who did a lot of bug finding, suggestions, etc. (spanz did a lot of stuffs!)

I am kind of busy now, so I will just leave this short release message and continue later.

Thanks to you all JCJP users! =D

Thank You,
bn

Oh ya,
I forgot to say, Merry Christmas Everyone!

Merry Christmas to you, too. Do you never rest?

I think Kanji practice is "fine" (you know, plenty of PHP errors everywhere, but it can be used). However, vocabulary is not usable.

Kanji practice answers seem to be ok under Firefox (tested only with level 1).
I don't know if some of the kanji weren't from level 1. I guess not.
At least one kanji lesson doesn't show the correct number of questions.
It says 10 questions, but the lessons has 16.

Well, today's not a good day to work too much, so Merry Xmas to everyone!

Err, Boss, why this box is so ***ing small?

Quote:
"Currently this site only works with the best broswer, Mozilla Firefox"
Ha, ha, ha... oops, no! Ho, ho, ho! I like all the "broswers", but Firefox is the best! =D

Forget about the incorrect number of questions in the lesson's list. If the number in the little blue box is the number of kanji, then it's fine.
Ittekimasu!

Tadaima!
A simple test and a weird result:

If I visit this site with Firefox, I get many PHP errors everywhere, even in the main page. Errors like this:

A PHP Error was encountered
Severity: Notice
Message: Trying to get property of non-object
Filename: controllers/jcjp_controller.php
Line Number: 21

You have blocked for the moment the use of other browsers, so I faked the user agent of Chrome and Opera to appear as Firefox with these results:
Chrome: Same errors as original Firefox.
Opera: No errors shown.

The site works better with Firefox indeed. With Opera or Chrome, the tests and practice suffer several problems, so the only compatible browser right now is Firefox, but, why the php errors don't show under Opera? Or, why Firefox show them? They are really annoying.
As I don't see other users complaining about those errors, I guess it's only a problem on my side. Or maybe not? Deleting cache and cookies doesn't help.
Are there more users with this "problem"?

When i use it with IE it relin me on mozilla's page.

I get something strong with bar progress.
it doesn't show us our progress :
http://www.japaneseclass.jp/user/user_statusbar/96/2876 to 15001 to level 2

I had less than 10% and the pic show us more than 95%.

Same here, so many error on almost every page, tho the main content is still intact enough, all those error boxes is quite annoying.

Ho and Behold...XD

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Notice

Message: Trying to get property of non-object

Filename: controllers/jcjp_controller.php

Line Number: 21
A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Notice

Message: Trying to get property of non-object

Filename: controllers/jcjp_controller.php

Line Number: 28
A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Notice

Message: Trying to get property of non-object

Filename: controllers/jcjp_controller.php

Line Number: 30

Hello,

I am kind of busy now, fixing bugs, finding bugs, recovering my social life, taking some rest (for spanz), etc.
I will get back and reply soon.
Thank you very much for your cooperation =)

Thank you,
bn

Short notice:
spanz: what is small? broswer is a typo error. about the number of kanji question, which chapter and which page? the error message will show if you go to www.japaneseclass.jp, it has been fixed now only japaneseclass.jp is allowed (no www)
Morviuz: error message fixed
Beltzar: level bar fixed

Beeant, it's good to know you still have a social life.
The number of kanji is right (it was chapter 5), I thought the blue number represents the number of questions in the chapter, but it's the number of kanji in the chap, so all is fine.
About the small thing, I was referring to this comment box. Now is big enough (as it grows with the text). I don't know if you have just fixed it, but I was in Opera, and the box was too small. Now, it grows in Firefox and in Opera, so another 'bug' is gone.
I promise not annoy you so much for a while. For now, I'll only give you a Christmas bug present (ho,ho,ho, I'm evil):
I've challenged myself with other user of level 1, and the default settings for the challenge are for level 5. IMHO, a level 1 challenger should only be able of challenges from level 1.
Ja!

I think that how it supposed to be. The settings level in challenge is according to the level of the "Challenged user".
So, user level 1 can challenge level 5 user with level 5 questions
but user level 5 cannot challenge user level 1 user with level 5 questions.

I just added this auto grow (textarea input) feature, because me myself also got annoyed by the small text area input before haha.

Hi beeant,

Looks good! \(^_^)/

I haven't had time to do much, but have been doing my usual (vocab & reverse vocab only, levels 1-5, showing kanji & kana) and haven't hit any problems or bugs; if I do I will let you know.

Hello TofuQueen,

Thanks :)

Ya seems like there are no more serious problem anymore. (maybe there is some hidden ones)
Now I dont know if I should reset the database to 24 Dec 2009 or not.
Should I?

Thank You,
bn

gratulations sites up ^-^v ...what would change if you reset the database? o.ô? loosing just some exp etc?

Thanks ibun.
Ya just the exp and all the history.. everything will be back to 24 December 2009.
Is that Ok?

For now I think that there is no need to do that.

Yes, there is no real need to restore the database, but you told us you would.
Maybe some users made some errors for testing purposes, or restrained themselves from doing practices because they knew that any progress would be lost.
Maybe now some users should be higher in the rankings or should have better stats.
I dunno, it's not important, but I think it's a bit unfair (provided such affected users exist).
You need much more opinions so, for the moment, leave it as it is and we'll see.
Can you make a poll system?. It could be useful for this and for future questions.

I see you've lifted the ban on webkit browsers (Safari).
Since this also affects users of Chrome, you should state it in the blog. (And HERE, too)

Hm, one suggestion...and quite possibly I'm weird in wanting this...it would be nice if my daily experience was visible on the "Practice" page while I'm practicing.

I have a daily goal that I try to meet throughout the day & it would be handy to have daily experience right there as I'm practicing. Of course I can easily check the "Ranking" page so it's nothing big.

Also wanted to tell you that I *LOVE* the new practice options, esp. being able to have vocabulary questions both regular & reverse, randomly! I feel like I learn the vocab a lot better when I get the questions both ways, & this makes it easy. \(^_^)/

New Blog Post:

Multi-Langual Enabled
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-124.html

spanz: ya it works on Chrome too =), No support for MSIE yet =(
for resetting the database, I think I have committed myself to stay with the current database, since there are so many changes in current database architecture. It is gonna be so difficult to reset back and recover the architecture. So I that make this to be the official release.

TofuQueen: Ya I also think that the practice page should be more dynamic. I will work on it ASAP.
Thanks for giving a good feedback and suggestion!

it doesnt have to be something fancy...a simple bar like in the last interation would be enough OR you create 2 small extra boxes for the top line
Name;Level;base EXP; new=> Rank; exp Today...

Yeah, just something like another box along the top right with "today's exp" would be great.

Another quick suggestion - in "Practice", when the question is in Japanese, it's centered in the box, but when the question is in English, it's at the left side of the box. It would be nice if it could be consistent one way or the other - I have a small preference for centered, but either way would be fine.

ibun: actually that is what i was thinking :)
I have implemented the Today's EXP point on the user header menu.
Now I have to do the level progress bar. I am thinking to put a 990px thin wide bar on the top of the page. what do you think about this?

TofuQueen: The positioning is just to tell you that the centered question in the random practice is a reverse vocabulary question.
Actually there is no specific reason of putting them in different position.
I just cant decide whether I should put the question in the middle or left.

I think if its in the middle, it looks better, but if its on the left, it reduces your eye movements.
What do you think?

Agreed with TofuQueen and ibun.
Beeant, I see you've added a little arrow showing the progress of practice. Can't you also change the total EXP points?

In my stats page, the sentences produce PHP errors.
Ah!, I can't get rid of a challenge notification.
Good work!

I have fixed the sentence problem in user statistics.
Thanks for detecting and telling me about the bug.

I have also added the feature of updating the Total EXP every time you answer a question in practice question ( is this what you meant? )
Thank you for your suggestion =D

for now all the notifications will be there, there is no way to delete it yet. Sorry... :( I will fix that later. ( I havent think of a good way of showing and deleting notification )

Yes, that's what I meant (actualize the total continuously).
By the way, I'm writing this in a PDA (opera mobile). The tests don't work, but the practice is usable (not the text input).
じゃね。

Hi!
In the Groups page, the new (only the new) sentences and corrections look weird. The spaces between words are not normal. It's like a justification (typographic alignment).

If you correct a sentence 2 times, the second one doesn't show the reason (only the first one shows it).
See you!

About the last "bug":
The second correction doesn't show the reason at first, but reloading the page it shows correctly.
Bye!

It has been fixed!
Thank you for the report :)

Found the "typographic alignment" bug. It's only the highlighting box around the vocabulary in the sentence. The color is so dim, that it was invisible with my monitor. I had to change the monitor's temperature settings from hot to cold in order to see it clearly. Sorry!

I think each sentence needs a comment box (besides the correction box) to discuss the grammar.

ごきげんよう。

Quick update on the daily exp. and constant updating of total exp., yay!

As far as the positioning of the Practice questions... It's easier for my eyes if all the questions are in the same place rather than having some centered and some on the left. I have a slight preference for centered questions because it helps keep my eyes off the answers so I can try to really remember/know the answer rather than just recognize it when I see it (if that makes any sense...). Definitely a minor thing, though, so not something to worry about if you're busy with other things. (^_^)

spanz: do you mean the grey highlighted vocabulary of the sentence? isnt it black and and grey background? same like other grey highlighted... you cant see all the grey highlighted or just the one in sentence?

TofuQueen: liudude_123 just told me that he wants it on the left. Maybe I should run a vote for this... I also think that it is a minor thing, so i will fix it later after I can decide haha. Im sorry for this.

Beeant: Yes, those grey rounded boxes. The other grey boxes (as the top ones: Lessons, Practice, etc) are dim, but no so much. I can see them easily.
However the sentences boxes are way too dim for me. They seem to be as white as the background.
Well, I can see them lowering the color temperature setting. It's strange, because it's a new monitor.
Time to work for me. See you!

I used that color in many pages, so if I change that, I might have to change all of them. ><
have you tried to calibrate your monitor? new monitor is sometimes too bright.

I would fix the colors if there is any other user having this problem. but I agree that its not a good combination, white and that bright grey... :( I will fix that when I have time to deal with the color designs.

New Blog Post:
Challenge Ranking
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-125.html

明けましておめでとうございます。

あけましておめでとう！

Hi!
I have a omikuji for you. It reads: very good luck! =D
But, I bring you also a little bug to begin the year:
I did read and replied to the ibun's thread "Happy New Year", but the views count is still zero.
See you, and good luck for the whole year!

Mmmm...
If you change the language, you must log in again, dunno why. If you then log off, and you revert the language back, you are still logged in.
It seems there's a session for every language, and you can log in once for each language at same time.
Is this intended?

Hello,

Thank you for the report, I will fix that ASAP.
However, I am currently not focusing on the language since I am still finding volunteers for the translations.
I will think of the best way to fix that problem while doing other stuffs.
I am sorry for the delay.

About the view, I have not write the code to update the views of threads, photos, videos. I will write that ASAP.

Thank You,
bn

Yo!
There's a little bug in the total EXP counter while you practice.
If you change the question settings, you break your combo chain (I don't like that, but that's another story).
With the new settings, the first question is not totalized. The daily partial is right, but the total lacks one question (7 or 10 points).
The next questions are correctly counted, but the total is always a question behind the real count.

New Blog Post
Photo Practice
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-128.html

Hello,
spanz: about the settings, it is designed to be like that because once you change the settings, you should be starting a new practice set.
for the update exp problem, I think I just fixed that.
Thank you for the report =)

New BlogPost:
Twitter Sentence in Practice
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/

New Blog Post:
Delete Notification
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-130.html

Wow! There's a lot of changes... Good work, Boss!
About the EXP update problem: perfect.
You forgot a way to untag a photo. :(

New Blog Post:
Delete Photo Tag
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-131.html

spanz: checked! =)

A cosmetic bug:
If you are not logged in, all the photo tag delete buttons are visible.
The buttons work, apparently. Luckily, when you reload the page, all tags remains untouched.

ya, thats not good.

I have fixed it! thanks for your report! =D

Hi!
The sentences from Twitter while practicing are very interesting. Seeing the real usage is a good thing, although very hard to understand.
And about the "Google Translate" results, they're even harder to understand. The English translations are bad, but the Spanish ones are indescribable.
Well, it's only a matter of personal effort if you want to learn something from there, so I think it's a good feature.
Two questions about Twitter's sentences:
Is it legal using someone's conversations in other site?
Why many really common words have not Twitter button?

New Blog Post
Facebook Integration
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-132.html

spanz: I am sorry for my late reply, I have been busy. I will reply you ASAP. Thank You =D

what about collecting all tests under one hood: sentence test, chapter test, phototest. old links should still be there.
there are no kanji in the practicetests anymore o.O? and i am sorry for beeing not usefull...kind of feel bad for not finding any real bugs

@ibun:

About your suggestion, I don't understand you.

Do you want to mix practice and tests? You call everything "test", but beeant make distinction between practice and test (dunno why, as the tests are not necessary to reach higher levels).
I think using only EXP for the levels is not very logical. It makes tests (as beeant made them) pretty useless, and makes the user's level completely unrelated to the user's level progress bar. Well, I'm getting off the subject...

Let's see... You want to put all the tests together.
I think photo quizzes are essentially the same as practice (in fact, they've changed its name to "photo practice"), so "phototest" doesn't fall in the category of "test". Only Chapter tests are true "tests".

Well, despite of its name, what's a "sentence test"? I'd like to see it very much!

And, what "old links" are you talking about?

And, finally, what Kanji practice are you missing? Do you mean the level 5 Kanji tests or what?

Sorry, I really don't understand you. I'm dense today...

Don't feel bad, and keep suggesting things. That's very useful for the Boss.

Spz.

call it what you like, since photopractice, word practice or sentences practise, are all a kind of practise. call it a test. the old links are just the allready existing boxes, like those in the chapter tests.
sentence test was just that, what it sounds...what was discussed before. there are allready a lot of sentences and those put together in a practise(test how you want to call it, i am allways mixing those up). those are just suggestions...and everyone has a bad day or weeks or months ^-^

Hm, I have a suggestion that might be more trouble than it's worth, but anyway...

It would help me if some of the English definitions were expanded/clarified. For example, just now I got "present" and I wasn't sure if it meant gift, the act of giving (to present an award), or the current time (not past, not future, present). There are others that don't differentiate between a noun & a verb - does "cry" mean "to cry" (to weep) or "a cry" (a sound)?

Not a big deal as I *can* figure them out, but would be nice if the English definitions were clearer. (^_^)

ibun: I like your idea about putting all practices into one. I am thinking about that too. but there is a problem like the settings of each practices are different. However I will try to integrate that. Thank You =D

TofuQueen: ya its kind of problem, but its difficult for me to put all the extra definitions for each vocabulary... maybe I will add a feature where you can make your own practice like adding a vocabulary (from practice or lesson) where you can modify the vocabulary as you like.

I am sorry for my late reply, I am kind of busy these days =(

Japanese Language interface is available now

Yo!
There's something strange with the upper menu.
If you change the browser's zoom level, sometimes (depending on the zoom level), the most right button (community) change its position from right to left (under the lessons button).
In the English version, the default zoom is OK, but in Spanish, it isn't.
Changing the zoom you can send the button to its natural position, but this is not good.

Besides, my translation of "Bulletin" as "Tablón de Anuncios" seems to be too long, dunno why (there's plenty of space). The button is splitted vertically in two pieces.

The mobile "community" button is wrong placed also in other languages.
In the case of French, is ALWAYS wrong. You can't place it right with any zoom level.

I have fixed it with smaller and cuter login form.

is there any short synonym for bulletin in Spanish?

Yes, that fixed the Community button.
I can translate "Bulletin" as "Boletín", or like in the French version, "Forum", but I don't like it very much. It's not the same. Since there's so much empty space, why a longer string is bad?

Have you removed the Recess menu? Now needs even more space!
Btw, the menu bar on the left is vertically misaligned with the bar on the right.

New Blog Update
Mouse Over Photo Vocabulary List
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-135.html

Hello spanz,

actually there are many of the word length that doesnt fit with the size. not only Bulletin in Spanish, also some other like Take tests etc.

This is a problem, but I want to fix it all at once to be consistent.
So I think I will leave it as it is for now and get back to it ASAP.
Is it ok?

I am sorry.

Ok, Boss. No need to fix it with dirty patches. When you have a good solution, fix it.
What about the Recess?
And, the "Mouse Over Photo Vocabulary List" doesn't work for me. :(

Forget it. The "Mouse Over Photo Vocabulary List" works fine. It was a problem with a cached page version or something like that, and only in Firefox.
After many tries, a simple reload has fixed it... :)

New Blog Update:
Go to Next Photo
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-136.html

A little suggestion.
As you know, some of the photo tags are very small and cannot be used in photo practice because without context, they are very difficult to recognize.
However, they are perfectly valid in context.
Wouldn't it be better to leave the whole picture and highlight the tag box, instead of cutting and leaving only the tag box in practice?
In other words, the same effect as mousing over a tag in the photo page.
This way, all the photo tags will be valid to do photo practice.

Hello,

Thanks for the good suggestion.
At first I thought this idea was great.

but actually the photo is being resized in the photo practice. meaning that if I put the whole photo, then:
1. the tag mark will be even smaller.
2. if its ok even the tag mark is small, then it puts so much work to resize the tag, so many calculations: the location of the tag location, the percentage of the tag mark dimension size.

So I think that this is almost impossible to implement. Also doesnt really benefit small tag mark...

But really, small cropped photo from small tag is kind of a problem.

Thank You,
bn

Maybe the resizing to the final (as in practice) size should be done when the photo is uploaded the first time. If the tagging is not acceptable with the final size, it won't be acceptable for practice. If the tagging is ok, then it'll be ok as well for practice.
About the present photos, they should be resized offline and reuploaded to see if they're valid or not. Uff! Too much work, I guess...

New Blog Update:
Quiz for video is available
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-137.html

Ya I think I will do that later when I have more free time. =(

Video quiz works only from the local video page. From global page (clicking in the number of vocabularies) you get a 404 error.

It has been fixed!

Thanks a lot, I didnt notice the wrong link for so long haha

Thanks,
bn

Hi!
Something's wrong with the photo tagging system.
Look at my tag in the photo beeant672713.jpg
Two bugs:
1- The tag fields Hiragana and Kanji are shown (or entered) in reverse order.
I've tried it two times to be sure, and the fields got reversed each time.

2- I can't delete the reversed tags. They disappear, but if you reload, they reappear.

Hey,

Thsnks a lot for detecting the delete bug, I have fixed it.

But I dont understand about the reveresed tag...

That's easy! Look at the lasts tags.
The Kanji entered is listed in the Hiragana column, and the Hiragana entered is listed in the Kanji column.
I think the fields are correctly entered, because the photo quiz shows them correctly. They are reversed only in the tags list.

In other words, the tag list has the top labels misplaced.

Two little problems with the photo practice:

1- There are some tags repeated in the tag database. They belong to different pictures, but they have the same Kanji, Hiragana and/or English name.
(For example, there are several 目,青,雲...)
Due to that, when you practice, you can get two or more random options that are exactly the same. I don't know if the system distinguishes between the options or all are valid.
Perhaps you should put a tag filter to avoid duplicates when they are entered.
Or even better, put the filter in the quiz's random selection. If the random option is equal to one of the other three, pick another one until all of them are different.

2- The photo loading/resizing time can be pretty high (some photos are relatively huge). If you answer too quickly, the photo can be shown too late, when you are already in another question. That's very confusing.

New Blog Update
New Kanji Lessons Level 5 Update
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-138.html

spanz: I will get back to you ASAP

Thank You,
bn

Hello spanz,

For problem number 1, I think this seems so visible because the current photo vocabulary database only has few vocabularies. I am hoping that there will be more and more tags and photos. So one vocabulary doesn't need to have only one photo.
I think I have updated the multiple choice options codes last 2 weeks. Did it change?

For problem number 2, ya this is one of the server problem... =( That is why I am asking for donations ;(, I know that this is not good for the users, because I am thinking to make this site to be completely free, but I the income from advertisements is not enough at all.
I am currently working on some features which are limited only for donators.

Thank You,
bn

About the multiple photo tags, there's no real problem if different photos share the same tag. The problem arises when you choose the four options to make the quiz.
If you build the quiz randomly, sooner or later (depending on the database size), some (two or more) of the options will be the same. This is true right now (at least 2 days ago). I don't know about your changes 2 weeks ago.
If the check code validates all of the correct answers as good, then the problem is not very important. The quiz will be ugly and the difficulty will be decreased, but nothing more.
If the check code validates only the answer from the given photo as good, then we have a problem, as we can't tell which one is the correct (unless all of them came randomly from the same photo). This would be an important problem.
To avoid all such things, once you choose one photo and one tag randomly, you shouldn't select the other three answers completely at random. You should avoid any coincidences, not only with the correct one, but also among the other three.

The exchanged labels mistake (Hiragana & Kanji) is fixed. Thanks!

Look at this Kanji test (from the new chapter 41):
注文

ちょうもん
ちょうもん
ちゅうぶん
ちゅうもん

The two first answers are the same. Luckily, they're wrong...

In the new kanji lessons, there are some kanji readings in katakana. They seem to be onyomi, but there's also many onyomi readings written in hiragana.
Besides, some of the kanji lack readings. At least, they should have the readings used in the given combinations, ne?

Sorry for give you so much work!

In Kanji chapter 42 tests there's a question about 鳥肉.
In that question, I think that two of the four options are correct:
ちょうにく
and
とりにく
Only the last is accepted as correct. In this case, I forgot to copy & paste, so maybe I'm wrong.

Hello spanz,

Thank you for your kanji tests mistakes report.
I have fix two of them.
for the lessons, I will fix that ASAP, currently I am using third party database to get those readings, and definitions of kanji, there maybe some errors because of that, or the database doesnt have it. So I have add them, manually to the database.

if it is possible, please help me, you can give me a list of kanji which has that problem and the chapter it belongs to.

Thank you,
bn

New Blog Post
EXP system for Kanji and Vocabulary has Changed
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-139.html

I think the new EXP system is too generous. It gives too many points for high levels. It even gives more points than before for level 1!

It would be better to leave the normal comboX7 or comboX10 system if the users practice questions from their own level, and give LESS points if they practice questions from lower levels.

That reminds me of something I said elsewhere. Why let a user going up a level without having passed the exams? If the criterion to level up were examinations (tests), no one would get stuck at a low level. (Eg, no one would like to be in the top ten of EXP being only Level 2)
Of course, this should be combined with a system that rewards coherent level practices and punish the lower level practices.

About the readings, do you want to check all the levels for lack of readings / hiragana in onyomi, or only the new ones?

No, no, the Base kanji EXP for level one is 7 and 5 for vocabulary
it was 10 and 7 before.
Do you still think its too generous? (you need more EXP to pass higher level though)

Ah, sorry! In the example in the blog you said vocabulary is 7+1, so I thought kanji would be 10+level. I've even doing some level 5 kanji practice without noticing I was being rewarded with c(7+5). I can be so distracted...

Now I think it's slightly generous. Not bad. But I did want some punishment! XD

1-What do you mean with "you need more EXP to pass higher level though"?
2-If tests aren't unrelated to the level progress, what's the point of tests?
3-I'll quote myself: About the readings, do you want to check all the levels for lack of readings / hiragana in onyomi, or only the new ones?

I found a level 5 kanji practice mistake (correct answer, wrong result), but a little bit later the page stopped and now that it's working again, I can't remember it!!!!

新しい脳を買っていってきますよ！

1. I will give you the list of the Total EXP you have to earn per level.
15000EXP to reach level 2
30000EXP to reach level 3
30000EXP to reach level 4
40000EXP to reach level 5

as you see on this list, you know that you need more EXP to reach/pass higher level.

2. In the beginning when I created JCJP, I wanted to create a web based online RPG game. So this Chapter test, is just like a quest for you to complete to make your statistics looks better or cooler. In RPG game, usually, you don't need to complete a quest to level up.
Chapter tests, can also be treated as a dungeon, which you need certain level to enter the dungeon. As well as Video Quiz, Photo Quiz (this is a free dungeon with no level requirement). Also, more coming features such as users can make their own lesson ( create their own dungeon )

Do you think I should change the system to take completion of chapter tests into level up requirement?

3. Actually, this is kind of big problem, because I have seen some weird readings (but not wrong, it has too many data that makes it looks so difficult which actually you don't really need all of them) of kanji from the third party database, I guess I would have to fix them manually :( but it is a lot of work, and now is my examination week ><

Yes the server is also one of the biggest problem =(

The memory is installed in the server, I cannot just buy memory and add more memory like my Computer. So to add more memory to the server I have to upgrade to a more expensive hosting package...

ps: it should be just 買えよ! also メモリー or ラム

1-Have you set the level passes higher? They seem the same as before...

2-The dungeon metaphor is a good one. That explains all very well. I thought that the site was simulating a class, but the RPG point of view is ok. There's no real need to change the system.

3-I think the only way to fix the readings is manual work. There are often too many readings for a given Kanji, so you can include only those that appear in the combinations (and add combinations for the kanji that doesn't have one). If I can help somehow, tell me.

Good luck with your exams!

P.S. Hahahahahahahahahahah! I wasn't talking about the server memory! I said that I had discovered a bug, and then I forgot what it was! The server crash only distracted me, the lack of memory was mine, and what I wanted to buy was a new brain for me!

I wanted to say something like "I'm going to go out to buy a new brain".
Ahh... as expected, my Japanese is even worse than my English... :)

Hi!
This is probably the bug I found previously:
Answer Wrong
EXP -5
大衆
たいしょう

The correct reading is たいしゅう. In the lesson is OK, but in the Kanji Test Chapter 46 and in the Random Practice, the valid (incorrect but accepted) answer seems to be たいしょう. Thanks to that, I've got now a triple entry in my weak list. :(

New Blog Update
Leveling Status Bar on Your Statistics Page
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-140.html

お邪魔しまぁぁぁす。
Please, take a look at these little things when you have time.
Besides the lack of readings in Kanji lessons, in Kanji Test Chapter 48 (question 6 of 25):
捕まえる

つきまえる
とらわまえる
つかまえる
とまえる
6/25

The Kanji 捕 doesn't seem to belong to any Kanji lessons (from ch. 1 to 50)
However, it appears in vocabulary ch. 48, in other different combinations and readings.

In Kanji Test Chapter 48 (question 16 of 25):
二世紀

にせいこう
にせいかん
にせいく
にせいき
16/25

The Kanji 紀 belongs in fact to the Kanji ch. 48, but it has no combinations there. Instead, the question uses a combination from Vocabulary ch. 48.

Are you making Kanji test questions from the corresponding Vocabulary lessons?

お先に失礼します。

New Blog Post
Friends Ranking
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-142.html

Hello spanz:

those two have been fixed!
As usual, Thanks a lot for your report.
Ya, of course I always want to make each level of vocabulary and kanji coherent, but not perfectly coherent though.

Thank You,
bn

New Blog Post
Sentence Comment
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-143.html

Thanks, beeant. お疲れ様。
A little question about sentence comments:
Does the author receive a notification?
And the other posters in the same sentence, do they receive it as well?
All of them should be notified　(imho).
失礼しました。

Hello spanz,

Sorry for my late reply.

Ya, they will get notification, but still "a notification without a message" I am still working on it.. =D

New Blog Post:
Ranking Page
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-144.html

New Blog Post:
Vocabulary Translate Group
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-145.html

New Blog Post:
Leveling Progress Bar
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-146.html

Hello, Boss!
A little bug:
The new field to report an incorrect/missing vocabulary entry has a fixed limit of 30 characters. Clearly insufficient. Can't you make it dynamically growable?
じゃね。

hello spanz =D

the 30 characters limit is done on purpose.
its just a place to suggest. not for discussion or anything.
in other words, I just want it to be brief. it will also appear as a tool tip in the report listing (if you mouse over on the reporter name).

maybe I should put it as 'suggestion' instead of 'reason'?

why do you need more than 30 characters, what do you need to insert? I can add some more if you really think that it is insufficient.

New Blog Update:
Group: Sentence Correction System Change
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-148.html

New Blog Update:
Seems like the Facebook Problem has been fixed!
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-149.html

Ah! I see.
Yes, "suggestion" or "alternative" will be way better than "reason".
I was simply trying to explain my translation candidate. If you only put the new candidate, then there's a lot of room.

Another thing:
In order to correct some vocabulary translation, you have to know the level and the chapter it belongs.
We need a search function, and that reminds me an old unsolved "problem": repeated words through different levels.
What if we want to correct a repeated word? Which one are we correcting?
I prepared some time ago (before the vocabulary level reestructuration) a list of repeated words in English and in Spanish (the lists are not the same!)
I'm not sure of the effect of the reestructuration in my old lists. Surely, they are now desynchronized.
What do you think of this? I think it can be a problem.

And a final suggestion:
In the site's badge there's no info about user's level. It won't take too much space, ne?

Bye!

Yo! It's me again.
I've tried the problematic vocabulary report system, and now I think "reason" fits better. I thought that you should put the correction right there, but the real correction takes place in the groups page, so "reason" is ok. Sorry.
As with other fields here and there, I miss the possibility of delete or edit the reports.
Ja!

Sorry! The last one for today:
In the Reported Problematic Vocabularies tab, you can suggest your own translation, but the current one is not shown.

Hello spanz,

I have fixed "the current one not shown" problem.

and I have changed the reporting system.
so the reporter has to fill in 2 field.
1. The translation suggestion: goes to suggestion list
2. Reason: goes to report list

Good!

Just some thoughts:

I see suggestions, reported problems, and all kind of conversations, questions and answers everywhere. In particular, those comment chats in the user's boxes.
Sometimes, I feel I don't know where to write something, because I'm afraid the other user is not going to read me.

Who's being notified when you reply to a comment in your own box?
It is better to reply to someone there, or in the other user's box? In this case, you lose the context, but you can be sure the other user is notified.

And when you reply to a comment in other user's box? Who's notified?

What about the weird "someone wrote something somewhere" message?

In other words, can you explain the current notification system?

If some other user replies to one of your posts in an other user's bulletin's thread, is there a possibility of a notification?
Can't you make a Bulletin's comment system like the one in the user's box?

How do you manage to read all the messages sent to you from so many places?

Time Out for me! :(

Actually, in the current reply/commenting system, the one whose being notified is only the parent of the the comment (the one who started on the top).

I also think that it should be all of the users involved in the conversation. I will write the code for it. you can remind me again if I forgot because my To Do list has grown big

Its kind of difficult for me to write the codes that has emailing involved, because I'm afraid that I will mistakenly send the notification to all users. So, it's kind of scary =( but I will do it carefully when I'm doing it.

as for the bulletin thread, I have to write double feature in this case.
1. the notification for all users involved in the thread.
2. the unsubscribing feature, im still thinking about the best way to do it.

Thank You,
bn

If only the comment's parent is notified, then the current system is dangerous.
That To Do list must be something. Can we see it?
About the bulletin, your idea sounds good. Not a complex concept, so I hope it will be easy to implement.
Faito!

New Blog Update
Random EXP on Photo Practice and Video Quiz
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-150.html

Curious bait, random points.
Have you fixed the repeated tag problem?
Currently, there's only 89 photo tags (I deleted 16), so Photo Practice really needs many more photos to keep user's interest. In Video Quiz, there's approx 350 words, so it's not very good, but better than Photo Practice.

New Blog Update:
Comment Reply Notify all Users involved
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-151.html

Hello spanz,

I think I just fixed that problem again, hopefully the problem wont show again.

yes we need more photo tags and more photos, we have to wait. =D

wow you actually count those words =D
the exact number is 354 words in the video quiz.

About the notifications, if I've understood correctly, the comment box's owner is left out of the fun. Why?
About the repeated tags, did you fix the problem "again"? When did you fix it the first time? I saw the problem two days ago.
Yes, I only know how to count to 350, hence my error...

おす！, beeantさん!

I guess this is going to be difficult, and you're not going to understand a thing, but I want to tell you anyway. Mwahahaha...
I've received this notification:
milkyboon made a correction on your sentence.
It's great to receive such a notification, but if I want to look at the correction, I'll have to ask milkyboon directly about it.
There's two links in the notification, one to milkyboon's stats page, and one to my own stats page (clicking in the word "sentence"), and none of them help me to find my involved sentence.
I've checked all the correction marks inside the sentence's tab in my stats page without success (btw, take note of a new bug: the sentence list is not complete).
I tried too searching in the languages group page, but the search function doesn't search for users, so it's useless for this purpose. I did a manual (and not very deep) check and I didn't find anything.
Maybe the correction is a translation correction, and not a sentence correction. I don't know.
The user milkyboon doesn't seem to belong to any group, neither English, nor Spanish, nor any other group.
Maybe this notification is product of a bug or some test.
If the notification is not real, I don't want to bother milkyboon.
Do I need to ask him?

Spz.

P.S.1- Looking other groups, I've noticed something odd:
All the groups seem to have a ghost member.
You can see the number of members of a group in the group's list, but once you open any language page, there's one less member. Is this what you mean when you say you're not good at maths? W!

P.S.2- What's this title that appears in all the groups?:
27 Random Non Translated Vocabularies

P.S.3- Why, for example in the English group, the proportion of translated vocabulary is 83 % and at same time you can see "All Vocabulary Translated"?

Hello spanz,

I have modified the sentence listing in user statistics and the notification.
For now, I just did a simple fix for that, maybe I will remake everything on the next version of JCJP. (if there is a chance for a remake)

PS.1:
Ya there are a lot of problems on that calculations... =( I will fix that ASAP.

PS.2:
If I list all the non-translated vocabularies, the loading page for some groups will be so long, so I will just show random 27 non translated vocabularies.

PS.3:
same like PS.1

New Blog Update:
Statistics Badge
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-152.html

Good work.
The notification system is getting better, but (putting aside the strange wording)it lacks a true link to the message.
For example, I've just replied to two different comments in two different posts in your comment box. Now, I guess you've received two notifications, and now you know you have two unread messages somewhere in your box. What messages?
You don't know. You have to read them all, and you must be able to distinguish the new ones.
What we need is a link to the real message. For example, a scroll to the new message point in the page, and some kind of message highlighting (like a different color).

highlighting message is possible, but there are already so much codes in the page like statistics code.
Actually there are a lot of possibilities to make JCJP much better, but for now, I want to keep the site as efficient as possible, as JCJP is currently using an economic server (256MB of memory).
I will modify it when JCJP go to the next step.
Thank you for your suggestion =D

Anyway, I have just wrote a dictionary page. I have not release it officially to public, but whoever read this thread, I'd like to share it with you guys who wants a simple dictionary from Edict database:
http://japaneseclass.jp/tools/dictionary

Thank You,
bn

The dictionary works very well. I like it. You can copy/paste the Kanji/Kana/meanings, and you don't need to specify if you want J->E or E->J. It just lacks a search button. Using the enter key is good, but you can put also a search button.
When you paste some word to search it, having to push the enter key is strange.

An easy one.
It's time to change the © 2009 JapaneseClass.jp message at the bottom left.

And a weird one.
In the EXP earnings graph (the Open Flash Chart in the statistics page), there's a very strange bug:
There's no March 14!!!

A suggestion:
Perhaps you should limit the minimum size of the photo tags. And show a little explanation when you're going to make a tag.

New Blog Update:
Learning Activity
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-153.html

Hello spanz,

That is a good idea, its like its better to prevent...

That is possible, I will add that to my To Do list.

I want to write explanation for everything, but if that explanation always showing for every users, its gonna be useless in the long-term and take so much space for explaining things.

It's still better to write all of them in the FAQs and Help page, which I am currently considering and working on it.

PS: currently, I'm feeling kind of guilty because I don't really take in serious consideration on users' suggestions/input =(

I will implement the minimum size of Photo Tags.

Thank You
bn

New Blog Update:
First Donation
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-154.html

D'awww thanks! You wrote a post about my donation, how nice! :D
Although I must say, as I wrote before, I didn't donate quite that much. I donated 2493 yen (26.65 USD) and from that PayPal took 468 yen (5.00 USD). I just wanted to make that clear so people aren't discouraged from donating, thinking that PayPal cuts more than it really does.

ありがとうbeeantさん~

New Blog Update:
New Note Feature
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-155.html

Interesting feature.
Beeant, in your note examples, (animals and verbs), the language header should be "English", not "Language"!

Hi! I've made a stupid test note and it works very well. Making personal note quizes will be a great feature.
(Don't worry about my stupid note. I'ts just a test, and I'll delete it tomorrow)
A possible "bug": In the stats page, the new button "Note" shows the number of notes made by the user, but when you click on it, you get the whole notes list, unsorted. A filter to show only the user's notes would be good.

Hello spanz,

Thank you for your bug report!

bug fixed.

I will write the quiz feature ASAP.

any other bugs or suggestions?

Thank You,
bn

No more bugs...

A simple suggestion about the Note feaure:
Why Note? Change the Note name to something like Personal Vocabulary.

Other than that, it's very simple and it works. Good work!

And just an idea, maybe for a future feature: you can add the possibility of adding multiple language translations for a given Japanese word or expression.
For example, if I like some user's list, I'd like to add a Spanish column to that list. And if an user using the Spanish interface wants to take that quiz, the questions will be in Spanish (if available).

Note is because:
- its some kind of a note.
- remember the site name, its a class haha.. note and taking notes is part of a class
- note is short and simple, personal vocabulary is too long
- in the future, you can take notes (add vocabulary to your note) from lesson page and practice page.

why do you think Note is not a good name for that feature? I really would like to know.

ya, I thought about that also before, like adding your own definition, but I want everything to be simple. you can add a long definition in the (for example) English section. It's your personal note, but just other users can borrow and see your notes, if its note convenient enough for other users, at least its convenient for you who took the note.
thats the concept.

Multi-language for one set of note is also a good way to make the note simple. but the note you make, is actually for yourself, where other people can see.
Well, this is a good idea, but its kind of difficult for me to write the codes.

I am trying to make it simple in the beginning, and let it grow to advancement according to user needs (just like other features).

I will keep this Multi-language feature in mind, maybe you can remind me if I forgot. ( the to do list didnt work well for me, I took all what I wanted to do in the To Do List, but it has grown so big now, made me lazy to review them >.< )

Thank You
bn

Ah! I see... I forgot the class metaphor. Sorry. In Spanish, "nota" (note) is very generic (any kind of small text can be called "nota"). The notes you take in class are usually called "apuntes".
Haha, your first reason is weak :), the second one is logical (now that you explained it to me!) and the third and fourth ones are very good, especially the last. Good idea!
So now, I like Notes (in plural). It's not too long, is it?

Yes, I agree that the Multi-language would be hard to do. Keep it simple for now. Simplicity is a good thing, and it takes less work!. w!

Spz

Oops! A Note bug:
A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Notice

Message: Undefined variable: note

Filename: note/note_data_listing.php

Line Number: 8

This error shows when you add a vocabulary. The vocabulary is added anyway, so this is a strange error. All seems to work...

Spz

Hi again, beeant!
Another ideas about the Note feature:
Besides the title, I think a Note needs an optional description field.
And maybe (if that doesn't break too much your code), you can allow additional and optional free fields for each entry (user controlled fields): comment, part of speech, whatever.
Of course, that fields are meant to be out of the tests.
Yes, I know a dynamic field's list is going to be very hard to do. Just dreaming...

Anyway, Stoner-chan has begun a nice Note for a vocabulary list that can be of interest: Smart.fm's Core 2000 3/10 (arguably the hardest one of the series!).
As the list is somewhat large (200 entries) to enter by hand, I've used a macro to upload the whole list.
Sorry, Stoner! The credit goes to you! I only did the dirty work :)
Beeant, you can change the name and the owner of my Note to Stoner. The idea was hers, so she deserves it.
I'm not sure if you want to allow contents from other sites (you could have legal issues), so you are free to delete the lists.
Congrats on the migration to the new server!

Your most annoying user ever, Spz.^_^!

Ya, actually thats kind of a problem...
putting the site's name, and similar name for the note.

I dont know if it is legal, but its just like a note where you can take everywhere.

commenting was already in my mind when I see the title of StonerPenguin's note, because I wanted to put a comment on it. Thanks for thinking the same thing, haha. I am thinking to just have a comment section for each note, are you saying that each vocabulary has to have comment section?

Ya, I migrated JCJP to a new server yesterday. I hope there wont be any problem, because I put some additional code to deal with timezone difference between the two servers. I dont know if that additional code will affect all the codes of JCJP (purposed to affect everything). this timezone thing is really important for JCJP. Hopefully there wont be any problem.

If there is any problem, please report it to me.

Anyway, nice macro system, adding 200 vocabularies, without any typing effort?

oh ya, hows the new server? any improvements? complaints?

No, I don't think each vocabulary will need a comment section. Only the whole Note, but maybe some lists will need it. Only users will tell.
Probably we'll need more fields to make grammar notes that can be used in tests.
For example, I had to cut the part of speech field from the Core2000 list. You can see that Stoner-chan included the suru-verb part into all the fields to make sure the users know what the entry is. I just deleted that column from my list.
Having a field to include that would be great for this type of lists.

The site seems to work ok, just a little slower for me when loading pages.
When answering questions, it feels as fast as the old one. The only thing I've seen that doesn't work are the translated pages.

Of course, I haven't typed anything. I've captured the list from the Smart.fm site (directly from the screen with a table plugin), text-processed it a bit and uploaded it with a Firefox Imacro.
In less than a minute you can upload the 200 entries, but some of them get lost in the cyberspace (probably too many uploads for the server).
I had to add a 2 seconds delay between entries in order to upload the whole packet without loses. :( Maybe if you can optimize the server some more, the delay won't be neccessary.
Keep the good work!

More Note news:
At last, I've decided to merge the Part of Speech with the English meaning.
That way, the need of another field is not so important.
I've uploaded another Note with the PoS added between square brackets and I've deleted the old one.
The 2 seconds delay doesn't seem to be enough to assure zero loses. I've increased the delay to 3 seconds.
Ah, the PHP errors are still there. They appear instead of the English label.
Don't forget to give all the credit to Stoner-chan!

I think the PHP errors was because I restarted the server several times today.

I am having problem setting up DNS zones for the language subdomain problem. but still no luck :(

do you know anything about setting up DNS zones for subdomains in centOS?

The PHP errors appeared 5 days ago, so it must be something else.
They show instead of the header label "English", so I guess the problem is related to that label. Do you remember the wrong old label "Language"?
You fixed that problem 5 days ago, and I remember seeing the correct label, but only one time. The second test I did (10 minutes after), the PHP errors were already there... until now.

Nope, I have no idea about your DNS problem. Sorry for being useless... :(

Anyone else?

if its just a small note to help describing the vocabulary, ya I think its better just to include it in the language (eg English) input.
because, if there are 2 fields to describe the Japanese vocabulary, its going to be difficult which one to take for the question in quiz. What do you think?

I will fix the PHP error, right now, Im having difficulties with setting up/optimizing/normalizing/etc the new server. its almost all manual... :( kind of difficult for me

Maybe you can add only one Note free field for writing things like "written usually in Kana alone", "Polite version of X", "Colloquial use", "Female use", etc.
That field could contain the Part of Speech as well.
I'm not sure whether the PoS is better in the Language field or not. Maybe in Quizes that info is going to be distracting.

A couple of hours ago, the subdomains were almost working. The links gave me 404- page not found- errors, but at least the links were pointing to the right server. Now the links point to nothing again (server not found).

Spanish subdomain is working perfectly now. Thank you very much!

Hello spanz,

sorry for my late reply,
ya it was working just for testing.
Its easy to make it just working, but the easy way make the server directory to be not neat :(

if there is no other way, I will take the easy way... since there is no choice :(

I'm sorry for this problem.

Thanks

Wow! I see you guys are working hard :) I'm not really computer savvy so I'm useless when it comes to stuff like this but thanks so much for all the effort!
Congrats on the new server (I hope it isn't costing too much...) This new server seems to be just fine. Like spanz, I also get an error message when I add new vocabularies to the notes. But it really doesn't seem to be a problem, so I wouldn't worry about it. Keep on doing what you're doing :D (But keep on your college studies though :P )

Thank you beeant, thank you spanz.

I'm not working hard... I just try to help sometimes. Most of the time, I only annoy beeant. Sorry, boss, and thank you all!

I have not really optimize the new server yet, because I have some other project, and school :( So I have been really busy.
Is the new server become slower for you StonerPenguin? (as the new server is in Japan, the old server is in the US)

I will check out on the error message and fix it, I dont know if the error was caused by my irresponsibility of restarting the server anytime I want. I'm sorry for this problem >.<

No spanz, you helped a lot!

Anyway, for the Note quiz feature, I am still thinking if it should be Random Question, or Sequential Question that has percentage grade at the end like chapter tests? or both?

Hmmm... If the Note is short, Random Question will be absurd due to the repeated questions. If the Note is long, the two systems are going to be good.
If you want to implement only one system, go for Sequential with final grade.

Just one idea taken from d4veg's post: Don't make it trully sequential. Shuffle the questions previously, and then go through the list "sequentially" to avoid repetitions. You can adopt the same system for Chapter Test, also.

Ya, that would be good to make randomized sequential question set. but I'm still thinking and look for an efficient way to get the data from MySQL randomly without repetition.

Do you have any suggestions? or any links about this?

I don't know MySQL specifics, but I would prepare a vector of int numbers (in PHP, I guess, I doubt it can be done in MySQL). The size should be equal to the count of records. Let's say 1 to 200. I would populate it at random (there are infinite ways to do this) with numbers from 1 to 200, and then I would follow that vector sequentially and extracting the correspondent questions.
It may be necessary to add an ordered numeric field to each record to make such a query work.
Or maybe you can use whatever key field you have yet in your table (any key field that doesn't allow repetitions should be ok), and use it to populate the vector (it doesn't have to be an array of int) in a random way. Finally, you go through the vector and make the queries in that order.
That's just an idea...

Look at this:
http://akinas.com/pages/en/blog/mysql_random_row/
I don't understand it very well, but it can give you some ideas, too.

Sorry for my late reply spanz,

I just finished an exam of one of my favourite subjects today.

thanks for your info, I took a look, and tried that code before, but I failed for few trials, and I didnt try it further.
I think JCJP way of draw the question is different. Its not just a total random from the whole vocabulary database. it also has some parameters to filter the question such as level, chapter, etc. so 'maybe' that query command is not exactly the one needed.

I thought of so many ways, but lots of them have some holes to cheat. its gonna be so much easier if there is no cheaters :(

right now, before making the quiz feature in Notes, Im thinking of putting the whole practice, test, and quizes related codes into a library. but this way, it will take some time....

So many things to do! but I am excited about it haha, one of the biggest difficulties is to keep things organize.

Take your time.
We don't expect instant solutions nor fast replies. Your exams go first.
And if you're excited about your work, all is going well for sure!

New Blog Update:
http://bit.ly/b1U9QP
Second Donation

Congrats on the second (and quite large!) donation! Thank you Stray_Mongrel :)

By the way, thank you beeant for all your work, I'm glad to hear you're excited and that this work isn't too much of a chore ;p I don't know how you do it all, you're super-cool ;)

@Spanz;
I see wat you did thar on your comment box, insulting me with your compliments! hahaha Since I can't reply there, I'll say it here! You're smart, pretty, talented and funny eleventy-kajillion! ボハハハ！ スパンズさんのほうが私より美しくてこっけいで頭がいい～。

ハハハ！私の人相書きは私が今まで読んだ一番不正確です。

New Update:
Take Note when Practicing
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-157.html

Works great! Thank you, always makin' great stuff :D

Thank you for your positive feedback! makes me glad and happy =)
it was your suggestion, so please enjoy =)

Brilliant!
Good idea and good work! The positive feedback is compulsory.
Nothing to complain about. Even the PHP errors are gone!

Just a suggestion: As the "practicing" Note is saved without any possible edition, please, consider making a future (low priority!) edition function (available only for the Note's owner) to do corrections and add info. It would be great for handmade Notes and also for Notes taken while practicing.
And don't forget the general comment field (one for each Note, just like the title).

Hello spanz,

actually there was a bug, I m surprised that I realized it earlier than you haha
the bug was related to language, like you can add Spanish vocabulary when you are in English page. but it has been fixed.

I dont understand your point on low priority, edition function, etc...

General comment field from other user or just a plain description about the Note?

Thank You,
bn

Maybe you can make an automatic (and dynamic) note containing all the entries from all user's vocabulary weak lists.
Think of it as a popular difficult vocabulary list.
Just a silly idea...

Wow! you're fast! Sorry! I didn't see your answer.

I mean an edition page (like the private language vocabulary pages you had some time ago) to make corrections to the Title, Description and of course real entries.
Right now, in order to correct something you must delete and enter again.
To correct a title, you have to remove the whole note. A pain in the ass!
Of course, all of this should have low priority in your to-do list!

No, only a plain description about the Note. If an user wants to comment anything about the note, he/she can always use the bulletin or the user's comment box.

＠Spanz
スパンズは私に同感じゃないの？　スパンズさんの美しさと偉さがまだ知らないんだよ～　謙虚すぎるからね～　☆

Lol, I didn't see　all the comments, I had left this page up since this morning so I didn't see the new responses till I posted mine :P The post above was in response to　「ハハハ！私の人相書きは私が今まで読んだ一番不正確です。」　My post seems terribly off subject and silly now　:p　Carry on with the great work!

New Blog Update:
Edit Note and Note Permission
http://bit.ly/cVRAOl

The Note edit works. Thank you very much!
Just a strange cosmetic bug: Once you push the Edit button, it shrinks (almost disappears).

Nice private option! You can work on a Note privately and show it to the public when it's finished. Good!

What shrinks?
the title?
mine seems to work just fine...

It happens when you push the "edit" button, accept the changes, and then click again in the (edit) link. Now the button has no text anymore, and due to this, the whole button shrinks. Tested with FireFox (the button becomes a line) & Chrome (the button becomes smaller).

ya I noticed it.
Thanks!
it has been fixed, please try again.

Thank You,
bn

Thanks, it's fixed now. Take some rest!

Umm I think I found a bug. If you go to practice, type the answer (for me I did it in Hirigana) and submit, along with the chosen multiple choice question, it crashes...assuming you get the answer right. I basically did both and when clicked on submit I got errors.

Also, I typed the right answer into the box but it said to still right an appropriate respone...but it was right!!! XD

@Ryumatori: you're right.
I don't really know what's the problem but maybe this can help you:
(If I remember well, beeant knows already this problem but I think the crashes are new)

If you write something in the box and then click anywhere outside the box, your typed answer is sent. The "enter" key to submit the answer works properly only in Firefox (I think). IExplore, Chrome, Safari and Opera fail to send the text when you push the "enter" key. Instead of it, with these browsers, the text is sent only when the box loses the focus. The easy way is clicking outside, or you can also press the tab key. Don't ask me why, but the "enter" key only works under Firefox (if I'm not mistaken). This is the known part of the problem.

I've just made some tests, and if you click outside the box but over an option, the typed text is sent anyway, regardless the option chosen, UNLESS you click on the right one. Then you got a high probability of a PHP crash (with ALL browsers, including FF). Sometimes it works, but it usually crashes. This is new for me. Maybe beeant is already aware of it.

About your last problem, I don't understand you, but it seems also related to the box problems.

For the time being, if you want to practice your hiragana typing in the box, I suggest you to use Firefox and to press enter to send the answer. Don't mix the keyboard and the mouse, and you probably won't have problems.

Anyway, we must wait for beeant. Only he knows what's happening. Maybe there's an easy solution.
Good luck, and sorry for the long post!

EDIT: (after some more tests!)

Firefox responds to the "enter" key and if you press tab or click elsewhere, the text typed is sent (the option clicked doesn't matter).

Chrome respond also properly to the "enter" key and works the same as Firefox.

IExplore doesn't respond to the "enter", nor the "tab", nor clicking elsewhere apart of the four options. You can click in whatever option you can. The answer is going to be what you typed.

Opera doesn't respond to the "enter" key, but you can use "tab" or click anywhere outside the box. The answer is going to be what you typed.

Safari doesn't respond to the "enter" key, nor the "tab", nor clicking elsewhere apart of the four options (the option clicked DOES matter). You MUST click in the RIGHT option. The answer is going to be what you CLICKED (not what you typed). This is the weirdest of all browsers.

Yesterday, I saw lots of PHP errors when typing the answer and clicking on the right option. Today, I've seen them only a few times. Anyway, the crashes only appear when you click on the right option, never when you click another one.

@beeant:
I think the easiest solution for this strange behavior is going to be removing the hiragana-convert function. You can always type directly in hiragana or kanji using the IME or whatever it's called in your O.S.

New Blog Update
Chapter Test Progress in Ranking Page
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-159.html

Great new update beeantさん! lol the user ranked 2nd hasn't even finished level 2 yet! :O Hopefully users will try to get to higher levels, rather than just higher points now :P

Good idea. Maybe displaying the mini progress bars makes it too big, but it's ok. There's a lot of room...
I think the main problem of the Level Tests has a name: Kanji.
I'm sure some users are not really interested in the Tests because they give just a few EXP points, and they're not really necessary to go up levels.
If you do only Practice, (unless you want to stick with lower levels), eventually you'll reach the top level, and you'll have to answer top level (i.e. difficult) questions. Of course, if you're able to earn many points doing Practice, then there's not a reason why you can't pass the corresponding Test easily. If an user has many points without completing the Tests, it's only due to lazyness or lack of interest.
This situation is easy to solve, and the new rank info is an added motivation to complete the Tests.
Well, I think that's true for Vocabulary, but not so much with Kanji.
As Kanji seems to be much harder than Vocabulary (for many of us), there are many users that simply stick with Vocabulary, and rarely take Kanji Practice, let alone Kanji Tests.
In this case, such an user is never gonna finish his/her Progress Bar, even with the new motivation. I hope I'm wrong...

New Blog Update
Edit Profile
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-160.html

New Blog Update
Record of Correct and wrong
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-161.html

Yo!
Nice new features, but why the "save changes" green button in "edit profile" is in Japanese? And why is it not rounded?
BTW, the main buttons "Sign Up", "New to Japanese", etc aren't rounded either. They look too different, IMHO.

Another bug a little hard to explain. Take a look only when you have time.
It's a small bug in an old feature. When you use the search function in the group's page to look for a Japanese string, you get the list of sentences.
When you mouse over a result sentence, you get a Katakana black box with the readings, but you get also this: < span class =' highlight _ search _ keyword '> in the middle of the Katakana string.
When you look for a non-Japanese string, the odd text doesn't appear.
Faito!

Ditto spanz, these updates are great! Thanks beeant! Nice email you sent today :D

Although I hate to be a bother I do have a suggestion... On the note feature, many users are making sorta meaningless notes that have no vocabulary added to them. While I don't necessarily think they should be deleted, they're kind of an eyesore. Is there any way to display the note list in order of which note has the most vocabulary rather than newest first? That way notes with little or no vocab would be at the bottom :) Buuut, if this can't be easily done, don't worry about it. Just a suggestion ;)

Keep up the good work beeantさん!

There are many messages to read, please wait for my replies.

I am sorry, I have to put some thoughts to reply. It may took quite a while.
I will try to reply ASAP.

Thank You
bn

It's alright Mr. Beeant~ I know you're a busy busy bee~ :D
BTW, I'm 98% sure I didn't do anything on JCJP today and I somehow got 127 points! Haha :P

wow, thats a big problem. but are you really sure?
how about the 2%?

The timezone in JCJP has changed, now JCJP is following JST timezone. Do you know about this?

It was following Chicago time before.

Hmm well, I'm pretty sure I haven't earned any points at all on JCJP in days, but I *might* have done some practice... But I really don't think so. :P I wouldn't worry about it. If it happens again I'll tell ya :D

@StonerPenguin:
I think there's no bug. I didn't know you had surpassed me in the Challenge Rank, so you've probably crushed someone in a Challenge, hence the points.
Congrats!

More than 10000 users! Congrats to you too, beeant!

Thank you spanz, I have more responsibility to keep the site grow now. I have to keep up with new updates soon.

Anyway, I got your email, I think its good, I will reply the details ASAP.

おめでとう！Muy bien!　@Spanz; I get points when I win a challenge? Cool! haha I'm dumb :p sorry for the false alarm beeant. BTW, a lot of the notes with little vocab got deleted, did you do that? Just curious.

Also, details and updates! How exciting~!

Thanks StonerPenguin.
I didn't delete them, I just made them private. So only the owner can see the Notes. =D

I need more time for updates, right now I am working on so many things ><
University, 3 websites, and some ideas for new projects... I need to organize my mind and put more focus on fewer things haha...

Oh ya, I want to ask:
Do you guys notice any speed increase?

I don't feel any noticeable speed change, but things are kinda slow for me, so it's hard to tell. For example, the Rank page has a total loading time of about 40 seconds (sometimes more!). For every connection, I get a huge waiting time. For example, the very first connection (for something called "Ranking") has a variable waiting time between 8 and 12 seconds, and then the content is loaded in 2.33 seconds (this time is pretty consistent) to make a total of about 12 seconds. The other connections show also big waiting times (although smaller) to make a whole time of ~40 seconds (15 secs loading, 25 secs waiting).
That means a subjective general delay compared with the old server, mainly due to the initial waiting times.
On the other hand, Tests and Practice respond pretty fast for me (3~5 secs in total, but the next question shows much faster), clearly better than the former US server, and that's what matters, so I'm not concerned about speed.
Probably most pages have too many images. For example, the main page weighs 2.7 MB. Too much, IMHO, but looks are important, so don't worry too much.

@Stoner:
I'm sure the loser gets points (positive or negative), too. Every question counts, even in challenges.

New Blog Update:
Note Quiz Feature is Available
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-162.html

spanz: yes, it is a problem... even for me it takes so long to load the Rank page, I think I know the bottleneck is the Challenge ranking section, because the data has grown in there. I didnt use an efficient algorithm to sort them, because there were only few users in challenge ranking.
I will fix them when I found a better way to do it.

The most important thing is to load the practice page, its good that you find it faster.

About the image, yes indeed, I will convert all the photos, ASAP. I will find the best way to reduce the size of the images without reducing its quality. But I have to write another extra codes to convert the existing images, so it may take some time.

Thank you,
bn

Wow! Note Quiz! And it looks and works great!
For a future update:
Why do you make only the "vocabulary" kind of quiz? The other types (reverse, Kanji) should be available too.
Anyway, good work! It looks awesome!
Thank you very much!
I think I'm gonna upload the whole Core2000 series in a big, big Note. Is there any problem with that?

A possible bug: If you click outside the Note Quiz box, the box disappear. I don't know if it is properly closed or if it simply crashes.

Waaah~!! This is so great beeantさま!! I didn't want to bother you but I really wanted this feature, thank you so so much! And it looks great, very stylish :) I'm gonna start practicing, you've made me so happy!
You've done a good deed, so now take a well deserved break C: Thanks again

@Spanz
The whole core 2000 list? Wow! Although maybe you should upload all the individual parts first and then make a big list. I say that because it's easier to learn unfamiliar words in smaller chunks, y'know? But it's your thing, do what you wanna do, I can't tell ya, who to sock it to, alright, na-na-na! Alright, na-na-na~ ♬ !(I couldn't resist! So cheesy, I know... ;p )

Hello,

It is good that you like it! makes me happy =D

Actually that is just the same like in the video quiz, I'm using the same code for that. currently it only supports random without any settings.

I wouldn't recommend copying those Core2000 series, but you can do it if you want, maybe use a different title for them?

Ya I should take a break, I got a bad headache now... ahh... =(

Good idea. Take a break. About the Core name, you're right. I'm going to change the names (too late, but...)

what is too late, but?

When I saw your recommendation, I had already posted the series with their original names, so it was too late to post them with inconspicuous names.
If you're worried about copyright issues you can delete them. It's not a big deal.

A little, little bug:
I was thinking of changing my thumbnail/avatar/whatever. I uploaded a new image and I didn't like the thumbnail (it was too small, and didn't look good).
I decided not to save it but there's no Cancel button, so I simply clicked on the Close button on the upper right corner.
The results:
The thumbnail is not saved. Good.
The previous thumbnail is gone. Bad. I have no thumbnail now.
The previous profile image is gone. Bad. If you don't want the thumbnail, you don't want the image, but the original one is gone.

As I don't want the new image, I uploaded a 1 pixel blank image just to "delete" the unwanted one. Of course, I didn't save the thumbnail...

It's not a big problem, but that box needs a Cancel button.

Meanwhile, I'll search for a new image. :P

Ah!, the new tabs look really good.
Just one "problem": In the new layout, the Login button is too small.
The Facebook Connect button is so big compared to the Login one, that you can click on "Connect" mistakenly.

Hello,

I am sorry for the late reply,

I have reseted your display picture, I will fix the bug ASAP.

I have been busy with my school, I am having my mid-term exams... =(
lots of things are due..

Ya I will fix that also, the login button and connect button.

Thank You,
bn

New Blog Update:
Lesson Chapter Slideshow (kanji)
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-163.html

Ochen khorosho!! (オチェン・ハラショー~!) The slides look great~ :D

New Blog Update:
Vocabulary Slideshow and Voice
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-164.html

New Blog Update:
Third Donation
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-165.html

About the sound:
It doesn't work under latest Chrome & Safari.
Too slow under the other common browsers (FF,Opera,IE).
Most of contents are static, so you might pre-record the sounds to local files.

The voice is a little robotic. I think the one from http://text-to-speech.imtranslator.net/ is a little better.

Playing only one of the Kanji's readings is not very logical. Instead of that, you should play the compound forms/examples/sentences. That way you'll hear complete words and possibly several different readings.

yes, the voice system is not perfect yet...


I am also feeling uncomfortable with the delay, and Chrome / Safari incompatibility.
but at least it works on Firfox!

I cant pre-record it, because the API server give me a flash object, I dont know how to convert it to mp3.

the link you gave me does not provide API, or any PHP library...
How can I use that...?

Thank you,
bn

Wow this is awesome Beeant! This feature will be much more helpful since I can quiz myself to see if I know the word in the slideshow. Thanks for all your hardwork :)

You should thanks to user Liko for suggesting this feature.
http://japaneseclass.jp/user/statistics/10038

You can always pre-record anything you want. In this case, with good quality.
Check your mail for more.

did you get my reply?

Yes, thanks. I have to think...

Something is broken now when you create a Note, although you can add contents anyway.
I guess the problem is related to the Slideshow, and it only happens because the Note is empty. When you open a filled Note, the problem doesn't appear.

Btw, great idea, Slideshow in Notes!

Hello spanz,

Thank you for your report (as always)

I have fixed that problem.

Thank You,
bn

New Blog Post
Vocabulary/Kanji Stats and hint in Practice
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-166.html

Awesome Beeant, you update so fast :D And thanks for the speedy addition of note descriptions! ;) We'll put 'em to good use. How's school? Is it summer vacation yet? C:

no not yet >< actually its my examination week.. =(

This kind of thing happens to me, like I was supposed to study, but I end up browsing through JCJP read some comments (from spanz) and did some coding and updates. But I really have to do what I really have to do for now... After that I can work on long hours to fix and update JCJP.

Aww, I'm sorry to hear that :/ I sympathize with that though, Japanese isn't part of current curriculum and I find it so much more interesting that I'll neglect my other studies (fortunately for me, it's summer vacation here in the US...) But you gotta do what you gotta do! :) Best of luck in all your work ;D BTW I know you've recently gotten some complaints, but I'm completely happy with the current JCJP :) I'm really using the note feature here lately, thank you so much for making it for me (and the others XD) Love ya!
-Stoner

New Blog Post
Vocabulary & Kanji Status Statistics Page
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-167.html

I like the new individual statistics. Good idea.
A question: In practice, sometimes you can see the stats info (even if the info is empty: 0% (0 correct | 0 wrong) status: please learn), sometimes not. Why?

Hello,

I think a good way to explain it is:

it means, that the vocabulary/kanji is a virgin, you have never touched that.
it has not added in your own vocabulary stats database.

since it uses the same database system as weak list, it appeared as 0 - 0 because you have the record of the vocabulary/kanji in the previous version of weak list feature.

That makes sense. Thanks!

Perhaps I should wait to suggest this until after your exam month has finished but... Vocab, kanji and reverse vocab for notes would be pretty cool. Also, for kanji practice; Why not show the meaning too? I mean, for vocab we get the kanji and the reading, so why not have kanji and meaning when practicing kanji readings?

For example, right now in practice I'm doing 診断 I don't know either the reading nor the meaning. There some kanji test words that I now know the reading but I don't know what it means! XD This seems more efficient for studying I think :) And I'm also suggesting this because there are kanji that are read differently when the implied meaning is different. Like 角 is pronounced かく when meaning 'angle', かど when meaning 'corner/edge', and つの when it means 'horns'.

But that might be a major pain in the butt to go back and add definitions for all the kanji lessons. So you don't really need to do it, but if you make a kanji quiz mode for notes, please consider adding meanings :)

Thank you :) Your studies are the most important though!

I came across a weird error;
I just uploaded a vocab to my list
Face; [removed]of a person)-- かお -- 顔
but when I add it to my list, it turns out like;
Face; [removed]of a person)-- かお -- 顔
I've added it several times, but it comes out the same way each time :/ Any idea why?

Edit; I just typed in "[removed]" and it turns into "[removed]"
I even put two spaces between 'expression' and "(" but it's still changing it. I just put it as "Expression; face (of a person) -- かお -- 顔"

Ah! Look! It messed up here too! What a weird error ;p

What kind of error did you have? can you copy and paste the error message if any?

There is no error message :/ you can try it yourself; type 'expression' then '(' and it turns into "[removed]". The weird thing is "expresion (" (expression misspelled; missing an 's') works just fine... it seems to only 'expression' that messes up. You really don't have to fix this error since it'll probably be rare for people to put in an entry using expression and parenthesis O:. Just thought I'd tell ya.

"It'll probably be rare for people to put in an entry using expression and parenthesis"... Bingo!
The JLPT-2 Nouns Note has exactly that. XD

New Blog Post
Note - Vocabulary Status
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-168.html

I think I know the problem, for ' ' ' ' '

Can you tell me where exactly you encounter that problem?

Thank You,
bn

' ' ' ' 'って、何？
The new Note Vocab Stats are great!

I thought the problem that StonerPenguin reported was related to ''''?

Thank you for the positive feedback. But so far, only few people are using that feature though... ><

Oh ya spanz...

Do you notice any speed improvement in Ranking page loading?

Thank you,
bn

The problem isn't related to "". It is related to the word expression followed by a opening parenthesis. It's like that combination matches some javascript or php function.
I guess it happens everywere. We've noticed it while adding a word to a Note, and also here.
A test. I'm going to type here the word expression and then an opening parenthesis:
[removed]

About the speed, the answer is no. It feels as slow as always. 10+ seconds of waiting, then the page begins to appear, and after 40 seconds (total time), the page is complete.

New Blog Post
Level up Requirement has been Lowered
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-169.html

testing(testing)parenthesis

New Blog Post
Dictionary
http://jcjp.blog125.fc2.com/blog-entry-170.html

testing(testing)parenthesis?
What are you trying to test? :O

I don't like the lower requirements very much. It's not a big deal, though.
As many people don't like to write and explain their opinions, I think this a good case for a public poll. Only to help you to make decisions. Your opinion always should take precedence.
Suggestion: Make a poll system.

Impressive dictionaries! Good work!

A problem for now:
The J-E dictionary tends to show too many results, ordered "alphabetically" (Kana order, I guess, followed by radical order, maybe).
When you search for simple things, like 本, you get a truncated long list that doesn't reach the 本 entry. All you get are compounds. Surely, the list would include 本 if it were long enough, but you truncate it, so you can't reach 本.
Anyway, if there's a total match, the first result should be the one you were looking for. Having to browse several pages to find 本 is not good.
Also, it would be useful to know the list's order.

Just curiosity:
Using the J-E dictionary, often, the part of speech is not included. All EDICT entries include POS, so I guess something is wrong, or maybe it's not EDICT. Also, all EDICT POS fields are in abbreviated form, but not here.
Besides, the meanings are not exactly the same.
Is the J-E dictionary really based in EDICT? It seems different.