About / Contact

I started making my first iOS app, LinguaBrowse, on Feb 5th 2017 (at precisely 12:34:53, if we date from my first version's commit). Originally, the project was called 'Pinyinjector' (ie. a tool to inject pinyin into a webpage), inspired by the old Furigana Injector Firefox/Chrome extension, and was merely conceived as a personal tool to help me read the Chinese characters on Weibo. Soon I found that I wanted more and more features (eg. tap-to-define, tap-to-speak, disable links, etc.), and it became clear that with a bit of polish (to make an understatement), this could become an app for anyone learning any language. What followed was an exhilarating (yet ceaselessly stress-inducing) learning experience that continues to this day.

Changelog

October 2017

```
8^th:  🌐
```
Somehow neglected to add support for Hindi (its 'hi' language code looks a lot like Hebrew's 'he'); 31 languages now supported!
```
8^th:  🎁
```
Added a check for currently-installed system dictionaries in the Configure menu.
```
6^th:  👨‍🔬
```
Found unique terms by which to identify each system dictionary individually.
```
4^th:  🖼
```
Loading/error indicators added for In-App-Purchases.
```
2^nd:  🎁
```
Added option to toggle Text-To-Speech.

September 2017

```
30^th:  🏎
```
Finally got an excuse to use HTML DocumentFragment for DOM manipulation.
```
30^th:  🐛
```
Fixed inline elements like links forcing linebreaks for Western languages.
```
24^th:  🐛
```
Fixed the ad banner for iPhone X (toolbar and navbar issues).
```
23^rd:  🐛
```
Fixed the ad banner for iOS 11 (layout guides became deprecated).
```
18^th:  👨‍🔬
```
First successful sandbox purchase.
```
17^th:  🖼
```
Made the basic UI for In-App purchases.
```
16^th:  🤑
```
Wrote the fundamental code for In-App Purchases.
```
02^nd:  📄
```
Signed up for Apple Developer account.

August 2017

```
31^st:  🎁
```
Refresh button added.
```
30^th:  🤑
```
State of purchases (future feature) securely stored in keychain.
```
29^th:  👩‍💼
```
Terms of Service and Privacy Policy presented at first launch.
```
27^th:  🤑
```
Adverts now removable.
```
23^rd:  🌐
```
Determined which dictionaries are supported for which language (out of 841 possible pairs).
```
22^nd:  🖼
```
Elements in Configure menu now hide/show when applicable.
```
22^nd:  👨‍🔬
```
Configure menu converted to UIStackView to allow hiding/showing elements.
```
21^st:  👨‍🔬
```
Major cleanup of Configure menu to keep me sane.
```
19^th:  👨‍🔬
```
Persisted user settings refactored to keep me sane.
```
18^th:  🖼
```
Startup screen (rather than white).
```
13^rd:  🌐
```
Dictionary definitions customisable to any language (not just English!).
```
06^th:  🖼
```
Ads resize upon rotation.

July 2017

```
30^th:  🌐
```
Finally added support (however limited) for all 29 languages!
```
30^th:  🖼
```
Configuration menu revamped.
```
23^rd:  🎁
```
Finally finished Action Extension feature thanks to STUDIO BEATNIX (see below)!
```
12^nd:  👨‍🔬
```
Started attempts to add "Open in LinguaBrowse" 'Action Extension' feature.
```
12^nd:  🐛
```
Error messages added for web navigation issues.
```
12^nd:  🐛
```
Preference for transcriptions visibility now persisted between navigation (and app restart)
```
09^th:  🤑
```
Adverts added and animated upon entry/exit.
```
08^th:  🐛
```
Suppressed popovers during segues.
```
02^nd:  🏎
```
Day of optimisation: Memory management for Japanese tokenisation greatly optimised (up to 200 MB saved for several seconds for gigantic articles).
```
01^st:  🐛
```
Features from 14th June unbroken.

June 2017

```
25^th:  🏎
```
Fallback dictionary preloads from startup.
```
17^th:  🎁
```
Support for abbreviated URLs in searchbar.
```
14^th:  🐛
```
Popup dictionary prevented from opening if link is pressed.
```
14^th:  🐛
```
Finally able to use back/forward whilst links are disabled.
```
04^th:  🖼
```
Icons drawn for all items in toolbar, finally removing all emoji from interface.
```
03^rd:  🎁
```
Support for viewing PDFs (with text) without downloading to cache, as long as it uses Western characters.

May 2017

```
27^th:  🎁
```
Support for viewing PDFs (without text) without downloading to cache.
```
26^th:  👨‍🔬
```
Discovered how to download PDF to app's cache.
```
25^th:  👨‍🔬
```
First proof-of-concept for a rudimentary PDF handler (no text).
```
24^th:  🎁
```
Users able to customize font size with preview.
```
17^th:  📖
```
Fallback dictionary functionality finally added.
```
16^th:  🖼
```
Icons drawn for most of tools in toolbar.
```
14^th:  🖼
```
Logo finally drawn!
```
13^rd:  🖼
```
Notifications added via the life-saving PKHUD library.
```
12^nd:  🌐
```
Japanese voice now speaks the same pronunciation as was transcribed (sometimes differed).
```
08^th:  🖼
```
Lost a whole week trying and failing to add branding in the navigation bar.
```
01^st:  🌐
```
Katakana no longer redundantly transcribed using hiragana.

April 2017

```
30^th:  🌐
```
MeCab Japanese tokeniser integrated into app; Japanese words now searchable even if not in dictionary form.
```
27^th:  🎁
```
Support for websites that use iFrames.
```
25^th:  🎁
```
Persistent storage of user preferences.
```
23^rd:  🖼
```
Side-drawer menu removed.
```
20^th:  🖼
```
Side-drawer menu added.
```
08^th:  👨‍🔬
```
Feasibility of supporting PDFs affirmed.
```
05^th:  📖
```
Dictionary showing as popup.

March 2017

```
30^th:  🔤
```
Truncated redundant furigana in Japanese transcriptions.
```
20^th:  🔤
```
Hide/show transcriptions feature added.
```
18^th:  🐛
```
Rewrote most of the webpage-to-app communication code as I was unable to find the source of the crashes with the utility library I'd been using (XWebView).
```
13^rd:  🗣
```
Tap-to-speak added.
```
11^st:  🔤
```
Furigana (rather than Roman characters) added for Japanese transliterations.
```
05^th:  📖
```
Support for defining words within links (and disabling links efficiently).
```
01^st:  🌐
```
Support for traditional Chinese characters.

February 2017

```
28^th:  📖
```
Tap-to-define feature added (but fullscreen - no popup!).
```
27^th:  🎁
```
Basic support for tapping words added.
```
25^th:  🎁
```
Progress bar for webpage loading.
```
22^nd:  🌐
```
Language picker added.
```
19^th:  🌐
```
Special support added for Thai (which hadn't worked).
```
18^th:  🔤
```
First transliteration of foreign-language words on webpage.
```
17^th:  👨‍🔬
```
First communication from webpage to the app environment.
```
11^st:  👨‍🔬
```
Browser updated from UIWebView to WKWebView.
```
07^th:  👨‍🔬
```
First communication from the app environment to the webpage.
```
07^th:  🔤
```
Chinese characters -> pinyin functionality working.
```
05^th:  🎂
```
First commit, at 12:34

Special thanks

Thank you very much to Kim Ahlström of jisho.org for permitting me to use his team's website as a fallback dictionary for Japanese. It's a resource of constant inspiration for me as I set my quality standards.

Thank you eternally to STUDIO BEATNIX for teaching me how to implement the "Open in LinguaBrowse" (Action Extension) feature when I'd all but given up on it. 「STUDIO BEATNIX」に永遠に感謝します。アクション・エクステンションをつけることを諦めた途端にSTUDIO BEATNIXは方法を詳しく教えてくれました。

Thank you to my lovely Rachel for her constant motivation and support during this whole project.

Thank you to my family for putting up with my freeloading and incessant updates for these last two years whilst implementing this app.

Contact details

Or contact me using one of my legion of email addresses (note: JavaScript must be enabled to display the address for you to copy-and-paste into your email client; this is a protection against email-harvesting spam bots):

About LinguaBrowse