A good start but incomplete
I like that when you look up a single character you also get a list of other words containing that character and I especially like that they're grouped in terms of frequency. However, it seems pointless to include those lists if you click on the new two- or three-character word and don't get the definition, just the breakdown of the individual characters again. So I need to go to another dictionary (usually xiaoma.info) to find the meaning. So why not provide the dictionary definition for multi-character words right from the start? And when you provide the list, a mouseover for definitions would be great.
Also, far too many times I get an error message for a common character component. Here's an example: www.mdbg.net gives a complete breakdown of 都 as 者 (耂,日) + 阝. Hanzicraft gives me ⺹ + 日 + 阝, with ⺹ being wrong, and along with 阝gives an error message:
Express 500 TypeError: Cannot read property '0' of undefined at...
Having paid for something that is inferior to a free site like mdbg.net, I can't help but feel a little disappointed. There's no excuse for this, either your coding is wrong or you're using a crappy database.
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Chuff commented
Dude just use a popup dictionary in your browser.
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Michael Swank, PhD commented
omg it did it again. When I typed it the "lao" appears as a little square, but when it posts it disappears again. Sorry for the confusion. But it definitely does not display the correct 耂
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Michael Swank, PhD commented
just saw the new mouseover feature and love it! Sorry that didn't paste properly, here's what I get
都 => ⺹ (old) , 日 (sun/day) , 阝 (town) - it's the ⺹ "old" symbol which is wrong. Interestingly, when you click on that you get the error message but in the browser address the correct "lao" character is displayed. It's not a font issue with my computer, I have no problems seeing most other symbols. -
Hi Michael,
HanziCraft now has a pop-up for the example words. Check it out and let me know what you think?
If there's any bugs or things that go crazy, let me know!
I'm working now on the 500 error.
Regards,
Niel -
Hi Michael,
thanks for the input. I strive to make HanziCraft the best out there. I struggle sometimes finding time to work on it. I'm a sole developer and created HanziCraft out of a passion for learning Chinese, but it's no excuse to make it the best.
Another user coincidentally suggested the same mouse-over feature for the example words. Although HanziCraft is primarily a Chinese character dictionary, I can definitely see the use for this. The server has the potential to easily display this. So I'll get round to start coding it.
A question on the decomposition of 都. I'm not entirely sure what you by ⺹ being wrong? Can you explain that to me in a bit more detail please?
Also, yes those errors should not be there. I'm going to work on those as well.
I'll keep you updated.
Thanks again for the feedback. Really appreciate it!
Regards,
Niel -
Michael Swank, PhD commented
btw I'm not saying this is a crappy site, far from it. If you work out the bugs this will be far superior to anything else out there. Just a little frustrating at this point to still have to consult other websites for the missing things.