Mega Mandarin Practical Cursive Flashcards

[imron]

On 10/23/2022 at 4:06 PM, 大块头 said:

If any iPhone or Mac users out there are willing to import the attached .apkg file to make sure it's rendered properly,

Didn't see anyone reply to this, but I can confirm it works fine on an Intel Mac running macos 12.3.1.

 

No need for a free version (I'd never use it anyway), but this is a fantastic resource for anyone wanting to learning handwritten Chinese.

[alantin]

Hi,

 

I just tried it today on my iPhone and it isn’t working. I’ll try it on my mac tomorrow. It doesn’t matter as I’ll use this on desktop Anki anyway.

 

by the way, the pictures and videos of the characters are BEAUTIFUL!

 

[大块头]

On 11/20/2022 at 3:10 PM, Tomsima said:

Am I right in thinking you have replaced the character set by 程老师?

 

It's still included in the deck as reference material because I think it can be useful to compare different styles. The new video-based process I developed to generate these stroke order animations required finding a calligrapher with the right equipment/experience, and then making sure the footage they were sending me would be compatible with that process. I ended up hiring a calligrapher I found via Youtube.

 

On 11/21/2022 at 6:13 AM, imron said:

I can confirm it works fine on an Intel Mac running macos 12.3.1.

 

Thanks imron. I was able to find testers on Reddit.

 

On 11/21/2022 at 2:12 PM, alantin said:

I just tried it today on my iPhone and it isn’t working.

 

There are two versions: one for all platforms besides iOS and one for iOS. The latter isn't working on your iPhone? I tried 9 different ways of displaying these videos in iOS. Videos in webm format worked everywhere except on iOS, which ended up needing mp4 videos.

 

The only format that worked everywhere was animated gifs, but that would have resulted in a total size exceeding 10 GB...

 

[alantin]

On 11/21/2022 at 9:41 PM, 大块头 said:

I tried 9 different ways of displaying these videos in iOS. Videos in webm format worked everywhere except on iOS, which ended up needing mp4 videos.

 

Yeah, I tried with the version with the mp4 files and marked for IOS. my Anki is 2.0.87 (20087.1) on iPhone 14 pro ios 161.1.

 

maybe I need to update anki or something. I’ll tes it more tomorrow when I get home.

[大块头]

On 11/21/2022 at 5:49 PM, alantin said:

ios 16.1.1.

 

The tester was using iOS 15.5, so that may be the important difference. It looks like you're using the most up-to-date version of AnkiMobile.

 

If anyone really wants to get it working on some specific platform of their choice I can possibly help test some options. It may be as simple as fiddling with the arguments inside the <video> tag in the card template. And if storage space isn't an issue animated GIFs will work on almost anything.

[Insectosaurus]

I'm interested in buying this deck. However, none of the example decks work either on my MacBook or my PC. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong? Is there any setting in Anki that should be activated? Ther .webm just gives me a still photo, and the mp4 won't show at all.

[大块头]

@Insectosaurus Are you using the latest version of Anki? That has been an issue for other customers.

 

After some more work, I've put together an animated GIF version of the deck that should work on almost anything. To keep the storage requirements within reason I had to halve the frame rate, shrink the resolution, and convert to grayscale (see example below). I updated the product page with this new version of the deck. If you've previously purchased this deck and want the animated GIF version for some reason send me an email.

 

[realmayo]

Demo on the latest version of Anki on a new-ish macbook: the mp4 videos don't run, only the gif version (and those gifs start with the first stroke already complete). Rather cool resource though.

[大块头]

On 12/29/2022 at 4:35 AM, realmayo said:

Demo on the latest version of Anki on a new-ish macbook: the mp4 videos don't run, only the gif version (and those gifs start with the first stroke already complete). Rather cool resource though.

 

I've yet to identify a common factor that determines whether or not the video-based cards will work on your system... Others have had no problem getting it working on macOS 11.6 and 12.3, for what it's worth.

 

The GIF-based cards should work well on almost anything though... It's almost an insulting question to ask, but when was the last time you restarted your computer?

[realmayo]

Not insulted! But restarted this morning. FYI am using macOS 13.0 and the Anki version for Apple Silicon.

 

if I change    <source src="{{animation}}" type="video/mp4"> to    <source src="{{media}}" type="video/mp4">

... then it works, but with the video in a pop-out window.

 

However:

 

I just tried with the non-iOS deck and it works perfectly (with no changes)!

(well, I removed the opacity on the vid but that may just be personal preference)

[Insectosaurus]

On 12/29/2022 at 4:40 PM, 大块头 said:

It's almost an insulting question to ask

 

But oh, do we need it sometimes. I still have nightmares about the time I waited in a long telephone queue to my ISP because I was having trouble with my digital box. Her first, and annoyingly obvious first question: have you tried restarting it? Perhaps for the first time ever, I had indeed not done so. Thirty seconds later and voila, I had a fully functioning machine.

[jannesan]

@大块头 I would really like to see a traditional version of the deck. Could you share whether you’ve got other people requesting this? I’m tempted to go ahead and get the simplified version, but if a traditional one is around the corner, I’d rather get that one.

[大块头]

On 1/12/2023 at 3:21 AM, jannesan said:

I would really like to see a traditional version of the deck. Could you share whether you’ve got other people requesting this? I’m tempted to go ahead and get the simplified version, but if a traditional one is around the corner, I’d rather get that one.

 

I also hired my (mainland-based) calligrapher to film himself writing ~1000 characters where the 行书 form used in Taiwan appears to be different, but after going over the result with some Taiwanese language-exchange partners, I think I need to hire a Taiwanese calligrapher to get an authoritative final check on the flashcards.

 

I'd really like to have a traditional version of this deck available, but at this point in time I can't invest any more money in the project; I still haven't made back what I spent. When the traditional version is ready I'll offer it as a free update to everyone who already purchased the deck.

[jannesan]

On 1/14/2023 at 1:39 AM, 大块头 said:

I'd really like to have a traditional version of this deck available, but at this point in time I can't invest any more money in the project; I still haven't made back what I spent. When the traditional version is ready I'll offer it as a free update to everyone who already purchased the deck.

 

Thanks for the honest answer, in that case I’ll just go for the deck as it is now:) I hope you’ll make back the money you spent eventually, and IMO you could just charge for the upgrade with an extra batch of traditional characters.