Comments

--Email from zorkzero:--

Hello, thanks for writing this useful application.

It would be great if you could add support for Mecab, it's a really good converter. I know that you think that it's too big, but I bet most people don't care. You only need to download a 10 MB dictionary once. 10 MB is nothing. Could you please add support for Mecab? I would do it myself, but I don't know C++ or XPCOM.

What I could probably do is a http server, which would use Mecab to convert kanji to kana. No need to learn C++ or XPCOM. You could install the server locally. Firefox would use JSON to communicate with the server. The disadvantage of this solution would be the slower speed, I think.

Also it's necessery to adjust the font size for furigana. I've asked the author of the ruby extensions, but he didn't reply. Could you add this, too? I could try to do it myself, but I'd have to learn Javascript.

When you put the cursor over a word with furigana, the furigana popup hides the rikaichan popup. How can I fix that?

Hello ZZ,

regarding the size of the Mecab library I recently heard some similar comments in another web page that was related to the Itadaki plugin for Open Office. It's not that people don't mind downloading that size to their PCs, but rather that I suspect Mozilla would mind hosting it. Remember, Firefox itself is only 6Mb!

I would love to use the Mecab library (using the ipadic dictionary) instead of the JUMAN library (which I've become blocked on for a while). Seeing that itadaki also uses it, I think to myself ... wouldn't it be better if Mecab was it's own installable package? It would save (some) development time and save on downloads. *.msi for windows, *.rpm for linux. But should it be a lib or service?

The http service idea is also good. (There is already MeCAPI(?) but it only provides feedback to URL GET-style requests which is not a suitable interface.)

I have become too busy with a recent career change to give much love and attention to furigana injector for several months (I make an exception for localization). Other developers are welcome to contribute or even take over.

Regarding the font size for rubies, it's not related to Furigana Injector. Furigana Injector relies upon ruby support, it does not provide or adjust it. As for Shimoda-san (the developer of the XHTML Ruby Support add-on) I'm afraid he's probably very busy like everyone else in the Mozilla ring with FF3 release issues right now. It took me a while before I was able to meet him. As for "furigana pop-up", there are no popups in Furigana Injector. That is the standard context menu for Firefox, which always covers the content of a webpage when invoked. Furigana injector adds some items to it.

I'd really like to have Linux support for this nice addon. I tried to install it anyways, but everytime I click on the status bar icon, I receive a Javascript error:"TypeError?: this.prefs is null". :( hontou ni zannen desu ne.

Yes, a 0.8 Linux version would be nice, thanks.

Love the addon, it's helping a lot to learn kanji. One problem I've noticed, is that when I turn the addon on and off, with xhtml ruby, a bunch of html code appears in the window, and I have to reset the window to get rid of it. If you leave it on to automatically load a page there wont be any, but with frames the addon doesn't seem to pick up a single frame loading(something else that would be useful) so I try toggling the addon and up comes the code.

And yes, as I said, it seems with framed sites, the addon won't automatically add the furigana. If you reload that frame, it adds them, but it never seems to catch it on the first try.

Either way, love the addon, good work ^-

Thanks- I'll put this comment in the issues list. The html code issue sounds like a problem fixed in v0.8 (released here a while ago but still waiting for review on the official Mozilla add-ons site). Please try the new version.

As for frames, could you give an example URL, and which versions you're using? I've looked for my own but can't replicate the problem (using Furigana Injector 0.8.2 in Firefox 3.0).

Akira

Yayakoshi san, the concept is amazing, it will really help me. Thank you :) Although, i have just read it till now, would install it immediately. Just a small question --> Is it avaliable for Microsoft IE also ?

I think this addon is excellent, but some of the readings are incorrect, especially when a single kanji is read as the kun and not the on. Is this a known problem?

Yes! some of the readings are wrong. As mentioned on the front page this is result of using simple dictionary lookups, and would be 90%+ resolved if a natural language analyzing algorithms were used as well. That's been done for the 0.9.x versions, which are (so far) only available through this webpage.

I notice to mistakes : 家　->んち seems to be false 顔　->かんばせ seems to be false

Very usefull soft, goodluck

Hello

Regarding to the mac build, I could grant you a user account with ssh access to one of my macs. I'm a developer myself but I've never done any work with mozilla extensions. I've tried to build using unix tools (autoconf, make, etc..) but the repo is lacking of some project files (autoconf.mk maybe?) I hope this helps you because this is a great extension.

Hello nesukun,

could you please send me an email? I don't know how to contact you.

Yours, Akira.

Thank you so much for this incredible add-on! Do you think you can add an option to add to the firefox toolbar icons that correspond to the commands in the right click context menu (the 'inject furigana' and 'inject furigana (whole page'))?

Hi David.

The "Inject furigana" context-menu item is truly context-sensitive (typically it processes only the paragraph that you clicked), so that makes it N/A for buttons in the toolbar or statusbar. As for the whole-page, please just click the statusbar button, the one that has the 振 character. That's always visible, so I don't think there's a need to make a separate toolbar button.

Cheers,

Akira

Hi guys

Just wanna tell you that seems to work great with opensuse 11.1 64bit with Firefox 32bit.

Thank you so much!

Thanks very much Pedro, I updated the linux compatibility matrix.

Akira

Please make an option that allows the user to change the language of the options. I am on a non-English locale (Swedish) and the page shows up in Japanese.

Hello bocom0gravity.

If you can translate, I can make a Swedish locale for furigana injector. So far 10 other users have made translations for their languages, from ar (Arabic) to zh-TW (Traditional Chinese).

Hi Akira,

I've been absolutely loving this add-on on my Windows installation. I'm running 64bit Ubuntu (9.10) on my laptop though - any chance of having a version working for that?

Cheers!

Sorry karaden, I know 64bit chips are becoming more popular but there are still few too users.

I've already decided to go server-side at this date, which will make it possible to support any browser that allows extensions. A side-effect will be that the operating system will cease to be an issue.

I'm just too broke a.t.m. to rent a server, sorry. Cheers,

Akira

Hello. This works pretty well in Ubuntu, Firefox 3.0...is there a way to get it to work in Open Office Writer Linux version???

I actually just need an app. that lets me type in my own furigana where I need it. Any ideas?

Thanks!

MS Word! The thing you're looking for is called "Phonetic guide" in english. The button for it is usually in the formatting bar (bold/italic/font size etc.), with a picture of small "abc" over an "A" character. Of course there are many versions of MS Word and toolbars are customizable so look around.

The way to use MS Word's function is to select the text you want to add furigana to, press the "Phonetic guide" button, then type the readings in the pop-up dialog. You can do it word by word or select a whole sentence (or paragraph? or document?) at once.

There is a plugin for Open Office called Itadaki which permits furigana. http://sourceforge.net/projects/itadaki/. I tried to use it once, didn't work, but I think that was a version issue.

Hey, I'm another 64 bit user on linux. I'd love to be able to use this...

I just wanted to say thanks for making this extension. I noticed that the Furigana Injector icon doesn't appear when I open a local file. Has anyone else noticed this?

Hi scoreymjp,

I assume you're using the Chrome version of Furigana Injector. Sorry, but access to local files is a security issue which would have required manual review and slowed the last release.

For those who are curious, if the manifest.json file adds "file:///*" to the permissions then it should work. Trying to edit the file after installation doesn't seem to have any effect though.

Cheers,

Akira

Hello, this is a brilliant plug-in. Been using it for ages, I just started using Chrome and am so glad that it exists on here as well as Firefox.

The only problem is the Kanji level selector, I am quite useless at Japanese and need a setting below "ignore the most common 100", like "ignore none".

I tried just deleting the Kanji from the text box in the options page (like I could in the Firefox version), but there is no save button.

Apart from that, it is brilliant, thank you.

Hi Andrew,

you did the right thing ... in the Chrome version's options page the save happens automatically as soon as you finish typing.

I'd better add some message/symbol to let users know that it's happening.

Akira

Loving this add-on! I have .htm files of all the Harry Potter books in Japanese, and this has been essential in helping me make sense of them.

One problem though; is there any way you could add a feature to manually edit readings for particular (compound) kanji words? I've found a few mistakes (most noteworthy being that it reads 「二人」　as 「ににん」　instead of 「ふたり」, although there are others), but it's the ones I may not realize are mistakes that I'm worried about. I've picked up on several new words just from using this add-on to browse the web, and while I've been occasionally cross-referencing them in JWPce to make sure there are no errors in the readings, it's a little tedious-- and since I don't cross-reference every time, there have been a few of those mistake words that I learned incorrectly and had to reteach myself later.

Will most likely still be using the add-on either way, though! <3 It's usefulness completely outweighs my (minor) issue with it. You've created an awesome thing here. :D

Note: I've found that the UniDic? is an improvement for the example of 二人 above. I will test using UniDic? and start using it there are no separate issues.

Thank you very much Akira-san for this addon. It helps me a lot.

But with newer versions ( version 2.0 and after) the processing of the text is on a remote server. This prevents me from using it on the emails I receive from a HTTPS Mail server. =( This was the main application I had. If it could work in Gmail it would be great too!

Anyway, good job!

Thanks for the notice Arnaud. The issue is not HTTPS (I've confirmed with other sites) but I have replicated the issue with GMail. Maybe it's a multi-frame or Ajax issue. I will post an issue on the issues page for it.

Cheers,

Akira

お久しぶりです、 イタリア語が間違ってる所があったのでお知らせいたします：

-Installa l'(<ここが間違ってました)estensione HTML Ruby -Utilizzare la funzione "Opzioni ..." (vedi sotto) per impostare un elenco dei kanji per cui (<ここが間違ってました)　non è necessario il furigana. Nota: (<ここは良く分からないので、よろしければ、日本語でメールしていただければイタリア語に直します) -Come esso?(<ここも日本語で教えて下されば直します。)

以上です。お元気で。

um. It doesnt seem to be working well for me. On many sites, such as this one, for example, the button to enable doesn't seem to work. I click, no response. On others, like http://yamada.web.infoseek.co.jp/makura/ the button changes when I click it, but the page appears unchanged. On others, like the welcome page, and http://www.grandgent.com/tom/j/ it works fine. Not sure what is up. Any clues?

Hi. The problem seems to be that the text is images ....

This extension is not working. Do I have to install "HTML Ruby" like we do in Firefox? How do we do it in Chrome? Please help me on this, any help will be appreciated.

No, you do not have to install a Ruby extension in Chrome because it supports Ruby natively.

Is there any chance that we can download the actual database with the furigana? Because the servers don't seem to be working properly. :(

Yes! There is a way now ... but it would have to be compiled for your platform. If you're using a 64bit linux, I can help. If you're using Windows or Mac, you'd have to compile it yourself. Only experienced C or C++ developers could manage this though.

As for the server, not sure what the issue was. When I checked it had go up to 68% memory.

Unfortunately I'm using Windows 7 x64. But I think I can ask for help from some friends who know how to use C++. Where can I download it from? :) Also, the popup translator dependant on WWWJDIC seems to be either dead or incorrectly configured. Damn, I sure would like to help with this project but I can only program in Turbo Pascal :( If there's anything I can do, tell me.

The programming is the 1% inspiration, and the building is the 99% perspiration part. This is not the sort of thing you should ask your friends if you want to keep them :)

I figure once a linux user confirms that the linux version is OK for them I'll try to do it using a virtual windows host on Amazon EC2, or install on virtualbox, etc.

I will upload the code of the server to http://code.google.com/p/furigana-injector/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2Ffiserver tonight if I get a break.

Make that: http://code.google.com/p/furigana-injector/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2Ffuriganaserver.

This just-uploaded source will probably be difficult to compile as I haven't edited the make files for multi-platform compilation. Also the mecab and json-c libraries are expected to be in the environment, and at runtime the mecab dictionary files also.

Oh... Should I download that in any way or...? Maybe download each file? (Totally lost here...)

Ah, in that case you'd best leave it. Sorry.

Thank you anyway. :(

i have installed the extension but it doesn't work. is the server down?

No, at this time it is up. Is the 振 icon appearing in the URL bar (right-hand side)? Is it black? If it is grey, that would indicate that the server can't be reached.

Second note: the icon will only appear on Japanese pages that have kanji above your set level. Some pages, the most notable example being Facebook, have some way of dynamically inserting text after the page load that I haven't found a way to detect. In this case the icon won't appear even if there is japanese text :(

Hi. Chrome version isn't working anymore. It was, but now I don't get the icon to click to turn on the furigana, even on the Asahi page.

Sorry, but I can't reproduce this error for myself. Someone who is having this problem and can debug for themselves will have to help.

extension doesn't seem to work with the latest release of chrome (stable, not sure about chrome on dev or beta channels). when i rolled chrome back to v18.0.1025.168 then it works fine again.