WAKAN VERSION HISTORY

1.67 (6/2/05)
- Full compounds (including reading & meaning) can now be printed on character c
ards. These compounds are taken from vocabulary by frequency thus enabling you t
o view x most frequent compounds for a given character. The behavior of this new
feature can be changed by new controls in the Settings -> Character cards print
ing.
- New shortcut: Ctrl-K: Add word to vocabulary. Works in Dictionary, Editor, Cha
r.compounds and Vocabulary mode.
- Editor: fixed kana mode, it no longer converts to kanji.
- New option: Editor->Auto-save on exit.
- New option: Editor->Auto-load on start.
- Removed double-click on vocabulary category check-list.
- Fixed several bugs with shortcuts.
- Fixed many other small bugs.
1.66 (2/24/05)
- Screen popup should be working now. It was defunct in 1.65.
- Search kanji by "Other" is now remembered.
1.65 (2/21/05)
- Fixed critical bug in the editor. If you answered yes to the "Document has bee
n changed. Do you want to save it?" prompt, which appears when you close Wakan,
wakan unfortunately erased the file instead of saving it.
- Fixed critical bug in the .USR upgrade procedure, which could lead to .USR fil
e corruption.
- '+A+' dictionary search mode ("inside" search). Supported for phonetic & clipb
oard searching. VERY SLOW (cannot use any indexes) and thus search-as-you-type i
s never active for this search (even when "Auto" is checked), you must always pr
ess the Enter key after typing the search string.
- Support for half-width characters within the editor. This behavior is by defau
lt turned on for ASCII characters (english text, etc.), thus when you mix Japane
se & English text it now looks much better. Future versions might support half-w
idth katakana, truly proportional fonts are not planned to be supported. This fu
ntion is not supported in vertical printing.
- Information from various dictionaries for the same word is grouped on one line
separated by / . The most important dictionary is listed first.
- User vocabulary entry is also visible when searching dictionary. It is listed
first, separated by // from the dictionary entries.
- JLPT level displayed for characters (needs new WAKAN.CHR).
- New option on Characters menu (Save characters to file).
- Wakan uses the word frequency chart by Charles Kelly & Alexandre Girardi - fil
e WORDFREQ_CK from Jim Breen's site. Information about frequency of words can no
w be included in .DIC files (if you have downloaded the WORDFREQ_CK file and con
verted it to WORDFREQ_CK.UNI - 16-bit Unicode). There is a new checkbox in Dicti
onary Import to turn this on.
EDICT.DIC has been newly converted with the frequency information. Please re-dow
nload it. The frequency information is not going to be included into the other .
DIC files.
- Kanji compounds can be ordered by frequency with the new "Freq" checkbox.
- New option in Settings->Character list: "How many most frequent compounds to d
isplay in "Freq" mode" which limits compounds display to n most frequent words.
- New option in Settings->Dictionary: "Order by word frequency (where available)
"
- New option in Settings->Dictionary: "Display word count for each word" (which
displays the frequency information if available)
- Dictionaries can now be loaded into memory only partially (only indexes) thus
saving about 60-70% of the memory (but searching is then slower). This behavior
is controlled by a new option in Dictionary manager which can be turned on for s
eparate dictionaries.
- You can select Japanese/Chinese text from Wakan by left-clicking & dragging. W
hen you release the mouse button, Popup Tool is displayed for the selected text.
From there you can copy the text to clipboard, etc. Text in grids, character de
tails window or examples are selectable in this way.
- Multi-select allowed for vocabulary entries.
- Editor auto-scroll removed.
- New editor hotkeys: Ctrl-PgUp and Ctrl-PgDn.
- Tony Horowitz has fixed errors in PinYin romanization in WAKAN.CFG.
- In character mode with Compounds turned off and in Editor mode with Dictionary
turned off is Wakan now much faster.
- Wakan correctly imports Chinese CSV files in which phonetic is given in PinYin
with accents.
- PinYin font is now separate.
- PinYin "u:" are now displayed as one character.
- Neutral tone display fixed.
- Fixed display issues in 800x600.
- Vocabulary list quiz now respects your romanization settings.
- Printed vocabulary list contains tone marks in Pinyin.
- Select all categories button is now a toggle.
- Wakan now remembers Dictionary and Vocabulary settings.
- New button in Dictionary to go to the selected word in Vocabulary.
- Fixed critical bug displaying "READ BEYOND" and sometimes corrupting compounds
display.
- Switching dictionary mode does not delete search string.
- Moved some menu items around.
- "CheckIndex fails" messages no longer appear.
- Fixed color display in the editor.
- Screensaver no longer crashes Wakan.
- As always, many small bugfixes.

1.61 (10/16/04)
- CSV file import is much faster.
- Fixed shortening of popup-tool title match.
- Auto-translator recognition of kanji-followed-by-kana words was improved.
- Editor correctly uses Chinese font in Chinese mode.
Any delimiter is now allowed in CSV file (not just semicolon) - the first non-ka
nji character is taken as a delimiter.
- CSV export delimiter is now TAB.
- Fixed romanization in CSV import/export.
- Fixed serious bug in DB engine concerning deleted records.
- You can select whether to include category and/or learned state into the CSV.
- Fixed many small bugs (see forum for details).
1.60 (9/26/04)
- Files opened/saved in the editor no longer have to be in the Unicode UCS2 form
at. In Japanese mode the following encodings are supported: UTF-8, JIS, Shift-JI
S, NEC JIS, EUC (and Unicode). In Chinese mode: UTF-8, Big5, GB-2312 (and Unicod
e). No thorough testing has been made, so please be careful whether the imported
file is okay, report any problems to the forum.
- In Japanese mode, Wakan tries to auto-detect the format of the input file (and
select the default encoding accordingly). No such auto-detection is available f
or Chinese mode.
- In addition to .WKL files, vocabulary can be now imported/exported from .CSV f
ile - semicolon delimited file - which can be created by many common DB applicat
ions. Supports the same range of encodings as for editor files.
- .CSV files include word state (problematic/unlearned/learned/mastered).
- Phonetics in the .CSV file can be in romaji/PinYin/BoPoMoFo/kana. Export is dr
iven by your romanization settings.
- Editor: Detection of kanji-followed-by-kana words has been improved.
- Word details now display romaji/PinYin when set in the settings.
- Popup tool no longer displays text following the located word.
- New Character list setting "Search by yomi can ignore okurigana" - will ignore
okurigana when searching by yomi, eg. "kana" will locate "kana.shii".
- Search by kanji meaning can now locate partial matches.
- Exact example number is shown in random mode.
- You can go to specific example number (using the new hand button in the exampl
es panel).
.LNG files now reside directly in Wakan directory (several users forgot to unpac
k LNG folder, leading to strange crashes). You can delete the former LNG folder.

- Opening/saving files does not change directory (and crash Wakan).
- Removed the "EXPERIMENTAL" warning box when running screen popup.
- Many small bugfixes.
1.55 (7/13/04)
- Characters can be assigned to different categories (each character to more tha
n one). Controls are similar to vocabulary categories (but not identical).
- Categories can be assigned by new controls on Char.Details window (or by Ctrl-
L).
- You can filter by categories (with AND, OR or NOT).
- Learned characters are those assigned to "LEARNED" category (this special cate
gory cannot be renamed nor deleted). None of former functions concerning learned
characters were changed.
- User file format is backward-compatible (only LEARNED category is displayed in
former Wakan versions).
- Auto-conversion between traditional and simplified characters in Chinese mode
(according to the settings - moved to Settings/General tab). For example in the
simplified characters mode all dictionary results are now displayed in simplifie
d characters, editor converts simplified characters, character compounds work fo
r simplified characters, etc.
- French UI translation (by Gatan Martel).
- "Random" sort order now works.
- New sort order: "Unsorted" which displays chars in clipboard in original order
.
- Char.compounds now have buttons for add into clipboard or vocabulary.
- In romaji/PinYin mode the reading hints (furigana) in the editor are also disp
layed in romaji/PinYin.
- Option "Display transcript above kana" which in romaji mode displays romaji tr
anscript above all kana (in kana mode it displays hiragana above katakana).
- Category can be deleted even if some words are assigned only to it (they're th
en removed from vocabulary).
- "kanarazu" etc. translation bug fixed.
1.52 (6/11/04)
- Fixed critical bug in furigana display.
- E->J Dictionary can now correctly locate multi-word search strings ("to come",
etc.)
- Fixed "ta" Chinese romanization.
- Fixed several program freezes.
- "Search by clipboard" can now locate kana-only words.
- Fixed several color bugs in editor.
1.51 (6/6/04)
- Support for UI translations (.LNG files).
- Buttons on the Popup Tool: add to clipboard, replace clipboard, show dictionar
y, show character card.
- Right-click on various texts in Wakan brings up Popup window (even if Popup to
ol is disabled) with "add to clipboard" button automatically pressed.
- Grid line sizes automatically change.
- Editor now displays furigana for user-translated words.
- Kuru and Iku verbs inflections are now recognized.
- When word containing kanji is not found in dictionary, the translation is deri
ved from kanji definition.
- Changed behavior of radicals window. Selected radicals are not forgotten by re
-opening window. Multiple radicals must be now selected with Ctrl or Shift.
- Auto-translation and user-translation behave identically when a block is selec
ted.
- Okurigana dot now printed correctly.
- Separate font settings for stroke order font.
- Char.in word colors are now correct.
- Colors of radical window can now be changed separately.
- Fixed freezing in vocabulary.
- Examples are not copied into clipboard with translations unless selected.
- "Insert into clipboard" now does not replace the clipboard contents.
- "Display written only if all characters are learned" checkbox in the Learning
list wizard.
- Kunreisiki input (si, tya, zi, di, ...) accepted in Hepburn mode (along with s
hi, cha, ji, ...).
- Various minor radical window issues fixed.
- Several UI bugs & freezes fixed.
1.50 (4/21/04)
- Stroke order can be displayed for Japanese Jouyou characters. Use the new "Ord
er" button on the kanji details window. Stroke order display file is (C) Gabriel
SanRoman (http://usuarios.lycos.es/gsanroman). Stroke order display requires MS
Mincho-like font.
- Stroke order can be printed on kanji cards (use then "Print stroke order" opti
on).
- New option "Use grid font for displaying stroke order" for people who use call
igraphic fonts (which do not work well with stroke order display).
- Word and characters indexes in .DIC files posted for 1.47+ were corrupted. Due
to that some words couldn't be found and in the compounds several mismatched co
mpounds were displayed. Unfortunately the .DIC files had to be rebuilt. To preve
nt users from accidentally using the corrupted files, version 1.50 does not work
with 1.47 dictionaries and therefore they must be downloaded anew. I apologize
for this inconvenience and I hope you can understand that. I would like to thank
people who noticed these bugs.
- Due to numerous requests, character stroke counts in Japanese mode are now tak
en from KANJIDIC - should be more accurate with modern kanji renderings.
- Greatly improved auto-translating algorithm. It now recognizes compound verbs
(like "ki wo tsukeru") and minimizes the mistranslation of hiragana-only words (
like frequently assigning "field" for no particle.
- Completely rewritten particle recognition algorithm, it is now much more preci
se. The range of recognized particles is now much greater.
- When manually assigning a translation, the following particle is also assigned
.
- Auto-translation now works on a selected block (hotkey Ctrl-F). Thus you can v
ery quickly translate the portion of text you don't understand. "Clear translati
on" now also works on a block.
- Manually translated words are displayed in bold and are ignored by auto-transl
ator.
- Speed of .DIC import slightly improved.
- Colors in editor now show the vocabulary state of the translated word and clea
rly differentiate the particles.
- Colors can be quickly turned off by a new button in the editor.
- An option to leave space between lines even when reading display is off.
- The option "Do not display reading of learned kanji" now works.
- Detailed color settings (Settings->Colors).
- For people using non-standard or inverted Windows color scheme, there are opti
ons (Settings->Colors) for turning all colors off leaving only Windows settings.

- Popup window character card font sizes are now configurable (Settings->Popup t
ool->Character card size factor).
- Width of the popup window is derived from the width of the largest dictionary
entry (not precisely, but accurately enough), you can set its boundaries by spec
ifying minimum and maximum number of characters in compounds on the character ca
rd (Settings->Popup tool->Number of characters...).
- Pressing Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-C or Ctrl-A now does not switch to editor.
- Backspace line-skipping bug was fixed.
- Editor: Kurikaeshi is now treated like kanji.
- Examples can now be displayed in vocabulary mode.
- Adding into vocabulary is now modal window (replaced by examples panel).
- Number of results is now displayed in dictionary.
- Fixed bug in displaying romanized phonetic in dictionary.
- User file is auto-saved every n minutes (Settings->General).
- Wakan backups user file into BACKUP folder every day (Settings->General).
- Strange examples window resize problem under several systems was fixed.
- Fixed several minor crashes.
1.49 (3/20/04)
- Implemented Michael Raine's part-of-characters search method (as used by JWPce
) for Japanese mode. Original radical search method is also available (both mode
s can be switched by new radio-buttons in Radicals List).
- Fixed recognition of inflected ichidan verbs (like "dekinakatta" or "mite").
- Changed font of on-yomi and kun-yomi, fixed wrapping.
- "Vocabulary" and "Filters" modes of the bottom dictionary panel removed. This
panel is now solely occupied by Examples.
- "Add to vocabulary" in Dictionary is now a modal window. It can be invoked by
either double-clicking on the Dictionary grid or by the new "Vocabulary" button
under Dictionary grid.
- Fixed cursor misplacement after pasting or deleting.
- Fixed serious auto-translation crash bug.
- Fixed clipboard import from JWPce.
- Fixed several other editor bugs.
1.48 (3/16/04)
- New feature: Dictionary displays example sentences with english translation fo
r each word. Jim Breen's WWWJDIC example sentences are used. For this feature to
work, you must download example pack from download section of WaKan website. It
does not work with Jim Breen's EXAMPLE.GZ file (it lacks indexes).
- Examples can be displayed in random order.
- You can copy selected example or all examples to clipboard.
- Examples are displayed in the window formerly occupied by "Add to vocabulary"
interface. Various functions of this window are switched by buttons at the left-
hand side.
- Loading dictionaries on-demand can be turned off in General settings.
- Fixed several bugs with on-demand loading.
1.47 (13/13/04)
- Updated .DIC file structure. It is smaller, faster and takes less memory. Howe
ver it is not compatible with previous versions of WaKan, and with the 1.47 you
have to download the appropriate .DIC files, the old ones won't load with the ne
w version. I'm sorry about the difficulties but preserving both formats was not
possible.
- Converted .DIC files (including ENAMDICT, etc.) will now be available from WaK
an website.
- New .DIC files support E->J searching inside phrases. For example "water" sear
ch will now yield "nomimizu" (drinking water). Old version did not support this.
- Popup and character cards printing now works in Chinese mode.
- Fixed inserting new vocabulary categories in Chinese mode.
- On-demand loading of .DIC files.
- Dictionaries can be assigned to groups (three are available). From within dict
ionary you can switch groups instantly by the new buttons (D1,D2,D3) or by using
Ctrl-1, Ctrl-2 or Ctrl-3 hotkeys. Groups are assigned in the Dictionary manager
.
- You can select which dictionaries to use for compounds or for editor/popup too
l (in Dictionary Manager).
- Dictionaries can be imported without character or word index.
- "Auto" button in dictionary to turn on/off auto-preview (search while typing).
- Option in Dictionary settings to toggle all-results/one-page-results for auto-
preview.
- Minor changes in Dictionary UI.
- WAKAN.USR is auto-archived to WAKAN.BAK upon exit.
1.46 (3/2/04)
- Fixed several character details docking bugs.
- Removed freeze detection from madExcept (caused problems with importing DIC).
- Fixed some bugs in tooltip character card display (hopefully fixed line misali
gns).
- "Characters in word" now display the right character upon click.
- Disabled window scaling. May help with non-standard window sizes.
1.45 (2/28/04)
- WAKAN POPUP TOOL: Displays popup tooltip window whenever you hover your mouse
over any Chinese or Japanese text in wakan. Can be used for any wakan function:
for dictionary, characters or in the editor. Tooltip window contains translation
s of the word under cursor and character card for the first character under curs
or. This feature is activated by the left of the two new icons at the top of the
window (with "WK" in it) and can be configured in the Settings "Popup tool".
- Dockable character details window. Dock it by using the new "Dock" button. Win
dow can be docked only in "Characters" or "Editor" mode, but the docking setting
is remembered separately.
- !EXPERIMENTAL! SCREEN POPUP TOOL: Displays the same window as Wakan popup tool
but for any text in any Windows application (with some limitations, see Feature
s section for complete description). Displays translation even for English text.
HEAVILY EXPERIMENTAL: In extreme cases can cause system instability so please s
ave your work in all your applications before running this feature. Please help
me with testing - if you encounter any problem / crashes or strange behaviour, p
ost a report into forum (new forum has been created for this). This feature is n
ever activated at wakan startup, you must manually activate it by clicking "SC"
icon.
- Fixed serious dictionary manager bugs.
- Multiple dictionaries in editor are now working.
- Font size of dictionary grid can be changed in "General" settings.
- Fixed backspace behavior in the editor.
- If you do not have char.details docked, you can display details for "character
s in word" by clicking on them.
- In vocabulary quiz you can select combination of any two from written, phoneti
c or meaning.
- Increased number of characters displayed in "Characters in word" to 9.
- "Save kana transcript" function in Editor menu.
- Removed UPX packer (because it probably caused some crashes) - EXE is now larg
er, sorry.
- Fixed corrupted index while importing .DIC - prevented locating words with "ch
".
- Using madExceptionHandler (C) 1999 - 2003 Mathias Rauen, www.madshi.net. When
exception occurs, you can mail me the report now.
- Fixed several vocabulary interface problems (disabled buttons, focus problems,
etc.).
- Greatly improved speed of sorting vocabulary.
1.40 (2/7/04)
- NEW INTERFACE: Single-window tabbed interface. Does not allow displaying multi
ple windows but on the other hand is much more easy to use.
- Revised UI look. Supports Windows XP styles.
- New UI works correctly with larger-than-normal window sizes.
- QuickLayouts removed (reason: duplicated by new UI, many incompatibility issue
s)
- Modal-like character details window (closed on Enter), stays on top.
- Links to several character-information sites from character details window.
- Optimized character search speed.
- Added "dictionary" & "detail" buttons to editor that display dictionary / char
acter details respectively.
- Greatly improved deflection routine. Now scans for appropriate verb suffixes t
o display only relevant words.
- Added "Inflected" checkbox to turn on/off deflection routine for dictionary.
- Window positions remembered separately for various resolutions.
- Reduced number of hotkeys, all Ctrl-Alt-? hotkeys removed.
- Character details now can be displayed by double-clicking or pressing Enter in
character list or by double-clicking in editor.
- Several docking bugs fixed.
- Disabled .LAY file generation (moved to registry).
- Editor font has been enlarged (on the "largest" setting) to improve readabilit
y of meaning.
- Mouse wheel handled within the editor.
- Text color in dictionary forced to black.
- "Text translation" button in dictionary removed.
- Option (on Settings->General) to auto-save user data on exit (to suppress the
prompt).
- Added buttons to change order of items in character details.
- Changed standard character details contents. Not so cluttered and with separat
ors. If you want to use it, delete the .CDT file.
- Unicode displayed on character details.
- Separators in character details now work correctly.
- New WAKAN.CHR correctly contains JIS code (but there is no other reason for re
-downloading it).
1.33 (1/17/04)
- Remade inflection removal routine. Now it can detect a much broader range of i
nflections. For example you can type (in the editor) "hatarakanakattadesuyone" a
nd the program will successfully locate verb "hataraku".
- Optimized speed of searching inflected words.
- Fixed dictionary import routine (missing meaning for "noru" & parenthesis doub
ling) - please re-download DIC files.
- Hint now shows at proper place.
- Fixed window corruption when switching quicklayouts.
- QuickLayout buttons not shown in 800x600.
- Double-clicking radical (on character details) will filter by this radical.
- Radical in character search now displays radical not number.
- Character cards now include correct radical.
- Fixed "learning" QuickLayout.
1.32 (12/27/03)
- Option to show only non-learned characters.
- Fixed several "not valid integer value" bugs.
- Improved selecting text within editor (can be now done with mouse).
- "Select all" now works.
- Added several progress boxes.
- Fixed adding into clipboard.
- Fixed several other bugs in editor.
- Pressing DEL deletes whole block (if present).
1.31 (12/20/03)
- Whenever you convert to a kanji in the editor, the chosen conversion is rememb
ered and given a greater priority.
- Actual priority of each conversion is displayed in dictionary window.
- Fixed nasty "access violation" that occured whenever you tried to add anything
into vocabulary.
- By double-clicking in editor / compounds you can display the whole english mea
ning.
- Hint now hides properly.
1.30 (12/16/03)
- Editor & text translator now work in Chinese mode (but thorough testing is yet
to be made).
- Character dictionary now contains about 50 (!) different information about eac
h character (where available). Contains various indexes from KANJIDIC & UNIHAN &
more. However since this caused size increase of the WAKAN.CHR file, I have als
o prepared a LITE version of WAKAN.CHR (contains only basic information). Please
note that you have to re-download WAKAN.CHR
- You can now search by EVERY available information for characters.
- Radicals search now searches ALL available radicals at once (Bushu, classical,
KangXi, ...).
- Completely reworked character details windows. Now fully configurable & resiza
ble. You can choose which information and in what format should this window cont
ain.
- Character details window now shows characters while browsing through editor fi
le. You can see it clearly on the "Editor" quicklayout.
- Reduced editor flickering (by double-buffering).
- Editor scroller works.
- Program can be run in 800x600 resolution (quicklayouts require 1024x768 howeve
r).
- Some bugfixes in editor.
1.26 (11/30/03)
- Hints while typing in the editor, shows suggested conversion & meaning
- Program now autosaves various settings (sort order, etc.)
- Particles, automatic inflection removal and romanization can now be configured
in WAKAN.CFG.
- Corrected particles & auto-deflection lists.
- Added causative and passive forms (-aseru, -areru) forms into automatic inflec
tion removal list.
- Fixed serious "access violation" & "cannot focus" bugs.
- Main window can be resized.
- User database loads faster.
1.25 (11/26/03)
- Optimized loading speed (you MUST re-download DIC files)
- Reduced number of windows, secondary windows docked into primary ones
- Editor is now primary window
- Sort & search windows were merged
- Several reduntant windows were removed
- Font size selection in editor
- Auto-saving layout on exit
- Fixed many bugs in editor
- You can now change converted kanji in editor even AFTER the conversion
- Optimized sort order in dictionary
- Smaller radical window, you can see the results as you select radicals
- Fixed kanji search tab-order
1.21 (11/10/03)
- Fixed dictionary sort order (it ignored vocabulary words)
1.20 (11/9/03)
- Main menu
- Hotkeys to all key functions
- Copy&Paste in text editor
- Editor GUI improved
- Fixed bug in radicals display
1.12 (10/30/03)
- QuickLayouts
- many bugfixes in editor
1.10 (10/15/03)
- simple editor with kanji conversion
- some changes in dictionary search order
- many bugfixes in text translator
- changed initial layout (delete WAKAN.LAY to see it)
1.0 (9/25/03)
- first public version