Write Chinese on web browser

[yuzhenmi]

Hi all,

I'm a Chinese-Canadian student who speaks Chinese natively. Since I came to Canada, my Chinese writing skills gradually vanished so I recently created a website, just for fun, to help me practice writing Chinese online.

The website is at: http://writechinese.co.nf/

I'm still working on the site and it's on a free web host. Right now, it works on touch screen PCs with a modern browser (I tested it the most on Chrome). I'm going to add support for mouse very soon, for those who don't have a touch screen!

To use it, you gotta select a "package" from the home page, (e.g. "Numbers“ under "Words"). Clicking on "Words", "Phrases" or "Paragraphs" does not work yet, unfortunately (will work soon). I've created a few packages so far for demo purpose.

Once you select a package, Chinese character sets will slowly load up on the left side. Once they load, just touch the one you're interested in and it'll show the characters from that particular set. If the set you selected contains only one character then you gotta touch it again. Then, the right side will load up with a traceable version of the character and you can trace over it on your touch screen!

Please let me know what you think and whether this can be helpful! I would also love ideas for new packages! I'm thinking of allowing the public to upload their own packages in the near future.

If I get positive feedbacks, maybe I'll make mobile versions

Hans

[Shelley]

Had a quick look but as I have to use a mouse I couldn't do more than that. Looks good.

I like the idea of a mobile version, don't forget android 2.1

Keep up the good work.

[skylee]

If I understand correctly only new PCs with windows 8 are equipped with touch screens, right? If this is right most people can't use it on their PCs (yet). (PS - but they can use it on tablets/ phones with touch screens.)

I have tried the website on my Android phone (Galaxy Note2) and it seems to work. But since I don't need to practise writing Chinese (especially not simplified Chinese characters) I lost interest quickly. Perhaps other forum members have more views to share.

I have two not-so-relevant questions, though. 1) what does ".nf" stand for? Newfoundland? 2) What is the free web host? (PS - I've found the answers.)

[yuzhenmi]

RE Shelley:

I just updated the site to automatically use mouse mode if touch device is not detected (not sure how reliable this detection is). Please let me know if it works! Might have to clear cache if your browser cached the older version.

RE skylee:

I'm actually thinking of applying this app to traditional Chinese and other East Asian languages! I can do this very easily because I'm getting the shape/font of characters from Windows' built-in font files. Unlike some of the other apps where fonts are presumably crafted one by one (and thus the number of characters are limited), I have font for every Chinese character stored in my database.

Thanks for the feedbacks!

[yuzhenmi]

Updated the site to better support mobile. Also embedded Bing Translator page (the entire page! otherwise it costs money ) right below the Chinese words for some quick translations to English.

[Shelley]

Well I have tried and tried to load the web page again, I have cleared my cache to ensure I get the most up to date version but have been unable to load this page since I last posted.

Can't seem to load it on my android device or my win xp devices. Is it me or has something happened?

Was keen to see the updates and give it a go.

[yuzhenmi]

Hmm that is strange. I just tried to load the website on my Win8 PC and on my Android phone and they both worked. Maybe the web host was temporarily down when you tried to visit? Since I'm using a free web host service, I wouldn't be surprised if it goes down randomly.

[Shelley]

Ok its back up, had a look. Great stuff. What are your final plans?

It would be good to have some feedback as you are writing so you know if it is right stroke order, because I think this is very important and the main reason I would use this sort of thing.

Maybe so that you don't have to do any thing too complicated after you finish writing the correct order could appear either as little numbers on each stroke or highlight the wrong strokes or both!

The sort of brush stroke you have chosen is interesting but makes it difficult to be accurate. Maybe a choice of styles and may be colour would make it more user friendly.

I am really interested in this sort of thing because I really believe that writing characters over and over is the best way to learn them. (Maybe a bit old fashion but I like it)

I am glad you are going to add words and phrases too, just characters in isolation has its merits but words are good too.

Keep up the good work

[yuzhenmi]

Stroke orders are probably going to be a little challenging for me to implement since my database contains no information for them. Right now, I just link to an external website that has stroke information. I'll definitely see what I can do though, maybe there are available stroke data out there that I can use.