Overhaul of kanji.sljfaq.org for March/April 2022

The handwritten kanji recognition pages and other pages at the kanji.sljfaq.org web site are undergoing some overhaul work during March or April 2022. The following changes are taking place.

🆕 Shape-based search

A new search method which matches shapes of characters regardless of strokes has been added. This method makes it easier to search for characters where not only the stroke order, but the shapes of the strokes themselves are difficult to guess, such as 卍, 凸, 凹, 亞.

It is currently most useful for simple characters, and it's a bit slow compared to the other searches. See About the "Match shape" option for full details.

🆕 Canvas (HTML5) to be default

The <canvas> drawing method currently labelled as (HTML5) will become the default. The old drawing method, taken from chasen.org in 2008 courtesy of Taku Kudo, will become an option for users who want to keep using it.

The canvas drawing element is standard in all browsers and on all phones now, so there is no reason to keep on using the Kudo system, but people who want to go on using that can choose "Handwritten (old)" on the menu. You can also choose to turn off the coloured strokes at Options by unchecking "Use multicoloured strokes" under "Draw options".

🆕 "Clear everything" and "Remove last stroke" replaced with icons

The Clear everything and Remove last stroke buttons underneath the drawing surface have been replaced with icons on the drawing input surface. The layout of controls on Handwritten (old) page is unchanged.

🆕 “Ignore stroke order” upgraded

The “Ignore stroke order” search will be replaced by a new and improved search back end based on that of qhanzi.com, but restricted to Japanese kanji only. The qhanzi search back end allows many more variant forms, and also fixes a number of problems with the current system.

Other changes

Stroke order search will be unchanged

The stroke-order search will stay unchanged for the time being. Due to possible technical problems with maintaining the service, the back end may have to be replaced.

Pronunciation lookup removed

The "pronunciation lookup" feature, which was not working, is removed from the codes page.

Look ahead (don't match exactly) made clearer

The meaning of the Look ahead (don't match exactly) checkbox on the Handwritten page has been made more obvious by disabling it when either Ignore stroke order or Match shape are chosen.

This checkbox has no meaning for the Match shape search, which ignores individual strokes. The Ignore stroke order match already matches kanji with any number of strokes, but, because there are so many possibilities, it is biased to matching things similar in stroke count to what the user has drawn.

Page layout improvements

Various minor improvements have been made to the web pages. Some changes you may notice include:

• Radicals page layout improved
  • The radicals are now centred in the boxes
  • The stroke order numbers no longer highlight on mouseover
• Page bottom information tidied
  • The language selector, "Help" link, contact information, and privacy link (where required by the use of Google advertising) are made into a single bar, with added emojis.
• Four corner page flickering effect fixed. The four-corner page no longer changes shape for some languages such as English.
• Scrolling / paging for multiradical, radical, four-corner and SKIP improved and glitches removed.
• On the Kana input page, glitches involving the empty squares have been fixed.
• Highlighting on hover and better use of pointer on the main menu at the top of the page. For at least ten years, it's been possible to click on the square, outside the text itself, to change to a page, but the menu's visual indications, such as pointer change or colour change on hovering did not make this clear.

📆 Downtime and service interruptions

There may be short system downtime while the changes go into effect. There is also a possibility that stroke-order dependent search will be affected by the change, in which case more work may become necessary. Notices about the exact dates of upgrades will be posted on the discussion group. See the link at the bottom of this page.