Features

JISHOP Mobile employs, primarily, the following seven windows:


The Kanji Search window, AKA the main window, is used for searching in the kanji database.

The search parameters are specified in the top part of the window:

JISHOP also supports advanced search parameters. To see those, you have to click the double-arrow button:

When you click "Search", JISHOP first goes through its kanji list. The matching kanji are displayed in the Results window. If not a single kanji was found, and either meaning or reading was specified, the system searches the compound words dictionary by the same reading/meaning, and displays the results in the Compounds window

The lower part of the main window is occupied by the radical table. Its structure is practically identical between the PC and the mobile versions of JISHOP. The column # corresponds to the stroke number of the radical. Clicking on a radical in the table selects it and places it into a free cell; clicking an occupied cell clears it.

If you tap and hold a radical in the table, the context menu of the radical will pop up. The top, inactive line in the menu is the radical's canonical name. The Select command is equivalent to clicking on a radical. The "Collapse" command hides all radicals in the table, except for those related with the chosen one (in JISHOP/PC you can get the same result by right-clicking a radical twice). The Info command brings up the Radical Info window.

To restore the full table, click the Uncollapse button in the toolbar, or select Radicals/Restore table in the menu.

The reading can be specified either in rōmaji , or in hiragana, or in katakana. You can specify long vowels either with a colon, or as "ou/uu".

You can also provide the Japanese word directly in the "Word" box.

The command bar contains the following commands:


The Results window contains the list of the found kanji (the top strip) and the dictionary entry for one of those (selected by clicking the strip). if only one kanji is found, there's no strip.

The layout of the dictionary entry is identical to that of the JISHOP/PC; you can find the description in the JISHOP/PC's manual. All kanji in the entry are hyperlinks - if you click a kanji with your stilus, the kanji's own dictionary entry will be displayed. Clicking the large kanji image will activate the Compounds window and place the kanji into a search cell.

JISHOP Mobile supports retrieval and display of online Stroke Order Diagrams (SODs), like the Strokes plugin does for JISHOP/PC. To see the SODs, you can use the Menu/Kanji/Stroke order command, or click the button. The SODs are taken from the Internet, so for this command you must have an active connection.

Clicking "OK" in the top right corner activates the main window.

The command bar contains the following commands:


The Compounds window is used for searching in the compound words dictionary.

      

Two modes of search are supported: search by kanji and search by reading/meaning.

In the search by kanji mode, you can select up to four kanji to search for. The "Position" checkbox determines whether the kanji's position in the compound word will be taken into account during search. To place a kanji into a search cell, you have to locate it in the Results window, and click the large kanji image. You can move the selected characters left and right by means of the small triangular buttons below the kanji cells. Those are only visible when position-aware search is turned on.

A free kanji cell can have one of the two values - "?" or "-". You can cycle between those by clicking on the cell. The question mark means that on this position, any character would fit. The dash means that this position must be blank in the compound word. In other words, if you search for AB--, the system will find all words with precisely two characters - A and B (in this order), maybe with some hiragana in the middle. If you search for AB??, then the words of 3 or more kanji will be found as well, as long as the first kanji are AB. Again, this distinction only matters in the position-aware mode.

You can specify the reading in rōmaji, hiragana, or katakana, just like in the main window.

The Search button starts the search. The words, once found, are displayed below. The output format is identical to that of JISHOP/PC. All kanji in the compound words are hyperlinks - you can bring up the kanji's dictionary entry by clicking on it.

You can select compound words by clicking on them. Once you select a word, the several flavors of the Copy command are enabled.

Clicking "OK" in the top right corner activates the main window.


The Radical Info Window can be opened by clicking the "Info" command in the radical's context menu.

This window contains the number of strokes in the radical, it's traditional designation in English and in Japanese (if any), usage statistics, variants and alternative forms. For radicals that belong to the traditional list of 214 ("bushu"), the number in the list is given. Also, sample kanji with the radical are shown, typically two.

The images of other radicals are hyperlinks - clicking on one opens the info window for that radical. For radicals that are used as standalong kanji, clicking on the large radical image opens the kanji dictionary entry. The arrow buttons in the top right corner allow navigation within the radical table.

To close the window, click anywhere outside.


The Groups window

Like the PC version, JISHOP Mobile lets you compose and store arbitrary lists of kanji, so that you can come back to those at any time. These lists are stored in files; each file may have one or more named groups. Each group can have any number of characters; each character can be marked as "easy" or "hard". You can change the contents of the group, and the order of characters, anytime.

At any moment, JISHOP Mobile has one active file and one active group. To create, load, or save group files, use commands from the File menu.

In the top part of the Groups window you can see the list of groups in the current file. Under ths list, you can see the kanji in the group. The characters that you designate as hard are rendered in red, the easy ones - in grey. You can select kanji by clicking and move them around by dragging-and-dropping. Clicking the "Details" button displays the kanji's dictionary entry in the Results window.

You can fill the group either from within JISHOP (from the Results window), or from the clipboard. Also, you can move characters between groups and files by means of the clipboard.

JISHOP does not auto-save the groups file. Once you make changes, save the file by clicking Menu/File/Save, or the button. The files are stored in My Documents with the .ksg extension.

You can synchronize the group files between JISHOP/PC and JISHOP Mobile via ActiveSync. See below.


The Drill window can be used to go through the kanji group.

This window can cycle through all kanji in a group (or in the active file) in one of the three modes - review, guess the kanji, or guess the reading/meaning.

To run the drill, choose a group in the list (or check the "All" box) and click "Go". The group list is taken from the active group file; to change the active file, switch to the Groups window.

Depending on the mode, JISHOP displays the character, its data, or both. The "Hint" button can be used to display the missing bit - either the character, or the data. The "Details" button displays the kanji's dictionary entry. The "Stop" button resets the drill.

Menu:


The Settings window

The Settings window consists of four tabbed panels: View, Font, Scope and SOD.

The View tab contains the following settings:

The Font tab is used for choosing a Japanese font, if the device has them.

The Scope tab can be used to limit the list of kanji searched by pruning the obscure, old and erroneous kanji forms.

The SOD tab contains settings that pertain to the stroke-order diagram retrieval. These can come from more than one source. Use "SOD provider preference order" list to specify your most- and least-favorite provider. Regardless of this setting, you can choose an alternative SOD anytime in the SOD window.

Synchronization with the PC

Starting with JISHOP 5.0, you can synchronize kanji groups between the PC and the device. The standard Microsoft ActiveSync program is employed for that. When you establish a partnership between a device and a computer, in the list of items to be synchronized you can find "JISHOP Drill Groups".



You can only synchronize the files in the My Documents folder on the device, and the ones in the default folder (ApplicationData\JISHOP\Groups) on the PC. During the synchronization, the whole structure of the file is preserved - groups, characters, hard/easy marks. The conflict resolution is performed according to the ActiveSync settings.

Also, JISHOP supports file conversion on copying from the PC to the device and back.