This an extension for the MagicMirror.
This module displays the Kanji content from a local dataset of common words, combined with http://jisho.org/ (the API to lookup definitions of specific Kanji).
On a regular basis (by default hourly, more or less), this will retrieve a random Kanji character and display the definition. Furigana is are shown in cyan. The kanji character will be displayed in orange if it is an uncommon kanji. Note that this is based on the Jisho API saying that the kanji is not common, however I'm not convinced on the interpretation of that field, since it says things like 試 is uncommon, while the full web interface says it's #392 out of the 2500 most used kanji in newspapers...
The Jisho API is awesome, but not quite polished yet. This means that it provides a wealth of information (much of which is not displayed, since there's a vast amount of info there!). It does provide more thorough meanings of Kanji compared to the local data.
Open a terminal session, navigate to your MagicMirror's modules folder and execute git clone https://github.com/njwilliams/MMM-Kanji-Random.git.
A new folder called MMM-Kanji-Random will be created. In that folder, run 'npm install' to ensure that dependent packages are available..
Activate the module by adding it to the config.js file as shown below.
modules: [
{
module: 'MMM-Kanji-Random',
position: 'middle-center',
config: {
level: "N4",
minsBeforeChange: 180, // let's leave it up for a few hours
}
},The following properties can be configured:
| Option | Values | Description |
|---|---|---|
| level | N1-N5 | Sets the difficulty/commonality of the vocabulary. N5 is the simplest. N1 is more advanced. Only words of the given rating will be shown. Defaults to N5. |
| minsBeforeChange | 60 | How many minutes before the Kanji is changed. The default is 60 (i.e. hourly). |
| maxDefinitions | 4 | Maximum number of dictionary definitions (senses) to display. |
| dictTimeout | 8000 | Milliseconds to wait for the jisho.org dictionary lookup before giving up. On the first load the module shows a loading screen until the lookup completes; if it times out or fails, the kanji is shown with a visible "Dictionary lookup timed out" or "Dictionary lookup failed: …" message. |
| animateStrokeOrder | true | Animate the stroke order of each character using HanziWriter with KanjiVG data. Requires an internet connection (scripts/data are loaded from the jsDelivr CDN). Characters without stroke data (e.g. some kana) fall back to plain text. |
| strokeSize | 80 | Size in pixels of each animated character. |
| strokeAnimationSpeed | 1 | Animation speed. 1 is normal; higher is faster. |
| strokeDelay | 400 | Milliseconds to pause between strokes. |
| strokeLoopDelay | 2000 | Milliseconds to pause before the animation loops. |
| strokeColor | "#ffffff" | Colour of the drawn strokes. |
| strokeOutlineColor | "#444444" | Colour of the character outline shown before/under the strokes. |
| strokeUncommonColor | "orange" | Stroke colour used when the kanji is flagged as uncommon by the dictionary. |
The vocabulary dataset comes from the Tanos JLPT website (https://www.tanos.co.uk/jlpt/sharing/), where it is made available under the CC BY license.
