Langpad
At the start of this year of our Lord, 2023, I made an installable web app to store the words and phrases of Vietnamese that I was learning.
That app is Langpad: a personal language-learning glossary editor.
Screenshots
Looking back on projects from previous years and centuries, I realise I should have taken more screenshots! So here we go:
How I use it
You can use Langpad right now as an accompaniment to whatever language-learning resources you like best. I usually write down my vocab in a physical notebook and copy it into Langpad later. Then I can use it as a quick reference or reminder. Flashcard feature one day? Maybe.
You can import + export the whole state of your “glossary book” to JSON. Then using a gist/pastebin (or email!!!!!) you can send it to another device. Wearisome.
After I’d had Langpad on my phone, PC, and an iPad for a little while, I thought “I’d really like these to sync with each other”, and there begins the story of Lingomio
Langpad and Lingomio
As described in the readme:
Langpad is an offline, local-first, static web app, with no login, and no cloud save. Just your glossary.
Lingomio (WIP 🚧) is an online web app, with user login, and cloud save/sync of your library of glossaries (books).
Both apps are installable as mobile icons on your phone/tablet (PWAs).
…and they have different icon colours 🤓
Building Lingomio
I mentioned in September that I was making sg-login as a boilerplate for multi-user apps.
Due to the “curse of the framework”, I got as far as making that and then lost a lot of motivation for integrating the glossary app into it.
I have made a little progress, and I’m working inside the fullstack branch on the GitHub repo if you want to spy. But it doesn’t do the right things yet and I don’t have a live version.
Also, for anyone keeping score, no I didn’t finish a satisfactory version of Tapestory either but those with a keen memory will recall that I explicitly gave myself permission to stop anytime I wanted. I still intend to play some more with that one day. The frontend stuff got a bit hard for me 😅.
In Conclusion
Am I building a cloud language learning hub? You decide! No, that’s not right. I decide. Maybe.
Also, way to go me for turning around the blog decline; this is no longer the worst year ever for this blog. I’m looking at you, 2022!
Feliz Navidad 🐑🌟👼