Hey folks, hope you’ve enjoyed the holidays 
There’s been a few changes, so let’s go through them. Starting with the Dictionary beta!
My Dictionary page
Any dictionary items that you add you can access through this page. It’s like the rest of the item pages, but with a key difference: there’s Duplicate filter which shows dictionary items that have an official HH word equivalent.
HanziHero word link
Beyond the above filter, if you navigate to a Dictionary item’s page, and it has an HH word equivalent, you’ll see a purple tag on the top-right. Clicking on this will bring you to the official word.
Dictionary item unlocking
If a Dictionary item has unknown characters and you want to learn them first, you can edit your Dictionary Item unlocking preferences to achieve this.
By default this is turned off, as otherwise learning the characters first for some dictionary words would serve more as an impediment than anything. Our curriculum is carefully curated to make sure the characters pinyin and meaning match up with the HanziHero words that follows – unfortunately, Dictionary items and the characters within them may have different meanings and pinyin.
You can read more about Dictionary unlocking here.
Dictionary User Pinyin
Because CEDICT may not have entirely accurate pronunciations, we also added an ability to add your own pinyin. You can add your own pinyin either on the Dictionary Item’s page or within the Lessons/Reviews.
You can check out the docs on user pinyin here.
Dashboard housekeeping
You may notice on the dashboard a new [+] button and a truncated list of items you’re working on. Depending on your pace, this part of the dashboard could get clogged quickly – and depending on how many icons there are, could even slow down your tab 
So, we’ve added a total count on the top right while also truncating the items icons. Just click to expand; and if there are more beyond a certain amount we’ll let you know at the bottom.
Custom Study Revamp
Previously the Custom Study widget only allows you to look at the last three days – and there was no way to filter any of it out.
The new custom study comes with the ability to change the time span as well as filter which items you want to learn.
You’ll notice a new calendar icon with a default date range of ~3 days, inclusive.
To adjust the range, click on it and a calendar will pop open:
You can either select a single day by clicking on it twice, or select another range by clicking on two dates within the last month.
Once the second date is chosen, the calendar will close and you’ll see your widget update with the new total count.
One you click on “Review” a dialog will render, allowing you to filter down more by either selecting individually or by item type. You can also adjust the date range further:
Once you’re happy with your selection, just click “Launch” and you’ll enter a Custom Study session with the filters applied
Lesson Ordering
Previously in your lessons all of the word lessons would show first, and then the characters.
We’ve added the Lesson Ordering setting to customize this.
Now you can also have all the characters first, or mix them together. Read the docs to learn more.
CSV Export
If you ever want to do your own data processing of the items you’ve learned thus far, there wasn’t any prior (realistic) way to export your data.
You now can get a CSV file of all of the known items of each type. All you need to do is navigate to the list page of the item, and then append a .csv all lowercase to render the CSV. Simply ctrl+s on the new page to download the file locally.
Performance gains
I’ve been profiling some of our queries and Dashboard to improve the experience on mobile/lower-end devices.
- Removed all code that could block the browser loading the page which, depending on the number of elements, could take up to ~5 seconds
- Reduced the number of idle hover cards to free up memory
- Shaved off at least ~120ms on our main queries due to redundant ordering and poor database optimizations
The remaining bottlenecks I will continue to investigate 
Item Reset
If you found yourself wanting to learn an item from scratch – beyond executing the nuclear option of resetting all of your progress – there was no way to do so, until recently. We’ve added a Reset button on each item page for you to use should the need arise.
It’ll be located at the bottom of the page, under the “Stats” section.
Once you click on it, you’ll just need to work through the confirmation dialog. Keep in mind that this is irreversible and your SRS progress/review data will be cleared out!
That’s it for now. There are a few more things we’re thinking of doing before ending the Dictionary beta. Thanks to those who have been trying it out!
And thanks to those who’ve been reporting other bugs or suggesting new features – HanziHero wouldn’t be what it is today without your feedback
Cheers! 
