While awaiting for mgwt 2.0 to be officially released (should be imminent), the next version of the Japanese dictionary Nihongo is available online for testing at 2.jpn-dict.appspot.com (this version is built on top of the latest snapshot of mgwt).

The application is mainly intended for mobile devices, and it should perform well on the default browser of both iOS and Android platforms.

Furthermore, the recent blog post on IEBlog titled The Mobile Web should just work for everyone suggests that it might even work on Windows Phone 8.1 (or at least fosters the speculation that it may work in a foreseeable future)1. Having said that, so far I have not conducted any tests, for I do not have readily access to any adequate environments.

What about desktop browsers? On Mac machines, either Safari or Chrome work, and on other popular OSs (such as Windows or Linux), Chrome can be used. This new version is no longer compatible with Firefox (and needless to say, still not compatible with IE).

The upgrade from mgwt 1.2 to mgwt 2.0 was fairly straightforward, but still required numerous minor, yet rather tedious, changes. The new way to theme the application is, in my view, much improved. It now relies on the appearance pattern, and consequently offers some level of flexibility (that was somewhat lacking in prior versions).

One major and noticeable benefit brought about is the resolution of the back-button problem that was occurring on iOS devices while in full-screen mode after launching the application via the icon added through using the add to home screen feature of Safari.

  1. We can read, “Based on your feedback, we pursued a web experience for IE users consistent with what is available on iOS and Android devices - even where this meant we would be adding non-standard web platform features. We believe that this is a more pragmatic approach to running today’s less-standardised mobile web.” Although the gist of this message is quite appealing, for it gives hope to people stuck with using IE that they might become able to harness/enjoy the post-PC-era web to a further extent, the tone on which the message is delivered is, at the least, perplexing, to the point of even being somewhat troubling while remaining somehow amusing… Indeed, the IE manufacturer is far from bearing the reputation of having always been so keen on following standards… Besides, this html5test page is not really backing their stance as standard pushy up!