LiuChan Chinese Popup Dictionary chrome extension

What is LiuChan Chinese Popup Dictionary?

LiuChan Chinese Popup Dictionary is a productivity chrome extension. it's a free extension and is featured in Productivity, it has 5,000+ active users since released its first version, it earns an average rating of 4.84 from 32 rated user, last update is 860 days ago.

What’s new in version 1.1.6?

                After you install this extension you have to reload the page(s) you want to use it on and enable it by pressing the extension's button first! This is only necessary after installing the first time or if the extension has updated.

LiuChan (liú chàng) is an extension for chrome that allows you to mouse-over Chinese to instantly lookup the dictionary. 流畅 (liú chàng) stands for fluency in a language.

It started out as a port of RikaiChan (and its Rikai derivatives) and has since grown into an extension that holds its own with new features and improved performance.


Current Features:
* Instantaneous translation 
Just hover/mouse over any Chinese characters and words appear just like that!

* Synchronized settings across all your devices
LiuChan will automatically synchronize your settings for you (requires that Chrome sync is enabled)

* Text input support
Like to use a dictionary on text inputs? No worries, LiuChan has got you covered! As long as an input is active we'll disable the highlighting functionality so you don't accidentally lose focus or remove text you didn't mean to delete. What's more, hotkeys are also automatically disabled when you're typing!

* Theme support
Pick from five presets: LiuChan, Pleco, Charcoal, Paper or Sepia

* Theme customization
You can alter the tone colors of any theme, to ensure you don't have to re-associate the colors you're used to! We've made it easy; use the built-in color pickers and see the changes on the fly!

* Fuzzy search
Use chrome's omnibox to search the dictionary using hanzi, pinyin or just plain english! For those times a word is on the tip of your tongue ;)

* Text-To-Speech 
Sometimes you just need to hear it. Have any word spoken out loud in one of the three available dialects: Mandarin, Taiwanese or Cantonese.


Usage:
Mouse Over Dictionary - Simply enable the extension and mouse over Chinese on a page!

Fuzzy search - Type 'lc' in the omnibox followed by whatever term you want to look for (Chinese, pinyin or English), the results will show up as suggestions.

Text-To-Speech - Press T when hovering over a character to hear its pronunciation in the dialect you've chosen


Why is it called LiuChan?

流畅 (liú chàng) stands for fluency in a language. I kept -Chan as an homage to it's origin.

Upcoming Features:
* Wordlists/Anki support
* Cantonese support
* Fuzzy search optimizations (it's not fast or accurate enough at the moment)

Feel free to put in your feature requests in the reviews or on github!


Changelog:
v1.1.4
*Fixed a serious bug affecting only new users of LiuChan, where the popup would not show up unless the user changed at least one option in the options page. Didn't catch this for a long time probably, because I didn't clear my synched settings for a long time! Oops...
*Fixed a bug where if a page unloaded the popup element (usually through some funky dynamic loading) the popup wouldn't get recreated.

v1.1.3
+If you try to enable Liuchan on a tab that does not have the content script running yet, it will give you a helpful reminder that you have to reload the tab first.
*Massively improved performance. Memory usage decreased by 50% and dictionary lookup is ~40 times faster!

v1.1.2
*Fixed z-index issue with notepad and popup overlapping
*Notepad now syncs between tabs and windows
*Minor styling tweaks

v1.1.1
+Notepad functionality! Right-click the Liuchan button to access (can be opened on any webpage)
*Fixed bug where the icon wouldn't show the actual status (red when actually disabled)
*Fixed bug that caused tabs in different windows to not be activated

v1.1.0
+More theme customization! You can now change the background, border, border radius, drop shadow and more. Some other options such as scale on zoom and color customization have been added as well.
*Liuchan has changed massively under the hood. Now using ES6, lots of refactoring. Doesn't mean much for the end-user, but it should mean updating and adding new functionality becoming much easier! A slight performance increase as well.
*Updated CEDICT to newest version (2017-12-06)

v1.0.3
+Theme Customization!
*Input compatibility has been improved; Liuchan no longer takes away focus or highlights text if an input is active.
*Various optimizations. Gotta shave off those CPU cycles
*Content scripts now only hold the options they need, instead of all of them
*The dictionary is rebuilt on the fly when you change pinyin type, meaning you don't have to reenable Liuchan
*Popup Delay has been fixed

v1.0.2
+Added Text-To-Speech for Mandarin, Taiwanese and Cantonese
 Appropriate settings have been added to option page
*Options page save successful message now scrolls with page
*Fixed copy to clipboard function
*Altered options page CSS
*Upgraded key handling code

v1.0.1 
*Fixed a bug where certain characters weren't able to match a definition
*Altered the CSS slightly to improve aesthetics

v1.0 
*Initial Release            

How to install LiuChan Chinese Popup Dictionary?

You could download the latest version crx file or older version files and install it.

Preview of LiuChan Chinese Popup Dictionary

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Reviews of liuchan chinese popup dictionary:

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Teksong Eap June 24th, 2022

Excellent app, very lightweight, customizable and much faster than Zhongzhong or the other ones. An absolute winner.

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Dave Hsu June 24th, 2021

like the option of letting user set custom character and tone colors. perfect!!

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T April 3rd, 2021

Quick and easy install, instantly does what is supposed to do. Very much appreciated!

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