Getting a lot of messages about Perapera for Firefox. The answer is that we are no longer updating it. The last update, we had to hire a freelancer to help fix some issues (no time these days) and barely anyone donated. I’m not sure why people stopped donating lately. I think we got about $40 and spent several hundred. I don’t say that to complain (and we don’t usually keep count anyways), but that’s basically why we are stopping the updates since it’s no longer feasible to continue them. Thank you for your support for all these years. The blog and the Chrome extensions are here to stay but Firefox just got too annoying.
If anyone wants to take it up on themselves to fix the Firefox add-on go ahead. 🙂
https://github.com/peraperakun
Rohan has spent years studying Japanese, Chinese and Korean, and currently lives in Japan. He created the perapera pop-up dictionary plugins to help other learners of Chinese and Japanese.
Thanks a lot for the continuous support over the years! It’s sad to see that you cannot provide a new update, but it makes sense if you don’t yourself use Firefox (you should, though! the new version is much faster ;))
For people like me still using Firefox and in need of a Chinese-English dictionary, you can try the open source extension called “Zhongwen”. It works pretty well and it’s compatible with Firefox 57+!
I think is we, as users, who should be thankful to you for all the years you’ve been helping us with this Firefox extension. Thank you so much.
Thank you for your hard work over the years.
Probably should have donated more…
Just a technical question: is the add-on broken because of all the changes in the add-on languages with the last version of Firefox (57 I think) ?
If this is the case, my understanding is that it will need a complete rewritting… unlikely to happen. But it should continue to work on an older version, right?
Just so you guys know, the new Firefox extensions system is mostly compatible with Chrome extensions, so you should be able to port with little to no changes.
Take a look: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions
It may be no work, or a lot less work than you guys think!
Thanks for your work! This add-on is something i’ve used basically every day for the past five years. There are a lot of add-ons that were broken in the Firefox update, but losing Perapera alone would be enough for me to switch over to Chromium, at least when needing to do things in Chinese.
Have you thought about doing a fundraiser/crowdfunding sort of thing? Even something informal like this other add-on that broke in the new updates:
https://github.com/lazarus-recovery/original_ff/issues/2
In some random support page on Github they were able to collect $520 to pay a freelancer to convert the project over. I’m sure putting something on the main site here and posting it around online (not sure if it could be posted on the plugin page in Firefox). Or even just something informal like on the Github page, sending the money directly to the guy’s PayPal address.
I’m sure i’m not the only one willing to pay to get it up and running on the new Firefox.
I am also willing to pay money for this, I also used it everyday.. please let me know how can we help
Same here, I am also willing to pay for the extension – and I’m sure many others will too. If you decide to reconsider and set up a fundraiser, I’d circulate it through the various China lists I’m on.
It looks like perapera uses nsIObserverService which according to mozilla has no WebExtensions equivalent yet. (Who knows why mozilla felt they had to lock out all the old extensions…) I assume it would be pretty easy to write this from scratch but it would take some time.
perapera should really be rewritten from scratch now, a lot of it is a mess… and I found there’s a Chinese and Japanese plugin for firefox 57, zhongwen chinese popup dictionary and rikaichamp which I think is based off of the rikai that perapera was originally based on so…
I picked this up and am working on it. The data file needs to be restructured, which is now running and will take a few more hours to complete. After that I will submit it, so hopefully it will be done within this week.
“If anyone wants to take it up on themselves to fix the Firefox add-on go ahead. ”
I am working on converting the chrome extension to firefox. I expect it to be done this week.
Cheers
That’s too bad.
It was really useful to me.
I am willing to pay for a new version too. I love Perapera and I have not found anything else that is as good. Is there any chance you will start a kickstarter or something similar where we can donate? How much money do you need approximately?
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/perapera-chinese/
I ported it from the chrome version and it’s works fine. Also added Cantonese support.
Joris, thank you very much for your great work and the time you spent over christmas! Just installed it on FF and it works fine without any problems.
Joris, thank you so much! If you set up some way to get donations, i’d be happy to pass something your way!
You are welcome. There is a donation link here: https://www.paypal.me/JorisKok and if you notice and bugs or want to request some features (added Cantonese recently), you can request it here: https://github.com/JorisKok/chinese-firefox-quantum/issues
Thank you!
Hi, were you able to port the Perapera Japanese plugin as well?
Thanks a lot for the great energy within the project!!
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I am willing to pay for a new version too. Perapera is incredibly useful. If you start a fundraising, please keep us informed.
I was a great Extension to Mozilla Firefox, you should be proud of it.
If some user is still looking for a Perapera replacement give Rikaichamp a goal, this is what I’ve been using recently (thanks to my sensei for the information).
I love Perapera Kun and have donated a few times. I really, really want it back so I’ll donate again if I could. I lost it when I had to reset my computer to factory settings, and now I don’t have it. If you tell users that you need the money or it will disappear, I think you’d get more.
I’m so sad about this! I used it on both Chrome and Firefox, mostly Chrome.