Release Notes

v1.2.0

Highlights

A full visual refresh with four themes, much more accurate grammar detection, smarter furigana, and a richer word card. Plus our new home: bunsense.app.

New

• Four themes — 和紙 · 生成 · 淡墨 · 夜 (dark), each with its own paper-and-ink palette
• Grammar level filter — hide patterns below your JLPT level
• Furigana colour presets + custom colour picker
• Redesigned word card — pitch-accent chart, JLPT level, senses in your language

Improved

• Grammar detection rebuilt: far fewer wrong matches, better coverage
• Furigana reads counters and tricky compounds correctly
• Faster — lighter page load, instant repeat lookups

v1.1.1

Highlights

A dedicated Contact tab and toolbar popup, color-coded grammar highlighting in the page, smarter furigana for tricky readings, and faster grammar analysis — especially for Chinese-locale users.

Contact / Feedback

New

• Contact tab in the sidebar — Dedicated tab (envelope icon in the side rail) with a clean form: pick a topic (Bug / Wrong furigana reading / Feature request / Other), optional reply email, comments. Submit opens your chosen mail service in a new tab with the message prefilled.
• Send via dropdown — Choose Gmail (default), Outlook, Yahoo Mail, your default mail app, or copy to clipboard for any other service.
• Auto-attached context — Page URL, browser, and BunSense version are added to the message so reports are immediately actionable.

Toolbar popup

New

• One-click sidebar visibility toggle — Click the BunSense icon in the Chrome toolbar for a small popup with a "Show sidebar on pages" toggle. Hide the in-page sidebar handle entirely and bring it back any time.
• Quick "Open sidebar on this page" — Jump straight into the sidebar without scrolling for the handle.

Furigana

Improved

• Smarter readings in context — Counter words and other context-sensitive readings now resolve more accurately.

Grammar (sidebar overlay)

New

• Color-coded highlights in the passage — Detected patterns are marked directly in the selected text with a colored underline and a numbered badge that matches the corresponding card in the overlay. The pairing works on color or number, so it stays easy to follow either way.
• Reading-order cards — Cards appear in the order patterns show up in the text.

Removed

• Key Vocabulary section — Removed to keep the overlay focused on what works reliably.

Faster

• Grammar analysis is noticeably quicker, especially for Chinese-locale users; re-running the same selection is essentially instant.

Sidebar UI

• Grammar highlights work on dark pages — Underline + numbered badge stay visible against any background.
• Version footer — A small "BunSense vX.Y.Z" line at the bottom of the Settings panel.

v1.1.0

Highlights

New AI Voice (TTS) feature with multiple providers, redesigned floating bar with tooltip navigation, and improved overlay behavior.

Voice (BETA)

New

• AI Voice — Listen to selected Japanese text read aloud with natural AI voices
• Providers — OpenAI TTS, Google Gemini, and Azure Speech Service
• Default voice — Built-in browser speech synthesis
• Voice settings — Dedicated Voice section in sidebar to choose provider, voice, and model
• Play / Pause / Resume — Full playback control from the floating bar voice panel

Floating Bar

Redesigned

• Tooltip navigation — Hover over icons to see feature labels; clean icon-only look when idle
• Persistent bar — Floating bar stays visible while overlays (Translate, Grammar, Dictionary, Voice) or Settings are open
• Toggle overlays — Click a feature button again to close its overlay (consistent across all features)

Fixes

• No more flash — Fixed the bar briefly flashing when closing overlays or clicking sidebar icons
• Branding icon — Fixed floating bar disappearing after clicking the branding icon
• Password autofill fix — API key inputs no longer trigger browser password manager popups on websites

Overlays & UI

• Voice panel — Inline overlay for switching between Default / AI speech with a close button
• Visual polish — Improved icon sizing, spacing, padding, and overall floating bar balance

v1.0.1

Highlights

Improvements to AI API speed, floating bar behavior, furigana robustness, and overlays.

AI Chat

Performance

• API speed — Faster responses from AI providers with streaming mode

New & Updated

• Models — Updated to newer AI models

Floating Bar & Selection

• Japanese-only activation — Bar shows only on Japanese text/sites; Users can also choose to enable/disable Floating Bar in Settings

Furigana

Fixes

• Furigana showing up twice — Fixed re-applying furigana when it was already applied
• Toggle furigana off — Re-select text that already has furigana and click Furigana again to remove it

New & Updated

• Chunk-by-sentence processing
• Reading corrections

Overlays & UI

• Window cut off — Fixed dictionary and other overlays being cut off at the viewport edge

v1.0.0

Highlights

Initial release of BunSense: a Chrome extension to learn Japanese with translation, furigana, grammar analysis, dictionary lookup, and AI-assisted chat.

Translation

• Translate — Default translation for selected Japanese text (free tier)
• AI Translation — Optional: use OpenAI, DeepSeek, or Claude for translations
• Target languages — English, 简体中文, 繁體中文

Furigana

• In-page annotations — Hiragana readings above kanji
• Customizable color — Set furigana color in Settings
• Furigana size — Adjust reading size above kanji

Grammar & Dictionary

• Grammar analysis — Analyze verb forms, parts of speech, transformations
• JLPT grammar database — Bundled JLPT grammar patterns with meanings
• Key Grammar (AI) — AI extracts key grammar points from the selected sentence
• Dictionary lookup — Display word definitions, readings, JLPT Level and pitch accents

Floating Bar & Sidebar

• Floating bar — Appears on text selection: Translate, Furigana, Dictionary, Grammar, Explore Icon
• Sidebar — Chat, Notebook, Settings with configurable position (left/right) and panel width
• Explore Icon — Opens sidebar with selected text as context for AI chat

AI Chat

• Providers — OpenAI, DeepSeek, Claude
• Contextual prompts — "What does this mean?", "Key grammar", "More casual", "More formal"
• Free chat — Ask anything about Japanese

Notebook

• Save items — Vocabulary, grammar, or sentences from selected text
• Sort options — Recently Added, Reading Order, JLPT Level

Settings & Localization

• Theme color — Accent color for floating bar and overlays
• Furigana color — Color for hiragana readings
• Languages support — English, 简体中文, 繁體中文