Welcome to the Inaugural WNWL 1! A monthly wrap-up of all the things that have happened this month with The Lingonaut Project!
Two Weeks into the Beta!
It’s been over two weeks since we first submitted Lingonaut to Apple! It did take us a few days to trial and error all the changes Apple required to let us submit Lingonaut to TestFlight but eventually they relented and we soon began to add patrons to our external testing group!
The bug reports started flooding in but so did the bug fixes! And Lingonaut is starting to take its final form. We’re approaching build 10 of the Beta.
You can see the Changelogs below:
Lingonaut Beta 1.0 Build 9 Changelog:
UI Fixes:
- Imagepick question types scale correctly now on smaller screens,
- PickWords wrong answer shows the correct answer now,
- PickWords now fits on screen,
- Background fits properly,
- Background is now tileable,
- PickWords shows character that responds,
- PickWords rectangle fits on screen,
- PickWords prompt fits on one line,
Logic Fixes:
- Every question type now cannot be submitted multiple times in quick succession
Lingonaut BETA 1.0 Build 8 Changelog:
UI Fixes:
- Progress bar not pushed off screen on SpellingPick Question,
- Logic Fixes:
- If a language pack is missing Lingonaut will attempt to redownload it,
- AudioMatch shows full correct rectangle on submission,
- Will no longer crash upon completing a lesson,
- SpellingPick question type now plays sound,
- Animations are now fluid
Lingonaut BETA 1.0 Build 6 Changelog:
Logic Fixes:
- Now an incorrect sound plays when things are incorrect,
- Now Match questions are correctly shuffled instead of side by side,
- Now AudioMatch questions are correctly shuffled side by side,
- Now characters are visible in PickOneAudio question types,
- End session on HeartBrokenView no longer leads to white screen,
- Characters are happy or sad depending on correct answer now for PickOneAudio
Lingonaut BETA 1.0 Build 5 Changelog
UI Changes:
- What do we call you text fits on screen for smaller iPhones,
- Progress bar fits on screen now,
- Added language-name in language subheading to Swedish option on language choice screen,
- Japanese button now no longer takes up two lines,
- How much do you know screen no longer truncates any text,
- Fixed duplicated text on ‘Just a little’ and ‘Nothing at all’ options on how much do you know,
- Fixed truncated text on Did you know? screen,
- Time for lift off text on final set up screen will shrink to accommodate screen size instead of take up multiple lines,
- Public profiles are moved down by 100 pixels so they’re not cut off anymore,
- Made top bar during lessons a bit smaller and better proportioned,
- Added padding for top bar horizontally,
- Imagepick question type now fits on non-plus iPhone models,
Logic Fixes:
- Sign in with Google works now,
- Add friend button is grayed out while app contacts server to add friend so cloning isn’t possible anymore,
- Buttons on Imagepick for audio work now,
- Snail button works now at 0.75x speed,
- Audio now works for PickOneView question type,
- Now a correct sound when things are correct,
Security Fixes:
- Lingonaut now goes through Servernaut like everything else to read user data instead of directly to Firestore
Speaking of the beta..
New Beta Page and Wave 2 Rollout!
We’ve heard your feedback about not wanting to go to the subreddit or Discord to find out what’s going on with the beta and so we’ve created a new page right here on the website for you to get all the most up-to-date information about Lingonaut! It includes three main things:
- An FAQ
- Details about the coming waves
- Changelogs
With this, it should be much easier to know what’s going and where – but don’t forget, updates are always posted first, hour by hour on Discord.
You can visit the beta page here:
As shown in the table, the Mercury Patrons and translatonauts will get access starting the 30th of May (assuming nothing goes wrong), we can’t wait to have more people using Lingonaut!
Milestones on Reddit & Discord!
I am so proud to say we’ve hit almost 15,000 members on Reddit!
And what’s more, almost 13,000 members on Discord!
It is both mind-boggling and humbling to see how many people are so interested in both language-learning and our endeavour to make something that is truly education-first.
I also want to thank our moderators and community helpers for keeping the peace and helping those who need it.
We won’t let you down!
Creatonaut 3 First Impressions
Creatonaut 3 launched simultaneously with Lingonaut and people are really loving it compared to Creatonaut 2! In particular the cross-platform capabilities and user friendliness. Compared to Lingonaut there’s fewer bugs but we’re staying on top of them.
Just as a reminder:
- A revamped from the ground up user interface
- Easy multi-panel menu
- New recording tools for listening exercises
- Dark mode
- Far fewer bugs
- Support for more languages
- A new Automation system (not AI) that helps course creators build out exercises in minutes instead of weeks
We have rebuilt Creatonaut from the ground up as a web app! This is much more similar to the way the incubator worked with the other app and has been something that’s been widely requested.
This means no needing to download, no needing to install, no complicated set-up or dealing with folder management or anything of the sort. It’ll work right out of the box in the browser of your choice! (We recommend a Chromium/Gecko based browser, like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Brave, Edge, Zen, Arc etc) WebKit (e.g. Safari) browsers seem to struggle.
Like previous Creatonaut versions, you don’t have to be a contributor or team member to use Creatonaut – anyone can use it and try making courses or just experiment!
When does it come out and how do you access it?
Creatonaut is out now at creatonaut.lingonaut.app !
Any modern device with a web browser should be able to access the new Creatonaut 3 at its new home.
We will soon begin writing up new and updated wiki entries to help get you started with CN3. You can also take a look at the screenshots of Creatonaut 3 below in case you can’t use it just yet!
We’ve uploaded a video guide as well as have a written tutorial on how to use it, found below:
Our stance on replacing Humans with AI
Some recent news articles have mentioned a similar app allegedly replacing their employees with AI completely with full language courses being made by them, riddled with errors.
The executives of this app also allegedly made comments that schools will only be useful for childcare and that AI will do everything else.
This obviously isn’t our stance and we condemn these comments – sidelining humans in the most human medium fundamentally does not work and the results speak for themselves.
We will continue to have humans do the immensely human-centric work of creating language courses – with heart!
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